The Case against Retirement

[unclemick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MasterBlaster Or to paraphrase E.J.Zelinski... Besides the obvious benefits of income and (possibly more) income security work provides: 1) A sense of purpose 2) Structure in your life 3) A sense of community These are the things that the article was refering to or should have referred to. It's not all about the money.

First it was beat the Ruskies. Then they pumped us full of bull about the new frontier.

But us old time en-ga-neers came to realize the truth:

First engineer to invent a truly reliable workable toilet for space - would go down in history alongside the wonders of the world and among the greatest achievements of man.

They're still waiting.

heh heh heh - BTW Trust me-I'm serious on this one. .

[misanman]

Hmmm, my dad went to the office nearly every day up until he died at 85. My brother is still working at 78. At 63 I enjoy my job and can't quite imagine not doing it.

So maybe there's a genetic component.

I realize, though, that at some point I probably won't have a choice.

[freebird5825]

W*rking til advanced age because you have to, versus enjoying a FIRE lifestyle, is a good thing?
Helloooooooooooo <valley girl voice>

I think I just saw a pig flying overhead. Yes, indeed it was Porky Pig tooling around in his twin seater single prop aeroplane. He saved up all those Loony Toons royalties over the years and retired early

[rescueme]

Well, here's a guy who turned 102 and still is humping it:

Brazil's 102-year-old architect spends 'crap' birthday - Yahoo! News

[Khan]

For every 'happy healthy feisty' 80 year old employee; there is someone in their 50s or 60s with all sorts of hereditary crap. I am of the latter group.

Just glad I could retire at 54.

Oh: there is not not a lot of identity tied up with work with those of us who were just cube rats.

[kumquat]

I believe the FI in "FIRE" is what it's all about. If you like working, by all means continue.

Two anecdotes:
When my dad went to tell his GF that my elder sister had been born, he found him cleaning out his barn. That's right, still an active farmer at 100. Don't know if and when he quit but he made it to 105.
My GM's brother practised law until his upper 90's. I think his reasons were:
1) No other interests. His DW had been dead for 50 years.
2) Family time. He had two GSs as partners.
3) Depression era thinking. You can't have enough when the next crash hits.
He didn't want to retire. He chose to because his secretary did. She had worked for him for 50 years and he didn't want to "break in a new one". He lasted 6 months, then died. I think if he hadn't retired, he'd still be alive, and aged about 130.

YMMV, but it's all about doing what you want to do, not what you have to do.

[traineeinvestor]

Yahoo finance has a post on the same topic: 10-reasons-you-shouldnt-retire: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

Only items #1 (health) and #6 (social life) are of potential concern to me. Given awareness of the issues, I'm hoping that I will have no problems addressing them when the time comes.

4 years, 15 days to go. Sigh......

[Delawaredave5]

While working, I figure there's about 50 "really living hours" in a week (4 hours each worknight, 15 hours each on Sat and Sun).

That's not very many "really living hours" !!!

So I personally don't care how seemingly interesting or satisfying a job may appear - few full time jobs deserve/warrant such dominance of one's precious life if you don't have to work.

Love that quote, "I never heard of anyone on their deathbed saying 'I wish I would have worked more' "

[rescueme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delawaredave5 Love that quote, "I never heard of anyone on their deathbed saying 'I wish I would have worked more' "

Or, one of my favorites...

[ziggy29]

The whole "case against retirement" is based on two things, I think: the availability of jobs for every capable person who needs one and an end to rampant age discrimination.

As long as unemployment is high, someone who is FI and holds on to their job might be keeping another person unemployed who may need the j*b a lot more. And as long as there is age discrimination, it becomes less likely that someone who loses a job above, say, age 50 will find another one even if they'd prefer to keep w*rking.

So as long as these are still in play, the case for retirement remains.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by traineeinvestor Yahoo finance has a post on the same topic: 10-reasons-you-shouldnt-retire: Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance Only items #1 (health) and #6 (social life) are of potential concern to me. Given awareness of the issues, I'm hoping that I will have no problems addressing them when the time comes. 4 years, 15 days to go. Sigh......

LOL that list in the Yahoo article told me more reasons for retiring early than for not retiring early. Specifically,

(1) Health - NOT being around sick coworkers and sick people on the trains has made me less likely to get sick.

(2) Marriage - I am single so that one means nothing to me. In fact, not working enables me to spend more time with my ladyfriend.

(3) Delay taxes - Are you kidding? My tax bill is vastly reduced since I stopped working. No FICA taxes, nearly no income taxes.

(4) High SS checks - Okay, my SS will be lower by not working more years. But, the SS benefit formula repays only 15 cents of the wage dollar in the highest bracket (i.e. bend point). So the benefit reduction will not be a whole lot.

(5) Work adds meaning to your life - I like telling people about my volunteer work and my hobbies more than I liked telling about my work. My (former) work was difficult and time-consuming to explain and usually went over the head of the listener.

(6) Your social life - I just about never attended events with my coworkers. I had one or two friends I would talk to or have lunch with sometimes. But I did not want to do other stuff with them, as I had nothing in common with them. I just wanted to get away from them at the end of the day. Being retired so I have more time to do my volunteer work and hobbies (and time with the ladyfriend) has improved my social life.

(7) Health Insurance - In my last 17 months of working, I reduced my weekly work hours from 20 to 12, making me ineligible for group health. So even if I kept working, I'd have to still pay for my own HI. I protested their policy vehemently, offering to pay 100% of the premiums. No dice. It was a secondary reason I retired.

(8) Society needs your skills - I did that in my last few years of working. In my volunteer work, I am passing on my skills, too. Just different skills.

(9) Job perks - When I switched to 12 hours per week, I lost nearly all of my remaining perks. Only the company stock (ESOP) remained, and it tanked at the end of 2008 and into 2009. So retiring in 2008 before it tanked was a way to preserve my remaining perk (and fund my retirement income).

(10) Haven't saved enough - No problem for me, as I had about $300k of my own plus $300k from the ESOP and another $235k in the 401(k) rolled into an IRA. Take the money and run, shielding it as much as possible from taxes, and retire.

[traineeinvestor]

Here are some comments I put on my blog in response to the Yahoo article:

To put a different perspective on the table, here are some reasons why we should retire:

#1 You can afford it. If you have worked hard for a number of years, enjoy it. You've earned it. Why wait?

#2 You're not getting any younger. Your life span is a finite sum. Each day is a resource you can only spend once. Do you want to spend more of your finite days in the office or on the beach? Let's face it - no one ever died regretting not spending more time in the office

#3 You don't need more. Enough is enough. Seriously - if you need more money, fine keep working. If you have enough stop. If you can never have enough, get some therapy. Get a life

#4 You will get old. Your health will deteriorate. There are some things which most of us can only do while we are young and in good health. The longer you delay retirement the greater the risk that physical or mental deterioration will mean that you will never get around to them

#5 Priorities. People matter. Family. Friends. Others. Very few people can legitimately claim that their job is a priority item. Give priority to the things (people) that matter

#6 Personal interest. Most of have a list of things we want to do. Whether we make up a list and whether we call it a bucket list or not, it's there and maximising the part of your life spent in the cube farm has no place on the list. Why not get on with it?

#7 Physical health. Quitting the rat race means you have more time. Time to spend getting in shape. Go biking. Hiking. Swimming. Get out and smell the daisies before you start pushing them

#8 Stress. Some people thrive on it. Personally, I could survive very well without it. If the office is a stress generator, it's time to move on

#9 Mental health. There's no argument that the office can provide mental stimulation. But there are lots of other places you can find the mental equivalent of daily brain exercises - and get some refreshing variety into the bargain

# 10 Giving back. Call it the quest for meaning if your like. Retiring gives you more time to give something back. It's hard to spend your days volunteering at the SPCA if you're chained to a workstation

Of course, I could say that retiring early is good for the economy - by stepping down you open up a job opportunity for someone else - but I have taken the selfish approach and confined my list to personal reasons.

Any others?

[Katsmeow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delawaredave5 Love that quote, "I never heard of anyone on their deathbed saying 'I wish I would have worked more' "

I once told someone a variation of that quote "I wish I would have spent more time at the office." His response? There are plenty of people who say "I wish I had provided better for my family."

This conversation was over 20 years ago and the person speaking to me is now over 60. He does not plan to retire and loves, really loves, working. Which is something that works well for him.

[unclemick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katsmeow I once told someone a variation of that quote "I wish I would have spent more time at the office." His response? There are plenty of people who say "I wish I had provided better for my family." This conversation was over 20 years ago and the person speaking to me is now over 60. He does not plan to retire and loves, really loves, working. Which is something that works well for him.

Ying and yang - sort of like 'do I pay off the mortgage threads' - a reasonable amount on both sides?

Eh.

heh heh heh - Now that I'm rapping up ER (49-66) doing nothing with style and moving into 'normal retirement' range - do I reframe my Curmudgeon certificate, get a job I er ah 'love', start a business, or Hmmmm - .

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by traineeinvestor Here are some comments I put on my blog in response to the Yahoo article: To put a different perspective on the table, here are some reasons why we should retire:

That was very good traineeinvestor! Much better than the yahoo article IMO.

I can't believe the yahoo article called out not spending more time with your spouse a reason not to retire. Huh? OK - so you and your spouse have different goals, don't like to do the same things, don't like to spend much time together, and don't have anything to talk about other than your separate work lives.

Solution - avoid retirement, keep working so that those issues don't have much impact on your personal time and you can ignore your marital problems. Huh?

IMO all these articles looking like fishing expeditions for why being forced to keep working because you can't afford to retire maybe isn't all that bad.....

It's the last one "Haven't Saved Enough" that is the only one that really counts! The rest are just flimsy excuses.

Audrey

[RAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delawaredave5 While working, I figure there's about 50 "really living hours" in a week (4 hours each worknight, 15 hours each on Sat and Sun). That's not very many "really living hours" !!! So I personally don't care how seemingly interesting or satisfying a job may appear - few full time jobs deserve/warrant such dominance of one's precious life if you don't have to work.

Excellent point, Dave. Although some (not all) aspects of my job are very satisfying (I work for a federal land mgmt. agency), you reach a point eventually where you realize that there is a clear choice to be made between devoting most of your remaining precious years to your job, or using those years for anything and everything else that you may want to do with your life. I would not want to reach the end of my life and look back with regret that I worked so long I was not able to really experience those things.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skyvue I think I may have stumbled on other reason while people continue to work when they don't need to financially while talking to an older peer at lunch yesterday. Bob is a 79 with 58 years in at our company! He is in a managment role of a small group of professionals that has largely been unchanged for the last 25 years. I mentioned this topic and forum and he told me the reason he continued to work was he didn't want to spend all day at home with the DW!

When I was younger I knew a few older skilled manual workers- iron workers, machinists and the like. Many of these guys really liked their craft, and also never got used to being around women much. They all had very complete shops, and often a bunch of guys hanging around the hot stove shooting the bull.

My grandfather saw my grandmother as little as possible, before or after he retired. Yet they were married many, many years.

Ha

[oldtrig]

I would love to retire but I see no way in the near future. The problem is affordable health insurance. I have BC-BS and it is good. I am of age to retire but not quite Medicare age yet. If I retired today I could keep my group insurance for the rest of my life. The problem is it would cost me $1349.00 a month . You people are very lucky if you retire and pay very little for insurance . State and government workers are a few that come to mind that have that option. I have a friend who is retired teacher and he and his wife only pay $130 per month for the same insurance I have now. I think I will probably have to keep working just for that insurance. I also have a great job that I will not go into. I am just lucky I think. I actually enjoy going to work.

[growing_older]

I've often wondered about that ability to continue health coverage after retirement. Makes me wonder if I should be thinking about taking a government job even if only a few months, so I can "retire" from it and qualify to pay the premiums and stay in the health plan.

[BunsGettingFirm]

LOL! I finally actually read the article. It's not as radical as the OP made it out to be. The gist I got is that if you have just enough money to fund a so-so retirement until social security and medicare fully kick in (the author gave an example of a 62 year old with a 500k saved up), it may not hurt to work a part time job that earns 20k a year because at 4%, it essentially equals drawing from another 500k of nest egg. It's really no different than what some members of the board have decided to do in the last couple of years.