Adding a Retirement Countdown App

I saw a post by Fritz over at the Retirement Manifesto who recommended getting a retirement countdown timer on my phone as part of the leaving work/retirement checklist.   I decided to try this out, but its something easy to go overboard with!

I’ve added the retirement countdown to the timer, but within the first week of having this app, here are all of the countdown metrics I’ve come up with:

41 Weeks until Retirement Notice

40 Sunday “recap” emails from the boss showing all these different performance metrics for the business unit

46 Weeks until No More Job

40 Weeks of actual work (less the accrued vacation time)

35 or so remaining sales meetings to run (vacation + holidays)

22 Remaining Pay Periods

17 remaining regulatory training courses (these things reset as due twelve months from last completion, so I’m getting a sick sense of enjoyment working ahead)

14 visits to the Barber shop at professional appropriate increments

11 weeks until my next pension vesting

11 Remaining all-day Work Meeting Days

10 or so rounds of washing/ironing shirts for work

8 Remaining Expense Report Filings

10 Board Meetings for Not for Profit Commitment #1

5 Board Meetings for Not for Profit Commitment #2

4 Remaining Quarterly Performance Periods

2 Out of Town Corporate Meetings

2 Rounds of Performance Reviews

1 Brutal Texas Summer

There’s plenty of additional milestones I could add, but I think the above list is a good start.   I thought for a while about the benefit of this final year, since there was good and bad about working for a bit longer.

So what am I most excited about counting down on the list?   The various corporate meetings, followed by those performance countdowns.   I enjoy seeing co-workers I consider friends, but everything else applies to me less and less every month.   This is closely followed by regulatory training, completing expense reports, and working quarter to quarter to make numbers.

What will I miss the most on the list?  The paychecks!   Its been fun calculating the contributions, savings rate, and just how much the company match is worth each month.

What else should I add to the Retirement Countdown?  Is this list too excessive?