Early Retirement Will Bankrupt Your Dreams, Here’s Why

[2HOTinPHX]

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/425080

Wow according to this article you had all better get back to work as of yesterday!

They cover all the fear tactics and end with this one you live longer if you work till 66...However, Bloomberg summarized the correlation between early retirement and early death as “striking” when citing another study.

 

[Lewis Clark]

The article does say near the beginning "... Well, unless you have more than enough money in the bank or multiple income sources, there are a lot of financial risks involved with early retirement...."

I'd suspect most of the retired folks on this board qualify for this exception.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

You know our corporate overlords are getting concerned about the labor shortage when they use words like "bankrupt your dreams" and "medical limbo" instead of just saying you will need retirement health insurance through COBRA or an ACA plan. Even with its flaws, it is so great that the ACA came along and allowed many of us here to retire early and not have to worry about qualifying for health insurance.

 

[srblanco7]

"Early Retirement Will Bankrupt Your Dreams". Early retirement fear porn with the premise being if you have "average" retirement savings, still have debt, don't have a budget/plan, haven't factored in the risk of a market downturn, etc... that retiring early may not be for you. And the icing on the cake is that you may be bored in ER.

Pure silliness.

 

[DrRoy]

"Early Retirement Will Bankrupt Your Dreams". Early retirement fear porn with the premise being if you have "average" retirement savings, still have debt, don't have a budget/plan, haven't factored in the risk of a market downturn, etc... that retiring early may not be for you. And the icing on the cake is that you may be bored in ER.

Pure silliness.

Well, I'm 0 for 5. Guess I'll make it.

 

[Magus]

"Early Retirement Will Bankrupt Your Dreams". Early retirement fear porn with the premise being if you have "average" retirement savings, still have debt, don't have a budget/plan, haven't factored in the risk of a market downturn, etc... that retiring early may not be for you. And the icing on the cake is that you may be bored in ER.

Pure silliness.

Indeed - "be a good worker drone a little longer, citizen! It's good for you!"

 

[marko]

The article does say near the beginning "... Well, unless you have more than enough money in the bank or multiple income sources, there are a lot of financial risks involved with early retirement...."

So: don't quit your job and retire early if you can't afford to? That hadn’t occurred to me. Thanks for the insight!

 

[jim584672]

Work was getting in the way of my naps, so I think I'll keep being retired.

 

[GenXguy]

I thought saving 80X my bare bones would be enough that I could retire in my 50's. Looks like I better keep working into my 60's.

 

[Dtail]

Work was getting in the way of my naps, so I think I'll keep being retired.

Reminds me of the time, I closed my eyes for literally one minute and 2 staff caught me by looking through the little glass into the office.
Took awhile to live that down.

 

[mystang52]

This is just a silly article. It's basically factual.........provided one accepts the initial premise of retiring before one can afford to. Even then, it's superficial and just scare tactics. Nothing truly constructive about the article.

 

[Gumby]

What can I say? I guess I just had a death wish.

 

[JoeWras]

Social Interaction: BZZT! No more! Everyone works from home so you get to interact over your computer. Pure crap and stress. I interact more socially now, even during covid, than I did when I worked from home.

You will die: BZZT! All my early retirement friends are doing fine, 5 to 10 years on. They retired healthy. I'm convinced the bad stats come from people who were FORCED to retired early due to bad health.

 

[Koolau]

I thought saving 80X my bare bones would be enough that I could retire in my 50's. Looks like I better keep working into my 60's.

100X is the new 80X or haven't you heard?

We've heard all this drivel before. YMMV

 

[Magus]

I'm convinced the bad stats come from people who were FORCED to retired early due to bad health.

Yup - I’m sure folks whose entire identity is in their job title/ career might be a small part but l believe it’s largely forced early retirement from health issues

 

[Lewis Clark]

So: don't quit your job and retire early if you can't afford to? That hadn’t occurred to me. Thanks for the insight!

Should be obvious to anyone who can fog a mirror. : )

 

[TheWizard]

A pretty useless article, focusing mostly on average numbers: average SS, average debt by age, etc.
Fortunately, we're all above average here...

 

[OldShooter]

Click bait. And it's working.

 

[brett]

We have double the equity we had when we retired early ten years ago.

That was a surprise. We planned for real investment growth of three percent.
Returns were higher, inflation was lower.

We had zero debt. Owned our home. Our retirement income stream consisted of the traditional three retirement stools-DB pension, investments, social security.

It just dawned on us yesterday that we have never paid credit card interest, never had a consumer loan other than a 0 percent car loan for 24 months, never had a bank loan other than a mortgage for 15 years.

Medical was not an issue for us-we have medical.

 

[Freedom56]

The article quoted is just sour grapes appealing to the 66% that live paycheck to paycheck to justify never retiring until forced to. It makes them feel good to know that they can continue to work and remain financially irresponsible. Every early retirement situation is different. We save more during retirement than the vast majority of people our age that continue to work. Seven years into early retirement we have never withdrawn from our retirement accounts and don't plan to until age 72 or later. Debt? What debt? We own three properties free and clear and never paid a penny of credit card interest. We pay cash for our cars and never buy anything unless we can pay it in full.

 

[Chuckanut]

There is a certain amount of truth to the article, sort of.....

I think we all know people who retired when they could get SS. Whoopi!!! I'm retired living the good life in my golden years. Then, a few years later the little money they have saved runs out and they are stuck with only a small SS check to live on, plus whatever social welfare benefits they can get. Not so good.

 

[brett]

I worked in an industry that was downsizing for 25 plus years and still is.

One thing that surprised me was employees in the mid-late fifties who were completely unprepared financially and emotionally for termination when their positions became redundant.

For some strange reason, in the midst of years of downsizing, they somehow thought they were immune to it or that the company would be 'loyal' to them.

It was as though they were no paying attention to reality. The smart ones read the tea leaves, kept their ears to the ground, and were always networking and on the lookout for new opportunities. They invariable had updated resumes at the ready and some semblance of a go forward plan.

 

[gauss]

You know our corporate overlords are getting concerned about the labor shortage when they use words like "bankrupt your dreams" and "medical limbo" instead of just saying you will need retirement health insurance through COBRA or an ACA plan. Even with its flaws, it is so great that the ACA came along and allowed many of us here to retire early and not have to worry about qualifying for health insurance.

+100

I so agree with this.

In my case, once the results of the 2012 Presidential election were determined and I felt confident that the benefits of the ACA would see the light of day, I was out of there (ie ER'd) and never looked back.

-gauss

 

[novaman]

There is a certain amount of truth to the article, sort of.....

I think we all know people who retired when they could get SS. Whoopi!!! I'm retired living the good life in my golden years. Then, a few years later the little money they have saved runs out and they are stuck with only a small SS check to live on, plus whatever social welfare benefits they can get. Not so good.

There are some folks who do fail to plan, or grossly underestimate the amount of money they really need to live in retirement, but I imagine that those people aren’t hanging out on this forum

 

[ivinsfan]

Retirement had turned into such a catchall phrase.



If you are in your early 60's and quit working due to ill health are you "retired"?


If you are in your early 60's with a tough physical job that you can't do any more are you "retired"


If you are early 60's a have a living parent who needs full time care so you quit your job are you "retired".


The traditional definition of retirement hasn't changed to keep up with our changing world. Anybody mid to late 50's who isn't working is labeled retired which gums up any stats people want to trot out..