I’m not sure really where to begin. I guess thanking you for reading this, and also for hopefully helping would be a good start. So… Thank you!
A brief explanation of how I got into teaching. I had a wonderful childhood. I lived in a small southern town where everybody knew everybody. My father was a Dentist and my mother a homemaker.
As I was graduating high school, my father informed my sisters and me that he was diagnosed with Leukemia. At that time, treatment wasn’t as advanced so he was given a prognosis of 6 months and admitted to the hospital to begin treatment. At the same time, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy. My father died after 10 months in ICU. It was horrible. My mother died 6 years later in my arms. She was never cancer free after the surgery and fought it for 6 years. Incredible woman.
This is where I got the inspiration to become a teacher. My father longed to leave practicing dentistry and teach at the local dental school of a major university. And…he did for short time before his death at the age of 49. I think they were probably the best 2 years of his career.
With this being said, I decided to follow in my father’s dreams and go into the teaching profession. I graduated college with a degree in psychology and began working/living in a group home for children with severe and profound autism. It was incredible. I worked here for 5 years and left shortly after the death of my mother.
I returned to college and finished a degree in Special Education with emphasis on emotional handicapped education. I moved to Florida and began teaching a self contained special education class. I have been doing some form of special education in the same school system for 30 years.
Now my dilemma, In my wildest dreams I never thought I would live till retirement. When I was hired, I was given a choice. Choose the FRS pension plan or the investment program. The main difference was, if I should die, my heirs would get $0 from the FRS pension program and the investment plan would pay them the accumulate amount in the account.
Well…I didn’t want my heirs to be burdened, so I chose the investment program with one time/chance to change your selection in your career. I lived! So I wanted to execute my one time selection to change back to the FRS pension plan because it will ultimately payout more. When I decide to change, I am told that they would “rollover” my investment fund proceeds and that I would still owe them $135,000 to make the selection. This was never told to anyone that your investment program, can only use their selected funds, returns would be compared to the FRS pension program returns. And…. even if I invested in the same funds and proportions, I could never get the same return because people die in the FRS pension plan and their funds are put in the pool.
I have the $35000, but I need the other $100,000 so I hopefully won’t be eating cat food and spending my “Golden Years” as a shut-in.