All this talk about retirement is making me dizzy, must be nice to think about that

I figured out many years ago I'm never going to retire. From talking with co-workers over the years, I know of only one in my age range (30-40) that actually "plans" on retirement. The rest of us pretty much figure there will be no SS and we will just be old guys doing the same thing we do now in one fashion or another. Shit, even bringing it up gets an instantaneous laugh :rofl:

Putting money away is hard enough right now, not to mention a lot of us have young kids who we would like to put through college...You know what college is going to cost for my 8 month old daughter?


Retirement sounds kind of boring anyway so fuck it, I'll just work till I die :)

Believe or not, an 82 year old waitress doesn't find a lot of work.
My grandfather worked until he was 98, but he was self employed.

It depends, in part, on what you do and how healthy you are whether you can continue working. But as you get older you will find that fewer people want to hire you. They can get some young person who chargers less to do the job.

Good luck with never retiring, or better, start now figuring out what you will do when people just won't hire a person your age to the job.

by 18 years..

My boss is 63, of my three counterparts one is 53 the other two are in their late 50's.

Maybe telecomunications is different than other fields, but it takes many years to gain the depth of knowledge required for certain positions. Also you have to continue to learn new technology if you want to "stay in the game". I installed my first channel bank when I was 19.

Set up token ring networks back in the day, appletalk (what a shitty protocol), ATM, Frame Relay, DSLAMs

Now working on the latest and greatest in VoIP technology...


No matter how old I get, people will still need their phones. Videophones will be commonplace in 25 years...That's why I'm working now on the cutting edge...got to stay sharp.

what the newbies fresh out of college bring to the table. However, that isn't so in fields like marketing, accounting, sales, general business administration, etc.

The prime years for engineers is about 7 - 15 years of experience. After that it gets harder to get hired, unless it is into senior positions. There are alot fewer of those than just mainline engineers. You're about at your peak value right now in a way. Fully technically competent, and with enough experience to help bring that experience to bear as well as lead teams. In 20 years your technical capabilities will be waining, from having to mangage so much. And as your salary rises, it becomes harder to justify it merely upon your technical skills.

Everyone needs their I-phones, but most other industries have a track record of dumping older, workers. I have watched this throughout my life.

What happens if some unexpected illness causes problems.

Thinking that you can work the same jobe at 70 or 80 is different from working at 50, 55, or 60. For each year that passes you will find a few more companies that would just rather hire a younger, healthier, cheaper worker.

life. I remember being hired into IBM in 1973 and seeing a retirement date of 2013 and thinking it was impossible. Well, now it's just 3 years away.

you with a 20 year-old will little experience. You last duty will be training them.

BTW, Set aside $50 a pay check into a 529 plan and your 8 month daughter will have a nice college fund. It helps to also have realistic college expectations like doing a year or two at a community college to keep costs low and going to an in-state school.

nt

They WANT you to think you have no CHOICE -- then they have free rein to completely destroy the social safety net that was set up by representatives that used to care for their constituents.

You DO have a choice. And that choice does not *just* effect you - it effects your family and friends too. YOU, and all your thirty something friends CAN choose to stand up and fight- stand together and be counted - to fight for SS and Medicare, to fight against government give aways and corruption. Yeah it's a pain in the ass, but do you *really* want the alternative?

Every single younger person who thinks as you do gives more control to the elites who are shredding this country. Every single person who decides it's easier to keep their head down and accept what they are being *told* as truth helps to shackle their *CHILDREN* into a life of servitude and subsistence.

ALL of us need to realize it's not all about *me*. It's a generational push into economic serfdom. And it's going to take ALL of us, from the sixty-somethings on down, to get off our KNEES and push BACK. And push back HARD.

YOU are being TOLD by the very people that want you on your knees to stay there. DON'T do it. Because then your children won't have a choice, either.

and no one is promised a retirment. What we need to do is make sure people who can't work are cared for as are those who can't find a job. The rest of us who are healthy and can work must support the others. That is the cost of a safety net - being your "brothers" keeper and sacrificing for them.

Social security ain't going away. You'd be foolish to plan as such. I heard the same nonsense 30 years ago. It's still there, and still will be there. There will be changes probably.

But retirement requires life long planning, so you'd better get started. Because there will come a day when folks aren't particularly interested in still having you as an employee. You may be well into your '60s, but I've seen these guys trying to "hang on" into their '70s and it isn't pretty. It becomes harder every year to keep your skills up to date, and still work at a job. Worse if your health starts to fail.

College can be handled numerous ways, including pre-paid plans, scholarships, grants, and loans. Start saving and plan on not actually finish paying until after she graduates. Get into the 401K plan, especially if there is matching funds. Don't buy too big of a house, watch out for short term debt in general. Whatever you're buying, buy 10% less. That means cheaper booze, less of a cable plan, watch the cell phone costs. Take a 10% cheaper vacation, buy 10% cheaper clothes. Cook at home more often, utilize leftovers. Splurge 10% less.

So in theory I "could" probably retire at some point...I just don't plan on it.

Got a little stash of $2800 so far towards her college...

I actually think that we, as a society, need to develop a concept of a "second career" or some such expression. A situation in which we plan, expect, and find a market for, our skills in a secondary job market that is lower paying, shorter hours, and slightly more sporatic in nature. Start ups come to mind, or industries with various "surges" in business. We work 30 -40 years in a career, and then spend another 10-15 years in a secondary career befoe going into "full" retirement.

nt

I can't remember the exact law, but these are a very safe choice to save for college.

Maybe, if you're lucky, you'll work until you die.

If you don't get laid off when you're 55+.

If you don't get a disease or injury that keeps you from working.

If you're lucky.

If you haven't planned and saved, then at some point you may have to hop on the nearest iceberg or burning viking ship, and just float away. Or maybe Soylent Green will be fashionable fare by then. This is no country for sick poor old men (or women).

:hi:

Seems like an impossible dream, though. Nobody wants to hire a 58-year-old former newspaper reporter.

I don't mean to insult you, but it might get you SOME money.

I've freelanced for fifteen years, and am glad I do, even though it was desperation that forced me into that corner. If I were still on staff, I'm sure I'd be in your shoes now.

Thanks for the suggestion, shrike. It's not a bad idea at all.
Unfortunately, my two options for local stringing are the Washington Post and its local weekly chain, the Gazette newspapers. The Post doesn't need me -- they've got long lines of applicants for everything. As for the Gazette, I have sent them countless applications over the years, and never received a reply. I wonder if they're still bitter about the way I beat them on story after story when I worked for the (now non-existent) Montgomery Journal.
I keep looking for freelance work, but there's not much because of competition from all the former Post reporters who took early retirement or got laid off in staff cuts.
My basic problem is that I need to get some web skills, but can't afford the courses because we're putting a kid through community college. Once she finishes, we might have a few spare dollars.

I agree that the Post is a lost cause, but keep trying the weekly; editors change, and you might be surprised, the person you talk to might not even know of the Journal.

Besides, the fact that they never gave you a regular job doesn't mean they'll never give you string work.

I know it's tough, those of us who do have regular string gigs (like me) are hanging onto them with both hands. There ARE some gigs out there writing web content. And you don't have to have too much in terms of web skills to do them, but the pay is AWFUL. At least in my opinion it is.

I mean no disrespect to DUers who write web content, but to me it seems like all take and no give. Unless I've looked into the wrong companies. I'm not going to mention names and details, but the ones I looked into paid you according to the number of clicks on the article you wrote. Supposedly it will pay you "in perpetuity," but one guy had written five articles so far and only earned 13 cents. (You can't even buy a pack of gum with that.) Plus, there're actually people out who will teach you to make oodles and oodles of money writing for the web. That's a red flag to me; if there's so much money to be made why aren't they out there making it?

I don't mean to discourage you. There is a company out there that does pay a flat fee. Fifteen dollars per story, I kid you not. But if you're interested, PM me.

when Republicons and everyone else talks about working until 70 or 80 or 90, they forget about how many people develop Alzheimers.

Of course, maybe that's not a detriment. After all, Reagan was President for 8 years even with Alzheimers.

They are all around here. That is where I told my daughter to go and I would pay her tuition, books, and let her live here for free.

She didn't listen though. She had to go to a renowned party school(Bloomington/Normal) instead. So she ended up with tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt and can't find a job. She graduated 5 years ago. Never did find a job in her profession.

Don

Then the money we saved can help with other things...That's the dream anyway..

But yep, I'm a big fan of community colleges. Shit, it worked for me....I was renting cars traveling around the country installing multiplexers while others my age were having parties in dorms.

Unless she turns out to be brilliant, which most people aren't, and applies herself AND has some other skills aside from academics, she is unlikely to see a substantial scholarship.

I graduated top 25 out of a class of over 500 and got one scholarship, for $1000, my freshman year. And a small tuition break for merit from my college (a state school btw). With 1350 SATs. And extra-curricular activities.

Scholarships are not something to count on.

listen either. Now with 1 year left, he and his mom have a buttload of debt they will be trying to work through beginning next year.

So good luck with 'working until you die', you know? It is interesting to me that you and your peers can 'see the future' of no SS but are unable to comprehend that you might be forced to stop working by health conditions or an accident, even if jobs are widely available. Full one third of Social Security beneficiaries are under retirement age, and disabled. So, there you go.

Many over 50 are no longer getting hired nor many workers are allowed to stay on past 50 something..

I cashed in my retirement in my 30s to pay the bills and buy health insurance while I did my student teaching and tried to get a job. I had to quit my paying job to do the student teaching and get my teaching license.

So I started all over in my mid-30s. I didn't save much for retirement; I was paying student loans. I DID have an annuity that I paid into each month, but I cashed it in to dig a well when the old well collapsed and became unusable. I had to have water.

Since then, I've taken many paycuts. I started paying into a new annuity, which has been losing money hand over foot for the last 3 years; not going to be much there. I'm not going to count on SS, and my state retirement isn't looking great, either. That didn't begin accruing again until my mid-30s, and I moved out of state, so I'll have 2 different plans without many years in them when I hit retirement age.

I've always planned to work until I dropped. I'm willing. I just wish that the climate for public education was better. The constant attacks on teachers make retirement look enticing, for those that can afford it.

Retirement is also what happens when the corporation decides you're making the place look shabby and you might start to cost the health plan too much money and besides, a new kid applied and s/he is awful cute so out you go.

Retirement is only boring for bores who had no interests outside of work, who were so wrapped up in their job or career they failed to notice life passing them by outside it.

What looks like a burden at 30 starts to look very different as you approach your 60s. After all, when you were 15, you thought your life would be over at 30 when you had a kid and a job. Just trust the fact that you're going to change as time goes on.

As for your coworker who is trying to plan for his retirement at 30, good luck to him and the Red Sox. Financial planners are telling us old folks that we should have been saving $2000/year since we turned 20. They don't realize that we weren't making much over $2000/year when we were 20 and needed it all to live on. That doesn't mean you shouldn't save, of course you should. It means that life can throw you all sorts of stuff you can't plan for and flexibility can come in handier than rigid planning will.

I started this year (wish I had started earlier) at 28 and I haven't put a lot in my IRA but I am making steady deposits and seeing some small gains.

The key, for those fortunate enough to even be able to set something aside, is to start early, keep expenses low, and be careful about investing what you do save.

for my daughter to go to college - at least not in entirety. College is, for those who choose that route, a person's first serious act as an adult, not the last thing you do as a child.

I will help her if she needs it and if I can without bankrupting myself, but I don't plan to put myself on the hook for tens (or hundreds maybe by then) of thousands of dollars.

retire, civilization will be in steep decline. You might want to makes plans accordingly.

In, and you will see many younger people coming here, raising families, and paying into SS. The aging of our population and dropping wages are at the core of our SS problems. Immigration will take care of one of those factors, unionizing will help the other.

I was retired due to an injury. Retirement is not boring. It has given me time to pursue my hobbies: starvation and angst.

I'm not retired, I was put out to stud.