I read your thread way back.... I guess about a year or so ago and just today decided to come back to this forum to check and see what's going on. Lot's have gone on in the time past. I am glad to hear you got your SSDI. I am at the hearing point on mine, I have a lawyer but not sure he's any good.... he has not called and talked to me once and when I've called the office I never get to talk to him it's always his assistance. she tell me it takes about three months once the appeal has been turned in. It's been over three months...I called the SS office to check and make sure it was at the hearing office and it checked out. The wait is awful. I'm so thankful for this forum it is so helpful, One of the members stated to write everything down how life was before and how life is now and that is something I must do for the impending hearing. There is no medication I can take other then pain medication and my doctor will not proscribe anything for more then a month at a time. I don't agree with the doctor that I was being seen for my back so I did not go back to him. The 4th and 5 th lower lumbar is fused together and I have scoilosis curving of the spine. I've had problems with my back off and on but in my younger years it never was that bad. It wasn't until it seem all of a sudden it hit me, Well I guess not really all of a sudden but the worst part is. I now cannot sit for long drives after an hour of sitting in the car I may or I may not be able to get up out of the car seat and at times when I do get up and put my foot down to get up my back may not be able to support me, I have a pain that will run through me as I put my foot down on the ground. Now that the scoilosis has started giving me problems it is hindering the use of arms and moving my neck, when it acts up I can't turn my head to look around when driving I have to use the mirrors. I've also started having problems with my hands and arms. So off I went to the doctor and after some test found corporal tunnel to be the problem but the nerve is don't damaged to the point of being able to do surgery weather that is good or not I don't know but it has changed my life 100% where I use to be very active do what I wanted when I wanted. It's only been 5 years ago that I was working and come home to clean house, cook dinner, do a load of laundry all in a days time now I'm lucky to get through doing a couple of loads of laundry in a day, I can't lift the clothes basket I have to push it with my foot from the bedroom to the laundry room, if I had to go out and do laundry I guess I'd be in a world of hurt. I clean house one room at a time one day at a time just when ever I'm able to. I started to oil the cabinets down but hands and arms can't take it so I stopped. I have started carrying the cell phone with me outside just in case I fall and can't get up. I can't do the thing's I use to do with the grandkids any longer if it's not something simple then forget it. I can no longer walk around the mall. I haven't gotten to the point of asking for a wheel chair ... not wanting to go there. Although I have told my family that I cannot walk around much. I know long find my bed a comfort anymore, for me it is hard cause of pain or discomfort laying down. At times I give up trying to get comfortable and get back up. It is not visible to ones eye of my problems. Just to look at me you would not know I had anything wrong. Wishing you well with your surgery and happy gardening come spring time.

I agree with the previous posts, and I've found that perlite is less expensive that coir and helps with soil aeration more efficiently. Growing those two from seed is a big step, most people start with established plants. That being said, it's not impossible. I too live in the pacific northwest and I have two purpurea, purple pitcher plant, that do very well here. I have not tried my hand at the cobra lily, but I've heard it can be picky. I was told by a nursery owner that trickling water helps more than standing water and since in the wild they are often found near springs that makes sense. They are both native to N. America, so if you start your seeds now, you might see growth by the spring. They are both slow growers so don't be discouraged. Another good plant to try is nepenthes, or Asian pitcher plant which can be grown as a house plant all year round. There is a website, growcarnivorousplants.com that is located in this region that sells plants, has monthly care guide podcasts and care instructions on all the CPs. The book you got is also a great one. Good luck!

I agree with everyone so far - ramp up your savings, lower your spending, and do extra payments on the mortgage debt. Please don't take money out of your IRA to pay your mortgage off. At your tax rate, that's really robbing Peter to pay Paul. You have a good start on your investment account. Think of it as you've got half and your spouse has half. You mention your pension, what does your spouse have? We don't need to know, you just need to think about this. Half a million $$ on a 4% draw-down - which is generous, most advisors nowadays advise 3% - is $20K per spouse, before taxes. With tax hikes almost certain to come in the future, what are you estimating as your future tax rate? Have you looked into Roth conversions? Instead of throwing all your bonuses and extra funds into the mortgage, you might get a better return by splitting the money and using some of it to pay the taxes on the conversions each year before retirement. Also, your spouse needs to roll over those 401k's into one IRA. Trust me, if anything happens to her, it's a paperwork headache for the survivor to get that done. It takes time and energy, and when somebody's grieving, it's the last thing one wants to do. But it's a necessity if you don't want the IRS to get involved. I'm going to offer some questions for you to think about because you are at the perfect point to start doing serious retirement planning. The reason you need to figure out if your assumptions are correct for future savings and the best return on spending, is that if those assumptions are wrong or plain bad luck intervenes, you still have time to adjust and make corrections. Have you and your wife sat down to talk specifically about what both of you envision retirement to be? What's your 'bucket list'? What's hers? What do you want to do in retirement? How much will it cost to do those things? For example: I retired 2 yrs before DH did. Our expenses did NOT go down and our income stayed static because we were contributing as much as we could to DH's 401k. But when he did retire, our expenses jumped overall. We have retirement health benefits, so there was no extra cost there. But we wanted to travel locally, and even that required several hundred $$ of clothing and travel accessories. We were able to donate an entire carload of work clothes to charity, which was great for deserving poor folks, but no one was going to pay us for them. That first year we spent almost four months out of twelve traveling through Northern CA and the PNW, mostly car trips but a few airline trips, at a cost of almost $25K post-tax. We do what I consider to be mid-level travel: not budget or RV travel, but not luxury high-end places either. If I were in your situation I would find a certified or registered financial advisor to run some numbers. What will happen if one of you dies? What happens if one of you gets disabled and needs care? What happens to the surviving spouse if death or disability happens BEFORE retirement? Are you adequately insured to mitigate the bigger risks in your life (and it takes some analysis to figure out what those risks are, that might prevent you from achieving your goals)? Do you have enough $$ coming in for a sufficient 'cushion', especially if you intend to maintain two houses in retirement? Do you know what medical insurance will cost for a pre-Medicare senior? What if a serious medical condition happens and one spouse becomes uninsurable, or at least rateable? Can the budget afford the insurance and any needed medications or extra co-pays? How do you plan to handle long term care costs for one of you? For both of you? These kinds of questions are just as important, perhaps even more so, than the simple question of "should I pay off my mortgage with IRA money." HTH, and good luck going forward.

I do have advice. Since your condition is on the CAL list, it should be easier for you to get SSD benefits than other people. Let me share with you some of the things which may be a bump in the road. think of your condition as disabling, a disability, and not a retirement. Sure there are tasks of your job that you perhaps can continue to do, such as sitting at a desk and checking the computer or making phone calls, but, I believe, you are unable to do the field work which may entail visiting other places, local travel, lots of walking and making decisions without a medicine clogged mind. The executive decision making and fact gathering, I'm guessing here, are the tasks affected. Sitting for short periods are ok bu not long? Dependent legs a problem? Anxiety about doing the job likely won't enter into the picture bc, as that is, it may be seen as a temporary condition but maybe not. Job anxiety may be seen as a contributing element if you are worried about your job. The fact that you are a long time employee counts.Of course, if you have debilitating anxiety in general, then that's a different thing. Moderate major depression can be disabling. SSA pays for total disability, not partial. Even tho, your first post, says that hr offered you a "very part time" position, perhaps, that may not be seen as a substitute for your challenging job, where you make decisions on facts and gather those facts. Neetsie did I describe the more executive aspects of your job? That matters. think about the tasks that you cannot or have difficulty doing. Mental disability and pain caused disability count but be honest. Think about why you were able to do your job for these many years but cannot now. What and how. What changed? A new boss does not count. A constellation of symptoms counts. The difficulty of clothing can be circumvented and shouldn't count. All that said, being on the cal list counts the most. That's the most persuasive element. does your doctor say you are totally disabled? Might you need to tell him why you cannot do your job, if he doesn't think so? the closer one gets to age 62, the ssa requirements loosen, especially for those in early 60's or late 50's. Since I canno easily talk to you I can only guess about certain things. I am a retired claim analyst/manager, having spent 25 years as a claim professional. The last nine years I was a claim litigation supervisor and paralegal for a multinational corporation working in the legal department. I retired in 94 but most disability issues have not substantively changed. Now there is a cal list but those conditions were previously quickly granted benefits, too. Just not formally listed. Hth