Originally Posted by
Tom a Hawk
Look dude, if you want to retire earlier than everybody else you have to do MORE than everybody else. There’s plenty between the 15% 401k, veba, and high income potential to max your savings and peace out at 59 1/2 IF you’re willing to do the work. That includes figuring out stuff like healthcare, paying off your mortgage, kids college, etc.
This isn’t the only mountain you have to climb to retire early. If it were easy, everybody would do it
I have to agree with the others. While you are correct that if you want to retire early, you should save more in preparation, the other side of the argument is that OUR PEERS, specifically MAJOR AIRLINE pilots normally have access to the company's group Healthcare plan at active rates when they retire early. We are an outlier. So, JB pilots have to do a lot more "personal responsibility" CULTure than our DIRECT peers.
Negotiating EVERYTHING at once, from scratch, is a heavy lift, especially when you have a ruthless "caring" employer as we do. So this will probably have to be addressed in the next contract cycle, along with OE pairings and Gate Agent Profit Sharing and Gate Agent Healthcare, and pathetic COLA and the rest.