I’ve been tied up all day at a meeting which spent a lot of time devoted to a friends pending retirement.
She’s worked over 17 years in a variety of state positions and she’s “retiring” to work as a nurse 3 days per week with 4 days off.
That’s a far cry from the “old days” just a few years ago where retirement meant that a pension and Social Security covered your basic living expenses because all your debts were long gone and had basically revolved around having a mortgage and maybe a car.
Now the debt is up to our ears on everything and - if there’s a pension still - you had better have put a bunch in a 401k plan and hope the market didn’t tank shortly before you started to spend it.
Fortunately she’s an experienced nurse and someone was willing to hire someone with her experience instead of cutting corners by paying a newbie who’d take 25% less to “get in the door”.
While there, I overheard some other people admit - maybe they were kidding - that they told their boss on a regular basis “I’m out of here as soon as I can find something better”.
Many people I talked to were completely stressed out by their work, felt underpaid, under appreciated and only had the expectation that things were going to get worse.
That’s why people crave having some measure of control by creating their own business…only if it’s something they can retire into.
I’m convinced more people would be self-employed if it weren’t for the issue of health care for their family simply from the sentiments I heard verbalized today.
Maybe they were always there, but from what people told me, their stress is just getting greater and greater.
Unless you’re socking away 15% of your income into long term savings at a minimum, you had better have an “Exit Strategy” in place long before “retirement” day hits.
Fortunately this person had a medical credential and a plan.
Most people who expected to settle down are just going to new jobs. What they were able to save during their “working years” was completely inadequate.
What’s your plan?
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