Join Early Retirement Today
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Hard Truth on Retirement Planning
Old 03-03-2015, 06:35 AM   #1
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 428
Hard Truth on Retirement Planning

Baby boomers delaying retirement: It’s a myth, because retirement is inevitable, and bleaker than ever.


The best line, "Working longer is a retirement plan like winning the lottery or dying earlier is a retirement plan. Being able to work longer is not a plan. It’s a hope.”
Tekward is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 03-03-2015, 06:56 AM   #2
Moderator Emeritus
W2R's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 47,474
I liked this one:

"Finding a job past a certain age is harder than reading an AARP magazine story about finding a job past a certain age".

So true! In fact, I think this article makes a lot of sense.
__________________
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. - - H. Melville, 1851.

Happily retired since 2009, at age 61. Best years of my life by far!
W2R is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 07:06 AM   #3
Recycles dryer sheets
Greencheese's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 265
Working until 70 or 100? So many people I know cannot physically or mentally continuing working after 60-62 if the job is stressful or physically demanding.

But thank goodness everyone can agree to tax the wealthy more to increase their own SS payments!
Greencheese is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 07:36 AM   #4
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
donheff's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,318
Sad but accurate.
__________________
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
donheff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 07:59 AM   #5
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
martyp's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Thailand countryside, Sisaket province
Posts: 1,331
I picked up one of these rah rah books which I will not finish. "Unretirement" by Chis Farrell. It seems they are looking at two types of people. Professionals who stay in the workplace and others stuck in mundane low paying jobs like retail. There are plenty of people, not inhibited by health concerns, to provide anecdotes for these books and articles. Of course there are people able and wanting to continue to w*rk. There are probably legions that have to w*rk (and don't want to). There are a significant number of people who don't know what to do with themselves and are/would be miserable in retirement or whatever they do.

We are the lucky ones . . .
__________________
Happy, Wild, and Free
martyp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 08:04 AM   #6
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Sarah in SC's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Charleston, SC
Posts: 13,566
I just read the article as well, and I cannot tell you how many of my friends (mostly in their 40s) just expect to work until they die. And these are folks in occupations like nursing and respiratory therapy, which are tough, physical jobs.
__________________
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching.”
Gerard Arthur Way

Sarah in SC is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 08:05 AM   #7
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Little Trailer Down By The River
Posts: 190
Obviously lots of folks who intend or have to work later in life will not be able to do so for all the reasons stated. But I clearly recall when I was a kid that there were a lot of very old women working retail. I don't mean old to a kid I mean way past 70. And lots of old men were mowing grass, doing odd jobs, working as janitors, etc. I remember my mother saying that most of them were people who never earned much in life so their SS was really small.
__________________
"Here's to them who would read,
Here's to them that would write.
There's none ever feared that the Truth would be heard,
But those whom the Truth would indict."

Robert Burns
poorcarver is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 08:40 AM   #8
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Fair Lawn
Posts: 2,940
The article is clearly wrong..........just ask Suze Orman when she tells people to keep working 'til 70. So many people ignore the forced retirement "problem," where higher-paid/older workers find themselves out of a job for supposed business reasons. Age discrimination is alive and well, and unfortunately difficult to prove (i.e., for purposes of a lawsuit).
Then there are those, as the article mentions, who have to retire, and it's not just those in physical occupations. My close friend is a 63 year old white-collar IT consultant. He's a former marathoner, still cycles and runs shorter distances. But this "easy" white collar job means he is on out-of-town assignment every week, and he carries TWO laptops, has constant pain in one knee and the opposite ankle, plus shoulder problem etc etc. More than once he's told me he's jealous of my retirement, as he thinks he has to work another 5 years AT LEAST.
mystang52 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 08:56 AM   #9
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Big_Hitter's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Les Bois
Posts: 5,761
thanks for the link


they are preaching to the choir:


"Pensions for people employed outside the public sector are vanishing. The defined-contribution plans that have replaced them aren’t cutting it. According to Fidelity Investments, the average 401(k) account belonging to someone at least 55 years old is worth $165,000. (And those people are lucky. They actually have workplace retirement accounts.) The Federal Reserve says the median amount held in all retirement accounts—individual or workplace—where the head of the household is at least 35 but hasn’t yet reached the official retirement age of 65 is $59,000."


__________________
You can't be a retirement plan actuary without a retirement plan, otherwise you lose all credibility...
Big_Hitter is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 08:57 AM   #10
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Chuckanut's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: West of the Mississippi
Posts: 17,173
Age discrimination is the 2000 pound elephant in plans to get people to work longer. I know a number of 50-somethings who have drained their retirement savings because they were laid off and could never find a descent paying job. This was done, while many companies were crying that they needed more foreign workers. Not so good.
__________________
Comparison is the thief of joy

The worst decisions are usually made in times of anger and impatience.
Chuckanut is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 09:32 AM   #11
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 4,629
Excellent article (except for the last two paragraphs).

I'd add that "health" isn't just about bad knees. It just gets harder to get up in the morning and get back into the same old grind. Much of that is mental. The new idea that was an "exciting challenge" when I was 35 becomes "been there, done that, pushing the same rock back up the same hill" when I'm 60.
Independent is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 09:59 AM   #12
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
2B's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Houston
Posts: 4,337
Many of the people pushing "work forever" have ties to the financial services industry. Once someone really retires they start looking at their investments and what they are paying for very little or nothing. It doesn't take long for most retirees to pull their funds from the FA and managing it themselves. There goes the FA's easy money.

I worked with someone who was very well off ( as in over 5 million). He had a stroke at 64. Fortunately, it was minor and he fully recovered. It got him thinking about truly retiring. His FA "ran the numbers" and said he should work at least until he was 70. They could revisit it then. He retired anyway and moved his money to Vanguard.
__________________
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane -- Marcus Aurelius
2B is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 10:24 AM   #13
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
haha's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Hooverville
Posts: 22,983
I graduated from college in 1963. Many of my high school and college classmates are still working mostly at very nice careers. These articles are really just "she loves me, she loves me not". I wouldn't doubt that the same person writes different articles, under different names, taking the opposite side of every issue.


Here's a real haha from the Slate article:


" A poll conducted last year found 79 percent of Americans agreed Social Security benefits should be increased, with the bill paid by the wealthy." That means us, ER denizens, not Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or even Courtney Love.


Ha
__________________
"As a general rule, the more dangerous or inappropriate a conversation, the more interesting it is."-Scott Adams
haha is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 10:39 AM   #14
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 60
Quote:
Originally Posted by haha View Post
I graduated from college in 1963. Many of my high school and college classmates are still working mostly at very nice careers. These articles are really just "she loves me, she loves me not". I wouldn't doubt that the same person writes different articles, under different names, taking the opposite side of every issue.


Ha
This is exactly what I did! I'll retire at 50 with 28 years service.
MatatuPuncher is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 11:08 AM   #15
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 17,205
Quote:
Originally Posted by Independent View Post
Excellent article (except for the last two paragraphs).

I'd add that "health" isn't just about bad knees. It just gets harder to get up in the morning and get back into the same old grind. Much of that is mental. The new idea that was an "exciting challenge" when I was 35 becomes "been there, done that, pushing the same rock back up the same hill" when I'm 60.
I agree with that... another thing that I do not want to deal with is the commute... I have heard from a few headhunters about some jobs in an area of town that would take me 1 1/2 hours to get to and probably a little longer to get home... At this age I am not willing to commute 3 hours a day for a job.... but when I was young I did 2 hours without thinking about it...

I lost my job at mega when they brought in a young person from a consulting company.... she had all these great ideas to change us... all she had were old tired ideas that we had already tried and they failed badly... and it wasn't just me, but the whole group of us 'older' (at the time we were say 40 to 55 YO) employees would say the same thing... she got rid of us all... she got 'moved' a few years later when she failed at her job.... but all the experience was gone and the execs who put her there just kept doing what they do.... blame the workers....
Texas Proud is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 11:22 AM   #16
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
martyp's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Thailand countryside, Sisaket province
Posts: 1,331
As a supervisor I could observe myself and my other older employees and conclude that one of the problems with older employees is they have seen "too much" throughout their careers. They have capped out in their classification level and they are tired of watching younger employees and managers repeat the same mistakes they have seen many times throughout their careers. They can become cynical, unimaginative, and basically have an "attitude problem".

Similar to comments above, I had to let go of an older employee who finally got tired of his 2 hr (each way) commute. He was a classical case of an employee who called in sick on too many Mondays and Fridays. When we confronted him he admitted what his problem was. He was gone from my group in a couple of months.

Older employees have their issues as do younger employees.
__________________
Happy, Wild, and Free
martyp is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 01:27 PM   #17
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Northern IL
Posts: 26,821
Quote:
Originally Posted by martyp View Post
As a supervisor I could observe myself and my other older employees and conclude that one of the problems with older employees is they have seen "too much" throughout their careers. They have capped out in their classification level and they are tired of watching younger employees and managers repeat the same mistakes they have seen many times throughout their careers. They can become cynical, unimaginative, and basically have an "attitude problem". ...
I thought recognizing that someone was about to repeat the same mistake was called 'experience', and should be considered valuable?

I think I tried to be careful not to just blurt out 'we tried that before and it didn't work' as that would just appear negative.

So you say something like 'I've seen that tried before, and there were some problems we should be aware of, so we don't fall into those same traps...'.

-ERD50
ERD50 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 02:18 PM   #18
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
GravitySucks's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Syracuse
Posts: 3,501
Quote:
Originally Posted by martyp View Post
They have capped out in their classification level and they are tired of watching younger employees and managers repeat the same mistakes they have seen many times throughout their careers. They can become cynical, unimaginative, and basically have an "attitude problem".


Older employees have their issues as do younger employees.
I found many of my older coworkers did have attitude problems. Mostly from years of 60 hour weeks leading to that capped out career along with years of benefit cuts and raises that rarely met inflation after the 2000 tech bust.


Sent from my Nexus 7 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app
__________________
“No, not rich. I am a poor man with money, which is not the same thing"
GravitySucks is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 03:23 PM   #19
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Chuckanut's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: West of the Mississippi
Posts: 17,173
I can only speak for myself, but as my financial assets grew my BS bucket shrank.

During those many days when FI was far off, I found ways to finesse or avoid the BS in as gentle a way as possible.

Reality is a strong motivator.
__________________
Comparison is the thief of joy

The worst decisions are usually made in times of anger and impatience.
Chuckanut is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 03-03-2015, 04:09 PM   #20
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
timo2's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Bernalillo, NM
Posts: 2,717
Nice article. Thanks for posting.

Regarding older workers and long commutes, working from home three days a week has done wonders for my attitude. Plus, I still have strong input into the workplace. For the older workers with bad attitudes, my experience is many of them have already been pushed aside, not given meaningful work, etc.
__________________

"We live the lives we lead because of the thoughts we think" ...Michael O’Neill
"We can cannot compel others to do our will" ....Norman Goldman
"There never is shortage of the gullible to accept the illogical"...Anonymous
timo2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Planning vs. over-planning for retirement ER Eddie Life after FIRE 49 11-09-2013 06:04 PM
Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth laurence Other topics 129 05-22-2007 09:15 AM
Would you want to know the truth? Caroline Other topics 16 09-18-2006 06:02 PM
Tell the truth do you gloat ...just a little? Kitty Life after FIRE 25 07-14-2006 01:28 PM
The Truth on Wall-Street? otako Young Dreamers 2 07-13-2004 07:47 PM

» Quick Links

 
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:23 AM.
 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.