After nearly four decades with the same manufacturing company, 58-year-old Dan was called into a meeting with HR and handed a folder. Inside: a $900,000 buyout offer if he agreed to retire by year's end. No layoff, no firing — just a "generous transition package."
Dan's first reaction was disbelief. His salary was $160,000 a year; his 401(k) sits at roughly $1.1 million. Between that, his wife's small teaching pension, and two fully grown kids — one still in grad school — he figured he was on track to retire at 63. But $900,000 changes everything. Or maybe complicates everything.
