It wasn't much, but over time it added up. I did without some stuff, and for a long time was a "vegetarian" only because meat was a luxury. But my folks had instilled in me the belief that I should pay myself (for my future & emergencies) first, and that if I wanted to buy something I should wait til I had the money. Something I still do except for cars and my house. My folks even paid cash for their cars.

We should all be able to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps like you did. Find money where it doesn't exist. Work jobs that don't exist. We're just not managing our money or our lives properly. So glad you're here to guide us along.

Seriously, did you mean to sound that sanctimonious?

Without thinking of saving that $6 each day. That is all I was saying.

until I turned 48. My condo and car were paid for cash and I had nearly $100K in cash.

Then the hi-tech crash was followed by 9/11. I was laid off 4-5 months later. I sent out hundreds of resumes and looked for jobs all over the country. I would have looked in other countries as well, but with many companion animals that would not have worked out because they are my substitute family and I won't abandon them to strangers. For 2 years after 911, there was nothing in my field.

You try finding work pushing 50. Unemployment ran out and I started burning through my life savings. I was harassed and driven out of my home by a registered sex offender and his gang of thugs.

So I sold my condo and moved my household to Maine to "restructure" my life and lower my cost of living. I finally found work for $10/hour at a little family-owned tourism business, where they poisoned all their new employees via a contaminated well. They'd been cited and fined by OSHA, so they brought in poland springs water upstairs for management and those "in the know" while leaving newcomers to diarrhea and vomiting, too sick to look for a replacement job. Then my identity was stolen via a former colleague and his wife, a VP at Fidelity where my pension is managed.

Since the $10/hour job wasn't working out (and they ultimately closed), so I went back to school for med lab tech, and took on large student loans to finish because the "adviser" (read sales-liar) misinformed me about a number of critical items that aren't published, causing my costs and time to graduate to increase substantially. The state university advertised 100% employment for their grads (but they didn't say employment doing *what*; half my class couldn't even get interviews, the other half got part time except for a single student got full time) and the closest hospital to me lied to me and another student about the starting salary (boosted it by 25%).

So yeah, I saved 10% of my income for 18 years and then got blindsided, and blindsided again, and blindsided again, and blindsided again.

I've been living paycheck to paycheck now since graduating 2 years ago, and finally have enough to be living month-to-month instead of paycheck-to-paycheck. And one of my 2 parttime jobs is now in jeopardy, while the other *may* get better...or not.

But yeah, all you have to do is save for a rainy day and you'll have plenty to retire on. Right. Whatever.

What I will say is that saving like I was able to did keep me from ending up living under a bridge. So far.

I know that. And I know other good folk who were not as lucky. You did everything right and still got screwed. I am very sorry.

We work until we die or are let go from a job and can't find another.

Since the nation must have the greatest military of all time, the vulnerable must suffer. Misplaced priorities.

at this point, I cannot imagine how I could make retirement work for me. I fucked up.

I am beginning to accept it as my future reality. But, the future is something I can not see. There is time. Change can occur prior to my reaching that place in time. Our future is not preordained.

Who knows what will happen. I have a military pension and should have my federal civilian pension at age 57. Will have enough in an annuity to draw $1,000 a month off and not drain it for 20 or 25 years. Maybe I'll be able to get social security at 62 still. House should be paid off in 6 years and no other debt.

I've tried to plan it all out but it is still unsettling to think one accident, medical emergency, etc could ruin what I've been planning for 20 years.

I'll probably drop dead of a heart attack or something at 56 right before I retire anyway.

Even going so far as to use wingnut/Libertarian snarl terms like "Barry". Yeah, great way to completely negate what you just wrote, Mike.

Digging even further, one finds that Mike Whitney is a near-single-issue anti-government, anti-Fed libertarian who contributes to Lew Rockwell's swill of a site and also supported Ron Paul in 2012 based solely on his anti-war stance. Yet he's such a mixed bag on economics, one cannot figure out how he continues to give Republican economics a free pass. He apparently isn't a huge fan of Paul Krugman.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article32395.html

Barack Obama, regardless of what anyone thinks of him or his embracing of Chi-School politics, has little if anything to do with the problems outlined in this essay. America's bleak retirement futures represent a long-standing and far more complicated economic problem that was festering years before he was elected.

It's funny how Mike Whitney lays absolutely NO blame at the feet of Corporate America's intentional shrinking of wages for 33 years, NO blame at Alan Greenscam, NO blame at the feet of the Republican-controlled Congress who originates spending and jobs bills (almost all of which came with Republican-favoring provisos that would enhance the pockets of American CEOs even further), NO blame at the feet of almost 35 years of Republican political glad-handing of Republican economics and NO blame at America's CEOs for consistently lobbying against a more progressive tax structure.

No, it's apparently all BARRY'S fault that Americans cannot retire. Not the fact that we don't have even near a progressive Congress that has to make it all happen. Did this guy never take a class in how American government works? Barack Obama's not a dictator.

-Laelth

First thing I thought of, as well.

I don't see how we can all work until we drop unless a lot of new jobs are created.

I'll be dead before I even get an option to retire. I already know I'm not gonna make it that far.

I honestly think they'll be the last generation to be able to retire. I'm 33 and have an old 401K from about 8 years ago with barely four figures in it. THat's the extent of my retirement savings.

My current field does not offer such plans.

but I was laid off my job in 2010 when I was 71. Fortunately, I had some money in my 401K, but not a whole lot. Now I am having some medical issues and that money is going to be gone very quickly. I have Medicare with no supplemental coverage. And basic Medicare only covers 80%.

have bought into the "consumer economy" and have squandered a lot of our money away in that.

I am 43, grew up in "Steel Mill" area where my father worked at the mill and mother stayed home to raise us kids. My parents done it a bit different than everybody else, they were frugal and managed to save up a pretty decent sum of money by retirement age.

We would "eat out" maybe 1 time every other month. Our vacations were "simple" where we went camping in a pop-up camper. We did not have cable, cell phones, internet, year long sporting events hauling kids to other states to play. We had one good vehicle and an old beater. We did not have a boat, a Harley, a country club membership, etc...they had a budget. My parents saved up cash and purchased 4 acres out in the county, they wanted my sister and I to go to the county school which was better rated. They bought a cheap mobile home for us to live in on the property in 1974. They took out a $15K loan to build a house and when not working at the mill my father devoted all his free time into building a house, all by himself with really only my mother to help. By the time (4 years) the house was built they had paid off the $15K loan and we then had a 2200 sq ft home on 4 acres that was bought and paid for, my mom has lived there since.

My mom broke down and bought a new tv last year, said it was the 4th TV she has had to buy in her life and really did not want to but had to because of "digital only" channels. She now has two tv's in the house and considers that crazy, but the older one is in the basement and was purchased in 1987...she has got 20+ years out of one tv.

Think of all the money we waste that could be easily saved. We all can get back to basics of life and enjoy family and friends without the distractions.

A handful of people retiring with enough to hand down to several generations while millions barely scrape by until their last breath is a gross injustice that should not occur in these United States.

Can anybody say Dead Peasant Policy!!!!!!