Pension Lump Sum?

Depends on whether it's a defined contribution or defined benefit plan. If it's the latter, I might personally consider staying vested.

That said, private pensions are pretty much doomed to fail. If you have to wait until you're 55 to collect you may never see that money again.

Find out what Union you were in and request the pension funding statments that they give out. You honestly should have continued to get these unless you never notified them of a change of address.

It seems such a low amount, I'd be curious what the payout offer is. I'd probably just take the payout and roll it into my IRA. Like Gadrel I'm leery of private pensions - I've known a few retirees who've lost damn near all their pensions due to the companies going under and the execs cleaning out the accounts beforehand. (that pensions aren't pay-as-you-go into 3rd party untouchable accounts, is a fucking crime)

Send this thread to the Shaw's (see what I did there?)

NoodleAnus_sl said:

Heh, this is actually what I'm most concerned about. The company has been doing very poorly in the last 10 years after being one of the top grocery chains for awhile up here. I'm more worried that they'll close up shop and I'll lose it all. At such a low amount I'm thinking I might want to take it out for security.

Click to expand...

My Grandfather worked for Bethlehem Steel for 30 years. He passed. They offered my Grandmother a low amount, she took it, and they went bankrupt not much later. I worked for a Big Three Automaker, and they offered a buyout to everyone in the company. It was one year's pay with full benefits. I told my wife that we better take the money while the company was still solvent. I don't think they lasted a year before they went bankrupt. I am schooled in Finance, I understood that once a company's bonds are downgraded to junk status, bankruptcy is almost assured.

Sometimes, you have to get some money, rather than no money.

Lyrical_sl said:

I am schooled in Finance, I understood that once a company's bonds are downgraded to junk status, bankruptcy is almost assured.

Click to expand...

Wait, what? Aren't most corporate bonds "junk" by definition, which is a rating of BB or less? Just look at this ETF's holdings:JNK - SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF | State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)

Sprint, Chrysler, Clear Channel, Dish, T-Mobile and numerous other well known, large corporations are almost assured to go bankrupt in the near future? Is that what you're saying?

Lyrical_sl said:

My Grandfather worked for Bethlehem Steel for 30 years. He passed. They offered my Grandmother a low amount, she took it, and they went bankrupt not much later. I worked for a Big Three Automaker, and they offered a buyout to everyone in the company. It was one year's pay with full benefits. I told my wife that we better take the money while the company was still solvent. I don't think they lasted a year before they went bankrupt. I am schooled in Finance, I understood that once a company's bonds are downgraded to junk status, bankruptcy is almost assured.

Sometimes, you have to get some money, rather than no money.

Click to expand...

This was my first thought reading the first post. More than likely, if you've got to wait another 20-30+ years to draw the pension, the company will be gone and you'll get nothing.

Eomer_sl said:

Wait, what? Aren't most corporate bonds "junk" by definition, which is a rating of BB or less? Just look at this ETF's holdings:JNK - SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF | State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)

Sprint, Chrysler, Clear Channel, Dish, T-Mobile and numerous other well known, large corporations are almost assured to go bankrupt in the near future? Is that what you're saying?

Click to expand...

The stat used to be something like 90% bankruptcy rate at BBB.

Noodleface_sl said:

Got the amount finally.. it's laughable at best. The only reason I'm considering it is because in the long-run, $250/mo is small and I fear the company may not survive a couple more years. I could be completely wrong, so it's a gamble.

Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, care to share which grocery it is? I've not heard of any that have ANY CHANCE of going under for the one's I'm familiar with - and I can't imagine Mom and Pops are doing pensions. Safeway was doing the worst of any I've heard of and they're still far from being close to shutting down.

(And of course realize that generally groceries don't just go out of business when it occurs [as a company, not talking individual locations], they tend to get acquired by another grocery or holding group which will then handle the pension either with another, hopefully better payout or by continuing the existing offer - sometimes depending on the union, it's not unheard of to see a raise for existing pensions on transition [although I'd wager less often these days than when I'd heard of the occurrence, I've only got second hand familiarity with unions though, my company stayed non-union unlike most groceries])

Apparently Albertsons is about to own Safeway according to Wiki (news to me though - not been paying attention to such since planning on the move) deal is already through but goes active end of the year.

And nope, not familiar with Shaw's specifically - am familiar with Albertsons from some of their holdings though, with the holding situation they'd have to rectify oension things before declaring the brand defunct from my understanding though. No raiding the coffer type situation can exist there to my understanding from the HR perspective because you've got multiple tiers that would be responsible for it.

However, as you said it's a minor amount that you'd be losing - but I don't think the risk of losing it would be too high of it disappearing. (And remember, if you're planning on Social Security being a substantial part of your retirement plans - SS will probably range from $850-$2500/mo when you retire [with the top threshold being around $110k a year in working years IIRC] so it could be a 10-30% increase in income if your retirement planning hinges on SS) [Not that I would suggest it to be, but some people do...]

I'd take the pension buy out, probably make more over the long run investing it yourself