Hope for those who likely will have no pension?

Well, GDER, you come across as a very pleasant
fellow indeed This discussion about helping kids
(or vice versa) in business reminds me of a former neighbor. His father ran a garage/gas station for many
years, working long and hard to make it go. One day he told my friend "Just think son, one day this will all
be yours." My friend thought "Not if I can help it."
He became a college professor which he enjoyed very much.
Alas, he dropped dead at 56. That's the sort of thing
that propelled me into ER.

John Galt

Yeah, those pesky customers! What fun it would be to
run your business if you did not have to please them
all the time. Even when you own your own company,
as I did, you can't escape them. I miss some of the people but not the constant pressure to keep them happy.

John Galt

[TheFIREman]

Quote:

I considered businesses with NO customers, but alas they didn't look too promising. *

IIRC, that was all the rage 3 years ago!

[TheFIREman]

Sorry, GDER. IIRC is short for If I Recall Correctly. It was a reference to the business model in vogue during the dot-com boom. No customers never stopped anyone then from setting up and floating a business.

GDER is right about not really seeing the value of
your retirement benefits until after you retire. In my
case I was always focused on other stuff, mostly working (or thinking about it) 24/7. Man, what I
could have accomplished with a little more planning
started a little sooner. I could be the poster boy
for what not to do.

John Galt

Hi everyone.. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to respond and give me advice and hints and tips.. I am going to look at all those links I was sent and do some calculating. ( I love to calculate! (wink)).. and then I will report to the board my thoughts or progress..

To answer some of those questions.. I do work in IT and am looking at a serious risk of being laid off this week.. Also to the person that mentioned finding a career I like and just doing that and the money will follow if I am sensible. That is something I have been seriously thinking of doing. Changing careers is a feasible option.. but would result in a significant short term and maybe long term salary cut (but either way .. I can make it up in real estate). In the end though.. I can either be one of those people who work at some SUPER hi stress job like I have making all sorts of money being laid off every few years (the up and out career track) anxiously waiting for the day I can retire.. or (drum roll, please) I can be one of those people that do something I love and just enjoy life now. We only live once and I try to treasure each moment I have.

So.. still figuring. There is a possibility of mixing the two options above.

I have done some real estate investing in the past and was fairly successful. I plan to go back into that.. just figuring out the right method.

So.. lots of thoughts right now and some decisions to make.

Thanks everyone again for your help and advice. It is appreciated. and Yes it is nice to talk to others about money and retirement and finances.. I love the topic.. and I find that very few people are as interested as I.

Quote:

or (drum roll, please) I can be one of those people that do something I love and just enjoy life now. We only live once and I try to treasure each moment I have.

This will never happen for me. Everything I like to do does not pay well. If I turned it into a job, then I'd hate it.

[BigMoneyJim]

John Galt, you may be the poster boy for what not to do, but it's comforting to know that someone is making it in ER after doing everything "wrong". Your political views are likely way askew of mine, too. But I strongly value your contributions here either in spite of or because of those things. If everyone agrees with me then I know I'm doing something really wrong. And if people disagree with me I have a chance to learn by challenging my perceptions & beliefs.

Susan, I thought I remembered John Greaney (author of the Retire Early Home Page and aka intercst) making a counterpoint to the "do what you love" advice in favor of doing higher compensated work to boost your retirement assets. Here is the article (link) I was thiking of, but it doesn't say quite what I remembered. It may be useful reading, though. And it mentions pensions. I do recall Greaney posting somewhere that his biggest enabler for early retirement was his high-salaried engineering jobs and his saving upwards of 50% of his salary.

I'm lucky in that I mostly enjoy my IT work (but not the corporate politics, of course) and it pays farily well, so I haven't had to struggle with the question of career for fun or profit.

(Does the "Preview" button not work anymore? It seems to post instead at least this past week.)

[unclemick]

My foggy memory says that I loved the aerospace biz.(1966-1992), but by age 49 given the choice of moving/new job - chose ER.

The negitives outweighed the positives by then.

[Traveler]

Susan:
Sounds like you're already ahead in the game in more ways than one: you've amassed significant investments for someone so young and it appears that you truly "know yourself".

I'm a single, 48-year-old woman who has never qualified for a pension. But I've saved enough working as a television producer that I can retire in late fall (trying to save those last thousand dollars before taking the plunge). After that, my long-term boyfriend and I will hit the road for a few months and see where life takes us.


Don't worry about working for a company that can offer you a pension. Chances are you'd have to stay longer than you'd want to in order to collect even the minimal amount.

I used to be a landlord in Sacramento (and still live here) but am looking to invest in a small apartment building in Arizona or Texas (where'd I'd move). If you do invest in real estate, know when to get in, but even more important, know when to get out to maximize profits. If I had kept my rental house here versus sellin it three years ago, I would have realized at least $100,000 more in net profit. Oh well...live and learn to read the market better than I did.

Best of luck! Keep us posted.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Helooo fellow Sacramentan.

The real estate market around here has definitely been a heck of a ride over the last 15 years, hasnt it?

Everyone has heard the old saw about real estate
investing. i.e "It's location, location, location!"
I agree completely and am quite satisfied with the location of all of our real estate. However, before we bought our Texas lake condo, the realtor said that in that
particular development, it was "View, view, view."
I took her advice and bought accordingly.

John Galt