Educational content written for the country at large skips the part that matters most: the specific pension, benefit, and employer rules you are actually working with. Start with the situation you are in.
All situations
Executives: equity, deferred compensation, and the last five years
Four kinds of pay on four different clocks. The deferred compensation election that cannot be taken back without losing five years, the Rule 10b5-1 cooling-off period that decides which year your shares sell in, the incentive stock option exercise that creates tax with no cash, and the final year when severance, vesting equity and exercises all land at once.
Corporate 401(k) and legacy pensions
Finding a pension from a company that no longer exists, what a freeze actually means, and the lump sum decision.
Company stock and equity compensation
RSUs, stock options, and ESPP shares are taxed under three separate sets of rules, and a position that grew on its own is still a position you are choosing to hold. What concentration actually costs, and the ordinary ways people unwind it.
North Jersey business owners
When the business is the retirement plan: what it is worth to someone who is not you, which plan structures fit, and how exit structure changes what you keep.
Healthcare professionals
Physicians, nurses, and hospital staff at Atlantic Health, Hackensack Meridian, RWJBarnabas, and the other North Jersey hospitals. Your employer decides which rules apply.
North Jersey county employees
Which PERS tier you enrolled under sets your retirement age, your formula, and how many years of salary get averaged. Also, which county titles are in PFRS rather than PERS, and the break in service that quietly resets your tier.
North Jersey teachers and TPAF
Your TPAF tier decides your retirement age and your formula. Coaching stipends, club advising, and summer school pay are generally not pensionable, which costs teachers more than any other single rule.
Picatinny Arsenal and federal service
Three moving parts, not one: the FERS annuity, the Thrift Savings Plan, and Social Security. Your Minimum Retirement Age, the annuity supplement, and why separating at 62 rather than 61 can raise the annuity by 10%.
NJ Transit rail, PATH, and Amtrak
Rail operations, PATH and Amtrak are in Railroad Retirement, not in a New Jersey pension fund and not in Social Security. Thirty years and age 60 with no reduction, the current connection that a part-time job can break, the occupational disability standard that has no Social Security equivalent, and the Tier II that a divorce can divide.
Ask about your own situation.
If your employer or system is on the list above, that page will tell you how the rules work. What it cannot tell you is which of them matter most in your case, or in what order. We can cover it in a short conversation, at no charge and with no obligation.
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Booking is handled through Rosefinch Investment Advisors. North Jersey Retirement is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any government agency, retirement system, plan sponsor, or employer named on this site.