The new retirement

[Florence]

Well, only if you can find work.

And if you are able to continue to work. One does not necessarily remain as hale and hearty as one was at 30 or 40 or 50.

[Wildflower]

And if you are able to continue to work. One does not necessarily remain as hale and hearty as one was at 30 or 40 or 50.

So true.

[catherine]

So true.

I realize that we slow down, but there are certainly a lot of older folks who are able to put in at least a part time job. I look to people like Barbara Walters and the Nearings as role models--polar opposites in many ways, but alike in that they were able to live out their entire lives contributing meaningfully. I know life happens and bodies succumb to entropy.. I get it. But I also believe in the power of the mind and the spirit to help overcome that. I am NOT going to be the person that retires with bags packed for Florida and then goes downhill fast--I've known too many of those people. There is too much to do in this life.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I am NOT going to be the person that retires with bags packed for Florida and then goes downhill fast--I've known too many of those people. There is too much to do in this life.

They mostly decline soon after they retire because they are O.L.D.. If they decline a mere decade after retiring. That's 75, that's already about the average lifespan. If they decline a mere 15-20 years after they retire, that's 80-85, it's already over the average lifespan and it's old (yes people in my family tend to be longlived still). I believe in taking care of one's health and all but that a person may decline in old age shouldn't exactly be news, and work may frankly have taken most of their truly healhty years already. Extremely sad but often very true. Selection bias and all but the set of people who retire early or sometimes just not late are sometimes the wealthier ones of course (not to mention government workers - geez barely working), but also sometimes just the sicker ones, they need out. What I'd prefer not to be: the person who has to work when many of their peers are able to retire. There is too much to do in this life! Of course I also have chronic urges to just throw in the towel now, but not exactly financially set up to retire now or anything. Let me win the lottery and retire before 40, I don't care if I decline quickly afterward, it's a chance I'm willing to take!

[redfox]

My younger husband is a bit weary of hearing me say that he's my retirement plan, but it's turning out to be pretty accurate. He has another 30 years of work capacity in him, barring the unfortunate, and since I have little saved for retirement, we're pretty much learning to live on one income. We've talked about it, and have agreed that since I jumped into helping him raise his kids in my 40's instead of moving my career up a few notches, he is willing to support me if I can ever retire. I will likely have a small inheritance, which will be helpful as it likely will not come till I am in my 70's.

[flowerseverywhere]

it also can be self defeating to say to yourself that you can't retire anyway so why bother. This article also seems to pitch annuities which can have enormous fees.


Going through life believing in yourself and working to make things happen make it far more likely it will.

I remember my family making fun of us when we worked hard to pay off the mortgage and decided we would never incur debt again. We never ate out, went on camping vacations, wore thrifted clothes and drove old cars (now only one) we could afford with cash. Fast forward to today and they are still trying to make ends meet and have enormous debt while we were able to leave the workforce at age 55 without traditional pensions. Had we not been so focused we would be in trouble as towards the end of our worklife DH had severe medical problems and we would have big time been in trouble with no hope of any retirement if we had debt. Today we are not sitting around waiting to die, but living life to the fullest and able to give generously of our time to good causes which has helped DH tremendously to achieve good health.

it takes all kinds to make the world go round, but working towards a goal of financial independence is still a very worthwhile and valuable goal to have.

[Zoebird]

I think that a person has to find a certain measure of balance in their lives in the now, while also preparing for the future.

It's important to live well now. That doesn't mean living fancy or high on hogs or whatever. What it does mean is not "sacrificing" your now for later "when I retire!" sorts of statements.

It's one thing to make arrangements for long term care or potential catastrophic situations. It's another thing to put aside living for an idea of what you may need when you are older. I think that doing that is not only sad, it's foolish -- you cannot predict the future, and you'll be lucky if you can adequately plan for it (imo).

So for me, it is about that balance.

The other thing is knowing when and how to take such risks. We cashed out to come here. The benefits of doing so was that *if we succeed* we have a better chance at wealth than if we stayed where we were.

What it gave us was overall more job satisfaction, a better quality of life, and a real sense that we are -- in fact -- masters of our own destiny rather than having to fight over crumbs that come down from the CEO table on high.

Instead of "this is what your insurance is because we say so" it's now "how do you want to be insured for the best effect for your family and business?"

Instead of "here is what your retirement match is" it's now "how do we want to most effectively utilize this money so that we can have the best tax advantages as well as the best returns long-term?"

Instead of "sorry, no raises this year" or "we're going to have to cut everyone's pay by X percent" or "you only get this much this year" it's "how can we create the revenue that will allow us to achieve X financial goals for ourselves this quarter/year?"

it's a very different position.

In terms of retirement, I don't even think about it. I think in terms of exit strategy: can the business survive and thrive without me?

I strive to set up my business so that should I decide to take a year off to travel the world then the business carries on making income for us and everyone involved. Should I decide that I don't want to work more than 10 hrs a week (teaching and admin), then the business will still thrive and grow and continue to provide income for us and everyone involved.

And, if I want to sell it, then I know the value of that asset (the business) and can sell it for a profit in the end. Or DS can when he inherits it, or what have you.

For me, I love my work. I love teaching classes and running my business. It's *a lot* of fun. Maybe at some point in my future I won't want to work as much -- or as a previous poster mentioned. . . I'll want to work on "my terms" without loosing income.

So, that's the plan. Do I plan on retiring? Not really.

But not because of fear of the economy or because of a need for money or whatever. That may be the case, but I don't think that it will be.

[early morning]

I try not to think too hard about retirement - it's too depressing. DH is on SSI, but of course that will be cut back sharply when he reaches SS retirement age. As with many people, our biggest concern is health care. DH uses a lot of insurance dollars and deductibles go up each year. My employer, which is the county government, has restructured our insurance every couple years for the 15 years I've been there, and every year it gets worse.

(BTW, I'm SO SICK of snarky comments about over-paid lazy government workers [(not to mention government workers - geez barely working)}] - all of us where I am work damned hard at a pretty thankless job - and we are far from overpaid for what we do.)

I love my job, but it's stressful and there is always the possibility of a physical altercation. I'm not as young as I used to be, and getting between two kids who are intent on hitting each other, or having to take a kid who has flipped out to the floor is not as entertaining as it once was. I love my work but it's getting harder every year. I am concerned that I will have to retire without the funds we will need for medical care.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Government workers seem disproporitionately able to retire early, it's a strong trend (no it's not absolute or all or nothing. Nothing is! But a trend). It may be changing, but they seem to have things like pensions, private sector workers lost them a couple decades ago (really I don't even know anyone in the private sector with a pension). Then public sector workers want us to never mention that they might get benefits we don't, and we sometimes humor them (because them losing benefits doesn't mean we will gain any, so why should we care too much if they have them, actually acting on that as politics just doesn't acheive anything good for us, so what's the point), but private sector workers still know that their public sector counterparts may retire someday with pensions and they may work until they die because the 401ks with NO matching just didn't perform well enough ...

[sweetana3]

When I was initially hired for government work in 1972, they could only find military wives who would accept the low salaries given. The benefits made up somewhat for the pay. We had lawyers, CPAs and other well qualified people making huge amounts less than private business jobs they could have taken and did it deliberately. Our joke was we were on one side of the table and the representative across the table was paid 4X more than we were.

In fact, many of our employees took these jobs so they could balance a life with a job and gave up the pay for it. Few people ever said to me "boy, you have a great job and great pay." It was always " oh, you could make so much more in the private arena." Government workers and jobs were not considered great things for decades.

My brother is a certified civil engineer who had his own business. He needed health insurance over 15 years ago and decided to work at the post office simply to get health insurance. He gave up his business and career. People told him he was crazy.

The world has changed. Now those who told us we were crazy are asking "how can we do this?" Not really possible anymore except in limited situations due to dropping budgets and dropping # of employees, increased computerization, etc.

Those also who complain should investigate the pay and working conditions of many government jobs, like correction workers, parole officers, social workers, etc. And be aware that the media has given a lot of time to a few cases that were really at the edge of the U curve. The vast majority of workers earn a lower to middle class lifestyle income.