“Retired: Goodbye tension! Hello pension!” is a popular saying that has been printed on many gift items, such as T-shirts, hats, buttons and posters. The saying has been printed on T-shirts since at least 1987. “Goodbye tension, hello pension!” has been credited since 1992 to Fay Michaud, a retiring teacher, but it’s unclear that she said this before the T-shirt printing.
 
 
18 September 1987, Lethbridge (Alberta) Herald, pg. 1, col. 1:
Seen and Heard
DR. ROBERT HALL, receiving a T-shirt at his retirement party at the Lethbridge Regional Hospital, which read, “Goodbye Tension, Hello Pension.”
   
11 December 1991, The Hawk Eye (Burlington, IA). Pg. 2A, col. 3 ad:   
G. E. Whiz 29 Years
It’s Time to Switch Gears
You Reached Your Goal.
GOOD BYE TENSION
HELLO PENSION
 
Google Books
The Last Word:
A Treasury of Women’s Quotes
By Carolyn Warner
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
1992  
Pg. 86:
Goodbye tension, hello pension!
Fay Michaud, retiring teacher 
 
1 May 1995, Daily News of Los Angeles (CA), “Better Late Than Never”:
“This is life!” said Mary DeCarlo, a retired West Hills teacher, who worked out in a T-shirt proclaiming “Goodbye tension, hello pension.”
 
City Pages (Minneapolis & St. Paul, MN)
Rank Discord
The cops are reluctant to talk about it. City officials flatly refuse. Who pushed the “mute” button on the most explosive affirmative-action lawsuit Minneapolis has seen in decades?
By Beth Hawkins
Wednesday, Jan 26 2000
The Show-Up, the newspaper published by the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis (POFM), is a strange little hodgepodge of items. There are the expected notes about awards and retirements (“Hello pension—Goodbye tension!”), updates on contract talks, snapshots of new babies, and sometimes, inexplicably, full-page encyclopedia-style profiles of exotic animals like cheetahs and polar bears.
 
19 December 2004, Washington (DC) Post, “The Real Christmas Baby; It’s not who you think it is” by Laura Boswell, Magazine, pg. W14:
Since she retired, she has had a sign on the kitchen windowsill that reads, “Goodbye tension, hello pension!”
 
Google Books
Inspirational Quotes, Notes, & Anecdotes That Honor Teachers and Teaching
By Robert D. Ramsey
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press
2007
Pg. 89:
Goodbye tension, hello pension! —Fay Michaud, retiring teacher
 
Property Wire
Goodbye tension, hello pension!
Written by Aristo Developers  
Monday, 28 July 2008
Britain has just come in penultimate place in the uSwitch.com European quality of life survey, and every day as one opens a newspaper or switches on the news one is bombarded with negativity about the state of the British economy which is part of the reason behind the Institute for Public Policy Research estimating that by 2050, 3.3 million British retirees will be living abroad.
     
Google Books
Fed Savvy:
Tools and Tips To Maximize Your Federal Benefits
By Carol Schmidlin
Charleston, SC: Advantage Media Group
2012
Pg. 157:
“I’m retired – goodbye tension, hello pension.” – Author Unknown