Once in a while at work I hear one of my coworkers talking about their retirement portfolios, usually about how badly it's been hit the past couple of years.
One particular time I was cleaning out my lunch dishes and was overhearing a friend and another coworker talking. Her portfolio had taken a hit (like many others) because of the stock market. (We have a tax-deferred defined contribution plan supplied by our employer.) The conversation ended with her saying something like: “I'll be a horse's rear-end if I'm working past sixty-five!”
(She didn't actually use “horse's rear end,” but I'm doing what I can to keep this site family-friendly!)
She's in her fifties. Everything could be just fine in a few years, or she might just end up being a horse's rear end.
I keep coming back to something that Michael Mihalik said in his book Debt Is Slavery: “… retirement is about money, not age.” No one except her (and her husband, perhaps) cares whether she ever retires or not. She may be able to continue the same job for a few years after she's had originally wanted to retire, but maybe not. Then what? Maybe she'll need to find a job, perhaps not paying what her current job does. Hopefully that will bridge the gap. If not, then what? Maybe her children (if she has any) will help, or people from her church, or strangers. But if not, then what? She'll scramble to make ends meet, maybe with another job. But she won't be retired. Far from it.
She'll be the back end of a horse. Or at least I hope so. I wouldn't want her to be what she actually said she'd be if she didn't retire.
Don’t you have the Mihalik quote backwards? It doesn’t seem to make much sense as written.
I find it sad that so many people look at retirement as the ultimate goal. Maybe they mean freedom, rather than retirement.
In my medical practice so many folks who retire, after a few weeks of golf, travel to a few places they want to see-are then miserable.
Where is the banter over the water-cooler, the talk about the bowl games, or playoffs. The challenges of working on a project together.
My advice is-find something you love to do, and keep doing it. And use the information here and elsewhere in the PF world to get rid of the debts that keep you tied to those jobs that make you miserable.
Great post, my friend.
I enjoy what I am doing so much that I caould not even imagine being retired. I know people who do not work at their jobs any more but I do not know many people who are retired.
I totally agree with Dr Dean. The people I know who have (totally) retired all went downhill within a few months. They started having physical problems, they lost interest in doing new things and just vegged out. Ugh! I never want to retire (totally). I know that eventually I’ll have to scale back, but what’s the fun in becoming a vegetable?
Weston: You’re absolutely right. I had it backwards. Thanks for the catch!!
Dr Dean: Right. Even better: Find something you love to do and find a way to have that throw off income so that it supplements retirement income. Given even 10 years this is certainly possible.
Pastor Jim: That’s my experience too.
a2: I know people close to me that this happened to. It’s not pretty.
Exactly. I think the majority of Americans are getting life backwards. Living to accumulate more time and money rather than using time and money for more living. Bummer. Hopefully we will start to wake up.
I’ve been trying to “wake people up” on my site. It’s an uphill battle, but I hope people really do reach true financial freedom.
thanks for the post.