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No.
Existence had grown exponentially more expensive in my lifetime, well outpacing what a 401k or pension will realistically ever be able to achieve. At best, it might buy me 5-10 years after I am physically unable to work; if I mentally decline too soon due to age (quite likely in my family), I will die in poverty.
That isn't even touching on the possibility of a habitable climate or war, and assumes the survival of the current economic system.
Yep. I just always put money in my 401k, I don't know what a paycheck without 15% going to retirement looks like. I've still got at least 30 years to go.
Retirement sounds great till you try it. The expression is "even your garage can't get any cleaner". This refers to the boredom retirement can be for some. The solution that I found was a part time job, not for the money, but doing something I enjoyed. You no longer have the pressure of a "real" job. The best job that you will ever have is the job that you really don't need.
Doing stuff is important. But I have enough hobbies that I think I could stop working and not get bored.
Honestly, it scares me a bit. I've known men who retired and just... stopped. Sat in their chair, or maybe went for a little shuffling walk. Dead within a few years.
I could probably retire now, finances wise, but I enjoy my job and don't know what I'd do all day without some structure.
I saw my retired parents waste away in front of the TV every day. As mentioned before .... the best job is the one that you don't need. So besides enjoying my part time "get out of the house" job there are other benefits. I save money and stay healthy by only drinking on Friday and Saturday. These of course are not my work days. I also don't go out for meals during the week. I have retired neighbors that seem to spend 5 or 6 days a week out for lunch or dinner and boozing everyday. That would never work for me
I saw my retired grandparents buy property in the country and spend all day working on their garden and continuously making improvements to their home and doing other projects that interested them. In the summer they traveled the country and camped. If you spend your retirement wasting away in front of the TV that's on you for not finding some hobbies.
Dude, I'm retired for 3 decades and still would need more time and had to prioritise hobbies. I work voluntarily with abused people, but not because I'm bored but because someone needs to. Besides that i love gaming, coding, traveling, cars, boats, going on daily tours with wifey, reading, music, watching star trek...
But I've seen people retire and getting bored to death a week later. I always found that sooo tragically sad, like they were born to be worker-ants and without work there's nothing left worth living in their lifes.
But yes, the best job is one you actually want to do and are not forced to do.
My wife and I have pensions plans. We won't retire for another 35 or 40 years but that's the plan.
Barring societal collapse I believe I will be able to retire, but that's only because I've gotten extraordinarily lucky in life.
No. My mother has unretired twice and my grandmother has come out of retirement four times. They don't have the knack for it and I doubt I will either.
Nope, never. My retirement plan is a ditch with a nice view of the Rockies in Colorado and a bottle of gin on a cold winter night. Everything I've saved into (SS, TSP, retirement accounts) will inevitably disappear before I can access them/hit the age requirements. I don't trust the system at all (I didn't trust it before the election outcome either). I'm fucked. We're all fucked. Might as well live it up now while I still can.
No, and crying
I don't think think I'll ever "retire" in the traditional sense.
My thought was to always have a severe mental breakdown around 50 and run off to the woods to build a log cabin and grow my own food. My wife knows of this plan but I'm pretty sure she thinks it's a joke. It's not.
Incurable cancer, chemo brain means I can’t concentrate and often have trouble thinking straight. Involuntarily “retired” on medical insurance. Not working wasn’t what I expected it to be.
No. Retirement age is already higher than the age I'll probably reach, considering hereditary bad stuff. Aside from that, I have no skills and keep getting fired. Not to mention our planet will be on fire by then anyway.
Yes.
By Planning.
I didn't think it would work for the first 10 years. I just wanted to eat better cat food in retirement.
Pursuing higher paid jobs when I can. Changing jobs periodically. Pursuing higher pay until the pay asked for my soul. Then stepped back, changed jobs, and make way more for less.
Paying down debt when possible. Building up to a constant dollar figure of debit and investment per month. Growing that when I can. I now save 40%+ of my income.
Keeping my spending low by prioritizing my time on free things. Prioritizing the money I spend on high pact purchases.
Planning with 4% rule. Works out to needing 300 times your monthly spend in savings. Driving that number down. A $15 a month expense requires $4,500 invested to support.
A great market runup.
I am glad I did too. My friends are dying. One's 40's are rough.
My workplace has a defined benefit pension and they announced that all employees will be losing this pension (even those who are a couple years from retirement).
We will be switched over to a defined contribution pension and our previous contributions will be converted retroactively.
I don’t foresee this new pension lasting more than 5 years before they cut it completely. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they’re able to keep our pension contributions retroactively, fucking everyone over.
Jesus Christ how can they even do that?
In the industry I work in, they can legally do anything to you because our work exists outside of the Canadian Labour Code. This includes give you $0 paycheques for months and expect you to keep doing your job until it’s fixed, which can take 3 months to a year.
Wow that's terrible.
At the speed at which government push back the retirement age, I expect something like 70 with 47 worked years by the time I'll be old enough.
I have an interesting job, mostly in an office, some savings, so I may be able to do otherwise. But yhea, I don't count that much on retirement
At the speed at which government push back the retirement age, I expect something like 70 with 47 worked years by the time I’ll be old enough.
I don't know which government you mean. Here in the UK it's gone from 65 to 67 for men and 60 to 67 for women (Sliding scale - currently 66, but 67 when I get there, and further still for younger people), so I guess it's happening for everyone. I started work at 16, so if I retired at the legal age I'll have worked for 51 years.
But - that's just the state pension which is subsistence only. If you're smart you have a private or work pension alongside it, and you can take that whenever you can afford to, then collect state pension as well when you're old enough.
We've also lost the mandatory retirement age - you can keep working until you drop, if you want to.
One day, yes. I budget accordingly and am lucky enough to be paid relatively well. But at the same time, I prioritize quality of life now because there's no guarantee I'll make it to retirement. Id rather retire later if it means better qol now.
Yep, about to turn thirty and have been paying into an Ira, a Roth Ira and a 401k, I want to retire as soon a possible and do things that actually make me happy.
Becoming so rich that greeds corrupts me and becoming the villian that I always despised.
Or die.
Probably the latter tho... 😓
Statistically people with depression like me is at a higher risk of suicide so yea maybe I'd be dead. Or since I'm in the US, die due to political persecution. Basically just boils down to "die".
If I ever get off my ass and actually make all these games, maybe. If the ideas are as good as I hope they are.
Yup, sometime in the next year or two I'll get laid off, then I'll just mooch off my spouse.
yes. by staying in europe
I enjoy working in my field, but as other commenter said, I have no interest on working until death for shareholders to be happy. I do plan to work until I'm dead, incapable or just tired, but I'm planning to enjoy it while it lasts.
Independence for me would be not having to respond to a higher up, just me, my craft, and peaceful money earned by not overstressing my ass. I'm building my own house now, after I have a place to live without rent, I have no more ambitions than eating, sleeping and be with my loved ones. I don't need to overwork my ass to death to get that. Maybe 4 hours a day, or two-three days a week should be enough.
I think most people would do the same if they could, most people like working, they just despise the oppression of this rigged system.
I started maxing my Roth Ira out when I was earning $10/hr. Avoid spending money on things that don't literally matter and save for the things that do. Pay attention to where every single dollar/pound/Euro/shekel goes. Stay out of debt. Keep drug/alcohol use reasonable. Most of the time folks who are concerned about retiring/money have no idea how much they spend on what. Saving for retirement is easy once you start doing it and get used to it, but you need to start early and you need to invest in the stock market. Avoiding chronic illness or accidents or long periods where you aren't earning income are probably necessary too. Staying out of legal trouble is probably necessary as well.
Yes, as a Swede I'd say we have way greater chances of reaching retirement, but it still comes down to saving by yourself if you want to live reasonably while retired.
I set myself a "spending budget" every month. After salary comes in i move what goes to bills and such expenses into a separate account. I divide whats left into 50/50, one half into savings the other to leisure. My savings account is set up to make long term investment into stock groups managed by the bank (unsure if there's an english word for this, we håll them "fonder"). Usually i dont spend all the leisure money either way because i rarely purchase things and whats left when next months salary comes around also goes into savings.
I've been blessed by my parentes to start off with some savings so saving by myself once i started working was also allt easier.
To properly secure your future you need to earn enough money to even be able to start saving. Truly a "society" moment.
Nah I guess I'm gonna build shit until it's time for a dose of buckshot.
I already did somewhere in my 20s like 3 decades ago.
But today, with maybe "just" one good academic salary, the minimum rent, no car and saving nost of everything? Difficult. Especially if you maybe wanna live while waiting for retirement. Maybe even have a car or travel.
And if you want a great retirement, you need Hobbies and hobbies cost money. Considering that mayve the government-paid retirement is probably gone or reeeeaaally bad in another 30yrs...you gotta save a looooot AND invest it furiously but safely. Which is work too.
World is fucked.
I intend to. I refuse to die in old age, wasting my life working to support shareholders. Have a good few decades left to even be close to that though and I hate it.
No, I imagine they will come a point where I've decided I've had enough and just end it.
I will have to cut down on costs but I won't be poor, so yes.
Sure. I mean death still comes one to a customer and I'm no different.
Yep. My wife and I are in our thirties and have good whole life insurance policies that will supplement our retirement accounts nicely in our old age. I’ve been paying into mine for almost two decades (maybe longer, my parents started it for me and locked in good rates when I was young), my wife’s is newer. We also both have matching retirement accounts and are making sure we hit our matching totals each paycheck to draw as much from our employers as we can.
It’s not ideal, but with good planning (and stable income) you can still do well. Now, stable income is the important part. I’m a software developer, my wife works for a non-profit, so my income is generally a bit more stable than hers.
I recommend finding a financial advisor. Our life insurance guy is great and because he gets commission on the life insurance plans he doesn’t charge us for advisory services (and also doesn’t try to sell us on other stuff, he actually recommended we NOT move our old 401ks from other jobs over to him because we’d end up paying him more than we’d make, he recommended we roll them into our current employer plans).
That advice seems like a red flag. There are way more options to diversify investments in an IRA than a 401k, you can also invest in the same funds through an IRA that are available to your 401k. Either way you end up paying fees to someone as well.
Ha ha ha ha, no. We do have savings so at least some cushion but I took years off when my kids were born, got a late start in college, started a career later, I would say I got the time when I needed it I guess. But not likely to have enough to take time off paid work again at the end.
Most people don't get to decide, they get disabled or laid off & cannot find work and are forced into retirement. I'm in good shape and work in an office so probably can keep going as long as jobs last for me, and our life will be better if we keep working.
Intentional heroin overdose.
I'm barely into my 30's so it's far too early to say what I'll be doing. I aim to be debt free within 10 years and have no major life goals after that. Another 10 years and pension should cover my living costs 1:1, so monetarily I should be fine.
I'm lucky enough to be a state employee so I'll still have OPERS when Social Security is annihilated next year, but I'm not sure that'll be enough.
Barring any global events probably. I am quite fortunate.
To start with me and my wife are both sw engineers.
I earn some nice big company stock, from when I started to 5 years later it's 10x'd. I was a few years late to really hit jackpot but I still made a lot and will hopefully continue to gain. My company also matches the first 6% of my rrsp (a 401k for canadains) and I contribute 8%. I also have a maxed tfsa.
I am a pretty aggressive budgeter so I make sure we spend below our means and build uo other savings as well.
There's a bit of a "problem" at my company where many of the senior staff basically have blank cheques because only they understand the overall architecture. I hope to also end up in this position. I knew a guy that worked 2 half days a week for at least 2x my salary with vacation time to boot. All he did was answer questions for a few hours then go home.
I bought a house during a panic price drop in 2020 got a really cheap price and then sold it for a huge profit and bought a run down duplex that is a bad investment property but a good place to live for my polycule (in a super walkable neighborhood to boot!). I plan to die in This house. I got what will probably be an all time low interest rate of 1.7% and have been paying it off faster than necessary. When it renews next year at 4-5% I will hopefully keep the same monthly. If my monthly doesn't grow above that then I'll be pretty on track to have it paid off before I turn 45, giving me more money to save and also lowering the amount I need a month.
If interest rates go down or me/wife gets some nice promotions or my company stock does another big climb then kids might even be on the table.
Nope because I'll never afford it. I'll be at my desk on the phone listening to my BPD patient scream in my ear for the millionth time that she absolutely must come off the medication she needs to stay alive that she's been on for 20 years because it's giving her a rash (not possible and shes doing this for attention), and I'll quietly expire into an exhausted puddle.
Edited to add: I have an excellent pension but it still won't be enough. I have zero savings thanks to my SO wrecking my finances.
Never took the blue pill in the first place. I worked to live only, not lived to work. Then Cancer retired me permanently at 42.
Nope
I'm putting enough money away that I see myself retiring. At minimum, I would transition to a less stressful job about 10 years away from retirement and ride that out as I go to work less and less.
That said, I know I'll kill myself if my health degrades too much. I haven't decided what would happen if I run out of money.