Retirement

alfadriver said:

Ovid_and_Flem said:

There seems to be a common Thread running here that many people want to retire in their fifties or earlier. Really?

While we look at statistics and they suggest life expectancy may be into your early 70s, you are likely to live longer if you make it to your 50s. Based on his birth year my father's life expectancy statistically was something like age 62. But he died at age 84. The statistics are skewed because they include infant mortality as a factor for determining a population's life expectancy.

In my father's case he retired from the military at age 38 with 23 years service. Not a typo. Do the math. Lied about his age and went into the military at age 15. Was wounded in both Korea and Vietnam but survived that mess. After the military he continued to work in the private sector until about age 53 at which time he retired again and began raising cattle in a semi retired but very active state. He was still active on the farm until 3 months before his death.

But I digress. Perhaps we are looking at retirement in the wrong way. Maybe we are really saying we will have a succession of careers throughout our life that shift and change over an extended period dependent  on what life throws us . I know that has happened to me albeit voluntarily at times and involuntarily at others. After graduating college I was in the bar business. Then went to work for the federal government for a while. Then did Law School and went into private practice. And now I'm a stroke addled barrister looking for my next chapter.

I cannot fathom retiring completely at any age.

I'm confused why you think retiring early is a bad thing.  

I've seen too many people die while working or withing a year of retiring that I want to make sure that I can enjoy parts of my life, and my time is not dominated by the work I have done.

And there is a secondary benefit, too- once I retire, it opens up a position for someone younger to take a good career job that allows them to save really well for retirement, or kids, or whatever they want to do.  Basically, it's good for the economy to not hoard way more money than I need and let others have a good job.

Unless you think people are just going to sit around, watching TV and the internet all day long.  Most people put something off, or a lot of things off, that they want to do so that they can have a good career.  Which is what we will be doing.

That was the whole reason and justification for social security.  Opening up jobs to be done by younger people in more efficient ways.  

However those who oppose social security continuously undermined it and now Social security is merely a supplement  to retirement not a way to survive.  

Big business continues to shed retirement obligations through bankruptcies leaving the workers who helped create the profits that made the business to survive by hanging onto their jobs.  ( or any job ) 

Clearly the rules and laws need to be updated to reflect the new reality.  If that means a business is forced to keep reserves untouched and because of it profit is reduced well that’s just market forces at work. 

FFS, someone in this thread needs a timeout. It's cocking up what's otherwise a good thread. 

What did you expect?

z31maniac said:

FFS, someone in this thread needs a timeout. It's cocking up what's otherwise a good thread. 

Everybody, please take note I am not cocking this up.  

STM317 said:

frenchyd said:

Sounds like you understand that much as we’d like to think we are in control of our lives.  Events determine much more than our best efforts.  

That's a victim's mindset. I strongly disagree that events determine more than our personal efforts.

And much of the time you're probably wrong.

People are not well equipped to understand randomness and chance. When things occur we will look back in hindsight, try to find a pattern or connection and concoct some sort of story that satisfies our need to understand what happened and why. And if it was really that easy we should have been able to predict it beforehand, but even people that are paid and well paid to make predictions and projections about the future are usually wrong. We are at the mercy of random occurrences throughout our lives, but it's still prudent to have a plan. A plan of some sort, even though we should know that it's not likely to work out as planned is still better than having none. As Pasteur said, chance favours the prepared.

A very interesting and easy read on the subject is    THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Also interesting but a little more involved and difficult  The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I agree with STM317 on this one.  Just look at RevRico's post a few pages back:

RevRico said:

I had a fantastic high paying job in California and had to give it up and move back to E36 M3hole Pennsylvania when I found out a child was coming, and I foolishly believed my grandfather the last 5 years of his and my dad's life where he blatantly lied to our faces about me being taken care of for wasting my entire childhood in and out of hospitals wondering if my dad was even going to wake up in the morning just for that miserable old vajajay to leave my entire inheritance to my useless, worthless, never known a day of hard work or personal suffering in their entire lives uncle and his family, who have since pretended neither I nor my father ever existed. Seriously, it's been 3 years. Not a single phone call, Christmas card, or text, even when they're in town to visit my grandfather's girlfriend. I had to go to the courthouse and dig through the estate tax returns to find out why I never got anything, they didn't even have the balls to tell me to my face. Well, there was one phone call, when I asked uncle scumberkeley how old he was the first time he went to a dialysis clinic and he hung up on me. I was 13, for the record.

Right now, I'm barely breaking even at the end of the month, and prospects for the future look grim at best, because as the child ages it gets considerably more expensive. I'm just glad I don't have health insurance because between the monthly extortion rates and impossible deductions, they could take the house when the inevitable health problems kick in and then I'd be really berkeleyed. 

I'll have no problem selling my business without grooming my replacement.  I have every expectation that it'll sell without issue.  Maybe for not as much as I'd like, but my practice will definitely sell. 

Yes, my building will be worth more money than the practice, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles.  That's why I bought a building!

frenchyd said:

Wally said:

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

It depends on how much you like what you do. I have a job that has a never ending supply of stress and a long commute that pays just well enough and has good enough health insurance that my wife should be taken care of as her health deteriorates and she has to stop working. The one perk right now is that I should be able to retire at 55 and if I’m still above ground I can do the things I’ve been putting off since I was 14 like travel and relax.  I will probably still have to do some kind of work but it can be something I enjoy without the commute and 50+ hour week I have now.  I doubt I’ll ever retire completely, only two men in my family did and they both died within two years after extremely painful fights with cancer. The rest have kept working until nice, quick heart attacks took them.  My father came close to retiring at 65 but then my sister, her husband and two kids moved back but his company had a spot he could pick driving a minivan instead of a bus so he’s not working nearly as hard.

Health issues too often take people right about retirement time. It took my late wife  and my father and several friends. 

When I go to reunions the list of people no longer with us is getting longer than  those left. So mortality is eliminating my generation.  Soon we will no longer be in charge but passed by, retired.  Obsolete. 

It’s the nature of life itself. While I talk about wanting to approach the grave full out sliding sideways barely in control  the actual reality may be different.  I hope not.  But who knows? 

It's weird how two people can look at something and see it completely.  You see your friends passing after retirement and think that not having a purpose is what killed them. I see the same thing and think it's such a wasted opportunity to work your whole life and wither away. Better to get your financials in check and enjoy life while your bones still allow you too.

Duke said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

What works in a country the size and population of an average US state (or smaller), with a long history of relatively homogenous ethnic composition, isn't necessarily going to work in America.

And that's about all I'm going to say on that subject.

Canada is in the top 10 very close in rating to the top few.

Suprf1y said:

STM317 said:

frenchyd said:

Sounds like you understand that much as we’d like to think we are in control of our lives.  Events determine much more than our best efforts.  

That's a victim's mindset. I strongly disagree that events determine more than our personal efforts.

And in much of the time you're probably wrong.

People are not well equipped to understand randomness and chance. When things occur we will look back in hindsight, try to find a pattern or connection and concoct some sort of story that satisfies our need to understand what happened and why. And if it was really that easy we should have been able to predict it beforehand, but even people that are paid and well paid to make predictions and projections about the future are usually wrong. We are at the mercy of random occurrences throughout our lives, but it's still prudent to have a plan. A plan of some sort, even though we should know that it's not likely to work out as planned is still better than having none. As Pasteur said, chance favours the prepared.

A very interesting and easy read on the subject is    THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Also interesting but a little more involved and difficult  The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I think the problem is, most people don't have plans. They put one foot in front of the other and hope it works out. Randomness strikes everyone, yes, but those with a plan and with a cushion (financial or otherwise!) are better able to deal with that randomness. Take two people, one with zero liquid assets and debt up to his eyeballs, the other with zero debt and substantial liquid assets, and see how they can deal with a medical emergency. Say they both get cancer. Which one is going to be able to weather that randomness better? Obviously the person that has that cushion. Thus, we have established that our efforts can mitigate the effects of events - which means we can prepare for randomness - which means we should.

Financial planning is not the only planning we should do, of course. That's just an example I'm giving. It is a very important one since so much of our society and daily life operates on the movement of money.

In reply to Enyar :

If people think their purpose is to serve others (for their financial and power gain), I'm fine with that.  I'd be stunned if that kind of lack of purpose is what is killing people.

I'm not.  I'd rather not have this part define who I am. 

In addition to the people I've seen who died while working or within a year of retiring, I've also seen and heard of people who's lives got considerably better in retirement, major health improvements, and major increases in happiness and marriage satisfaction.  

In reply to dculberson :

Like I said, chance favours the prepared, though it should be considered, we're not only talking about negative occurrences. While I've been very successful, and I'd like to take credit for all of it, I acknowledge that I was merely a lucky bystander through much of it, in the right place at the right time - though in some cases I like to think I was prepared to take advantage.

I'm just starting an education on the "rule of 55" as applied to my company's 401(k) program.

Current plan is/was to stick around until age 60, because that will arbitrarily line up well with 20 years with the company, and being over 59 1/2 to have penalty free access to retirement savings.  That's May of 2024.

While there's more to learn about consequences, apparently this "rule of 55" thing would let me get penalty free access to my retirement savings from my current company as soon as Jan 1, 2019.  Obviously, won't be as much money as working for another 5 1/2 years, but it's probably workable.  

If it is, being in a position where I've only got about 6 months to go before I can just say berkeley it to any increasing chickenE36 M3 factor at work has a certain attraction to it.

In reply to Suprf1y :

I didn't mean to suggest that we control every aspect of our lives. But, as dculberson suggests we all have the power to plan. As they say, "Failing to plan is planning to fail."

If you adopt the outlook that much of our lives are dictated by chance, then it's very easy to avoid taking any responsibility for our situations, or see ourselves as victims of  chance. If you see yourself as a victim of the universe, then you begin to see yourself as a victim throughout your life. You feel hopeless. You feel trapped. There are multiple examples in this thread of it.

Karacticus wrote:

"rule of 55"

Well, I just learned something new!  I was previously unaware of this 401K provision.  I now declare this thread a success! 

WilD said:

Karacticus wrote:

"rule of 55"

Well, I just learned something new!  I was previously unaware of this 401K provision.  I now declare this thread a success! 

Just keep in mind that rule of 55 only applies 2 your 401k of employer you left. Does not apply to any IRA or other retirement account.

You don't need to wait for the rule of 55. You can do Roth conversions where you take money from your 401k or traditional Ira and roll it to a Roth IRA. After 5 years, any contribution to a Roth can be withdrawn without tax or penalty. You'll pay income tax when you do the conversion, but I'm pretty sure you'd pay it with the rule of 55 too. If you start a Roth conversion process early enough, you can start pulling money well before 55.

Here's a pretty comprehensive discussion about the process.

dculberson said:

Suprf1y said:

STM317 said:

frenchyd said:

Sounds like you understand that much as we’d like to think we are in control of our lives.  Events determine much more than our best efforts.  

That's a victim's mindset. I strongly disagree that events determine more than our personal efforts.

And in much of the time you're probably wrong.

People are not well equipped to understand randomness and chance. When things occur we will look back in hindsight, try to find a pattern or connection and concoct some sort of story that satisfies our need to understand what happened and why. And if it was really that easy we should have been able to predict it beforehand, but even people that are paid and well paid to make predictions and projections about the future are usually wrong. We are at the mercy of random occurrences throughout our lives, but it's still prudent to have a plan. A plan of some sort, even though we should know that it's not likely to work out as planned is still better than having none. As Pasteur said, chance favours the prepared.

A very interesting and easy read on the subject is    THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Also interesting but a little more involved and difficult  The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I think the problem is, most people don't have plans. They put one foot in front of the other and hope it works out. Randomness strikes everyone, yes, but those with a plan and with a cushion (financial or otherwise!) are better able to deal with that randomness. Take two people, one with zero liquid assets and debt up to his eyeballs, the other with zero debt and substantial liquid assets, and see how they can deal with a medical emergency. Say they both get cancer. Which one is going to be able to weather that randomness better? Obviously the person that has that cushion. Thus, we have established that our efforts can mitigate the effects of events - which means we can prepare for randomness - which means we should.

Financial planning is not the only planning we should do, of course. That's just an example I'm giving. It is a very important one since so much of our society and daily life operates on the movement of money.

I don't want to sound like frenchy, but I can say I WAS prepared. 

Getting divorced, losing the house, and being laid off twice all in about 8 months does a lot of killing that preparedness. So I got through it all just fine, but I don't have the savings or 401k that I used to. 

And now I'm trying to get back to being prepared, so I have to hope something like that doesn't happen again in the next 3-5 years so I can get prepared again.

In reply to z31maniac :

FWIW, many people end up homeless after those kinds of quick turns in life.  You didn't.  Which does say that your plan was very sound.  

I'm sure if some really bad things happened that drained my savings, I would be forced to keep working, for find a second career.  On the other hand, if it works out, I wont.  

Being prepared means you can get through really bad patches pretty well, if they happen.

And it's funny to know that my side gig when I retire can be started via contacts on this board. 

Enyar said:

frenchyd said:

Wally said:

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

It depends on how much you like what you do. I have a job that has a never ending supply of stress and a long commute that pays just well enough and has good enough health insurance that my wife should be taken care of as her health deteriorates and she has to stop working. The one perk right now is that I should be able to retire at 55 and if I’m still above ground I can do the things I’ve been putting off since I was 14 like travel and relax.  I will probably still have to do some kind of work but it can be something I enjoy without the commute and 50+ hour week I have now.  I doubt I’ll ever retire completely, only two men in my family did and they both died within two years after extremely painful fights with cancer. The rest have kept working until nice, quick heart attacks took them.  My father came close to retiring at 65 but then my sister, her husband and two kids moved back but his company had a spot he could pick driving a minivan instead of a bus so he’s not working nearly as hard.

Health issues too often take people right about retirement time. It took my late wife  and my father and several friends. 

When I go to reunions the list of people no longer with us is getting longer than  those left. So mortality is eliminating my generation.  Soon we will no longer be in charge but passed by, retired.  Obsolete. 

It’s the nature of life itself. While I talk about wanting to approach the grave full out sliding sideways barely in control  the actual reality may be different.  I hope not.  But who knows? 

 

It's weird how two people can look at something and see it completely.  You see your friends passing after retirement and think that not having a purpose is what killed them. I see the same thing and think it's such a wasted opportunity to work your whole life and wither away. Better to get your financials in check and enjoy life while your bones still allow you too.

I see work as something to celebrate not something to get over as quickly as possible.  My view is shared with the Amish and many if not most farmers among others.  

There is a real pleasure in going to bed tired from a hard days work and pleased with the things you did. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Nothing against the Amish and how they chose to live, but using their lifestyle as a point of reference on a forum devoted to automotive hobbies isn't exactly relevant. 

z31maniac said:

dculberson said:

Suprf1y said:

STM317 said:

frenchyd said:

Sounds like you understand that much as we’d like to think we are in control of our lives.  Events determine much more than our best efforts.  

That's a victim's mindset. I strongly disagree that events determine more than our personal efforts.

And in much of the time you're probably wrong.

People are not well equipped to understand randomness and chance. When things occur we will look back in hindsight, try to find a pattern or connection and concoct some sort of story that satisfies our need to understand what happened and why. And if it was really that easy we should have been able to predict it beforehand, but even people that are paid and well paid to make predictions and projections about the future are usually wrong. We are at the mercy of random occurrences throughout our lives, but it's still prudent to have a plan. A plan of some sort, even though we should know that it's not likely to work out as planned is still better than having none. As Pasteur said, chance favours the prepared.

A very interesting and easy read on the subject is    THE DRUNKARD’S WALK: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Also interesting but a little more involved and difficult  The Black Swan. The Impact of the Highly Improbable

I think the problem is, most people don't have plans. They put one foot in front of the other and hope it works out. Randomness strikes everyone, yes, but those with a plan and with a cushion (financial or otherwise!) are better able to deal with that randomness. Take two people, one with zero liquid assets and debt up to his eyeballs, the other with zero debt and substantial liquid assets, and see how they can deal with a medical emergency. Say they both get cancer. Which one is going to be able to weather that randomness better? Obviously the person that has that cushion. Thus, we have established that our efforts can mitigate the effects of events - which means we can prepare for randomness - which means we should.

Financial planning is not the only planning we should do, of course. That's just an example I'm giving. It is a very important one since so much of our society and daily life operates on the movement of money.

I don't want to sound like frenchy, but I can say I WAS prepared. 

Getting divorced, losing the house, and being laid off twice all in about 8 months does a lot of killing that preparedness. So I got through it all just fine, but I don't have the savings or 401k that I used to. 

And now I'm trying to get back to being prepared, so I have to hope something like that doesn't happen again in the next 3-5 years so I can get prepared again.

Can you really say you were prepared? Looking back is there nothing you would have changed if you knew what was coming?  

I saved too, all my life I was fiscally prudent.  In the end I was able to hold onto the things I had control of. My wife’s cancer was beyond my control and I lost her.  My children benefited from my fiscal prudence. My Grandchildren are healthy and growing. I retained what was most important to me even though it came very close.  

I survived the events.  Events beyond my control. 

I'd say fairly prepared. I could have ended up bankrupt and living on my mother's couch. 

Just so happens it drained my liquidity and lost some of the 401k and house. 

Can I make a suggestion? You don't need to post the same story multiple times in every thread on this forum.

frenchyd said:

 

I see work as something to celebrate not something to get over as quickly as possible.  My view is shared with the Amish and many if not most farmers among others.  

There is a real pleasure in going to bed tired from a hard days work and pleased with the things you did. 

Cool. You can celebrate balancing the books and dealing with nimrods all day. I'll celebrate sitting on a boat drinking a cold Kalik and catching fish with my family.

Everyone is different.

In reply to z31maniac :

Haven't you noticed?  Some seem to get it right off while others tend to read it and seem confused? Maybe they put their interpretation on it or miss the point completely?   

Perhaps you are right, I should come up with a variety of stories so it’s not repeated.