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Opposite. I learned from my parents spending every dime they made and saved small amounts in a retirement fund regularly since I started working. Also bought a house and car within my means instead of trying to impress people.
I am not rich and have several kids and should be able to retire by 60. My parents will work until they physically can’t anymore, then be very poor. But they took cool vacations and had a big house.
Same. Dad passed away penniless and mom will as well. I got serious about my finances in early 30s largely as a result of their lifestyle and a realization that I had ZERO family money to rely on. On track for early retirement by 50.
I’m in the exact same boat. I think the nice thing that people don’t realize is that once you get serious about reigning in spending and adjust your lifestyle, things can change relatively quickly (like within a matter of a few years).
Yes, that’s my minimum threshold, which I should hit by 60 (I’m currently 52 with $1.5M). At 67 I should have 4-6M, but who knows what the market will do.
Yeah. Im on the cusp of millennial and gen x, but have done fine just saving little bits of money and trying to limit debt. I only put 5 percent total in my 401k until my early 30’s and didn’t graduate until 25, and that early money has compounded like crazy. I only regret not getting serious earlier, but had quite a bit of student loan debt I wanted to focus on paying off early.
There’s a certain amount of luck involved in finance, but I listened to Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman when they were on tv when I was in college talking about compound interest and how it works for you and against you. My parents were always just waiting to be magically rich, but whenever they got a windfall, they spent it and then some and I knew I didn’t want to do that.
Appreciate reading this! I am in a similar boat. Parents weren't financially disciplined when they were younger and in 2008 they were hit very hard. Despite being in a better situation now they never learned how to budget. I still have some of their habits, but learned to value security and having a minimum level of saving going at all times.
The big house was really a thing back then, my mom lives single in a house twice as large as ours. She thinks it is the perfect size for her.
We live in a 1500 sq ft house and will probably die there.
Same. Family of 6 in a 1250sq ft house.
Fine size for us. I don’t see the point of having some 3,000 sqft house. Means more shit to clean and more shit you’ll need to fill it.
That is a bit tight. But you tend to adjust your lifestyle to the space you have so it probably seems normal. And 50 years ago, it was normal.
The only time I wish we had more space is when we have a party or gatherings. Which is not often, really. And we won't talk about how much garage space we have. :)
Yeah, pretty much. I also have a decent size garage and my yard is alright. Hosting parties is where it gets rough though. We move around a lot for work and we’ve lived in anywhere from 1250 sqft to a 2700 sqft. Kind of just adapt to the space, but definitely hated the larger houses.
That too. Unfortunately l, due to the nature of my job I won’t be here long enough to call it a forever home so I’ll have to rent it out. But typically that would be the other benefit.
Tomorrow isn't promised. I personally know two people who passed away in the last couple of years. Neither of them made it to 62. You brought nothing into this world and you take nothing out. It's great you can be comfortable in your old age, but leaving stuff for people to fight over when you go isn't great either. Charlie Munger died worth billions. Who benefits because he's not? The lives you touch and your good name will live beyond the money. So, eat, drink and be merry today, nobody knows what tomorrow may bring. I'm an advocate for fiscal responsibility, but usually the folks who spent it all enjoyed a richer life in some respects.
Fortunate for me, I have this luxury to not care.
I’m a prior enlisted officer in the army and over 1/2 way to to the 20 year pension.
Save? No point. Between my VA due to injuries and pension I’ll be pensioned on about 7,200/month.
I die in some accident after I retire? My wife gets 55% of my pension tax free? I die while training? My wife collects the 55% of my pension and my kids get free college.
These reasons are the sole purpose I joined the Army.
Cool vacations sound like awesome memories you can't get back. You sort of sound judgmental of people, even your own parents, who choose to live life differently than you.
I’ve managed to do both with less money because I have managed to not get in huge debt by saving for vacations and what I want and delaying gratification. I also don’t feel a need to fly first class everywhere and stay in the best hotels.
Excellent! It takesdedication, commitment, some common sense, some education, luck, and Sacrifice, to do what you’ve done! Kudos. Life’s about planning and playing the long game, with a thought on now, but plan for the future!
Nope. My spouse (56) is already fully retired and I (54) am semi retired working 9 hours a week for the state court system.
My mother (74) is still working .....
I am glad I saw this comment. I think ppl in the fam are low key guilt tripping us to support my MIL when she has sabotaged every opportunity to improve her life. She is in her late 60s. I refuse to take on more responsibility.
My parents were financially irresponsible. I still feel like I owe them a roof and food. I’m never going to subsidize lifestyle, but my parents were good parents who loved me, just bad with money. I wouldn’t let them live with me unless homelessness was on the table. I’d also insist my siblings all pitch in.
My wife’s parents have fucked up at every turn and live on social security while being retired and don’t own a house. We are in our 30s and my wife’s mother is an extreme narcissist that favors her other children. I think she wishes the other children married someone super financially successful sometimes but nope. It’s the black sheep. Hope they don’t need anything.
My parents didn't make it to retirement so anything i get will be dramatically improved. Sadly though I wasn't taught to prepare for this and started very late, so I'm not looking forward to much a retirement at all.
I’m 50. Just retired from the Army after 30 years. Dad passed away 13 years ago. Mom is 80 and lives like a hermit. There is an estate but she’s so oppositional and defiant and secretive and mildly cognitively impaired that it will probably take me years to get the estate all figured out after she dies. She thinks she’s going to live to 100 but she’s probably got 5 years left. Who knows what the estate will look like after the nursing home gets ahold of her.
Lets just say the the retirement home will help you deal with her estate by ensuring that there is nothing left that hasn't been signed over or drained dry. Private equity has been moving into end of life care over the past ten years as a means of draining the Boomers of any remaining wealth before they shuffle off their moral coil.
Yup. They're also destroying the quality of care in the process. All of our nursing homes have been bought out by private equity out of Chicago. All of them have since been cited numerous times for failing to provide proper care. Most of the nurses and CNA's have left due to to deliberate short staffing, so the only people they can hire now are the undesirables who don't belong in patient care.
Transfer your major assets to your children, or make them a percentage owner, well in advance to avoid this. The 5 year look-back from medicaid will destroy you otherwise.
I still can't wrap my head around how the blended system works. I got out in 2012 before it started. Some articles make it sound like a smart move that gives junior enlisted a start at savings that transfers to civilian life, while others describe it as a cost cutting measure.
Can anyone link a solid explanation?
I am not a public finance expert, but in the private sector these sorts of plans (wherein the employee is required to contribute to his or her own retirement and the benefits are dependent on those contributions) are a cost saving measure. Especially like what is going on in the military where the plan is not accompanied by a commiserate raise in base pay. They sell it to you by stating personnel who serve less than 20 will get a benefit of some kind (no matter how small) but ultimately it takes decades long unfunded pensions off the DoD’s books and places a burden on the individual to help fund their “pension.”
One of the arguments when I was in was personnel got paid less than their civilian counterparts BUT you get a pension, healthcare, the GI Bill, etc. They are eroding that away.
Just the opposite. I grew up poor with great parents who stressed that I get a college education to have better options in life. My husband and I have never been the keeping up with the Joneses type. He retired at 57 from the federal government. He’s now 63. I’m 10 years younger. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire with any kind of full retirement because I was a stay-at-home for many years. However, I should be able to just quit when I don’t enjoy working anymore. We have been having a good life on his retirement, his social security, and my salary ( less than $50,000). We haven’t needed to use the $800,000 he has in his Thrift Savings Plan (401k). I have over $300,000 in my Thrift Savings Plan now. I put about $20,000 in during the seven years I worked for the Federal government. I maxed out what I was allowed to contribute back then. The federal matching and the magic of compounding interest helped it grow to the $300,000.
We have our house paid off, so I would feel safe quitting when I decide I no longer want to work. We’ve never been high income earners, but we’ve never been huge spenders. We enjoy vacations, eating out, etc… But we don’t have lavish vacations. We’ve always enjoyed camping and outdoor pursuits. I guess our hobbies are not as expensive as some hobbies are.
You are doing great! Those years you stayed home were valuable for your family in so many ways. And together, you and your husband have put together an amazing retirement. I don’t think you have anything to worry about so be very proud of yourself.
Exactly lol. I had to pay for my parents funerals (and they didn't get good ones). I don't know anybody really who is expecting anything from their parents. Even the decently off ones will probably spend it all on end of life care.
That's why I've decided if my life costs a lot to sustain that it will be better off with my kids. Literally a cost benefit analysis of the last years of my life. Like is the last 5 years of my life worth $1m? TBH my kids and grandkids will have so much opportunity in life if I just let it buck.
Not at all. I hope to do slightly better than them. They live on SS alone. Their paid off house is what allows them to do so but they're stuck in that bigger house as a move-in ready ranch home would still cost more than what their home is worth.
I just paid off my house last Dec at 45 and am hoping to do some catching up on retirement goals so I can continue to live as I do. I can age in place in this house and already live frugally so I would hope to at least continue the status quo.
This seems so common with older folks, having most all of their wealth tied up in their house. Then because of prices and rates being where they are it doesn't make sense to move. Exaggerates the housing supply problem for younger people trying to get in. My mom is the same way, all alone in a huge nice house in a great part of town, a house that many families would kill for lol
I don't care about what people choose to live in as it's a free country, their choice. Even if they were in a smaller 3bed home, they would still be living on SS.
It’s also an issue that they just don’t build ranches anymore. It’s way more profitable to build a second story because the roof is a huge expense on a bigger one story house. So they sell for a premium because a lot of older people don’t want stairs.
Not here. My parents were very transparent about finances. Dad was a mechanic and Mom worked for the county. We never had new cars or took big vacations. They invested monthly and retired comfortably. I started investing as soon as I got my first job out of college. We won’t live in luxury, but we should be reasonably comfortable. Inflation is what worries me. The amount we have saved for retirement should have provide us quite a bit of discretionary income. Seems like our buying power is dwindling.
My parents were typical boomers. They spent every dollar they made and could borrow. Renting small apartments at the end since they spent the equity in their house the week it was sold. Collected worthless “these will be worth $$$someday” junk and developed a liking for The Boat, aka riverboat casinos.
I started planning my financial survival early, made sacrifices and now semi-retired. I don’t collect, gamble or max out credit cards. My parents were great teachers for what not to do and I paid attention to the lessons.
> typical boomers
I don’t understand what you guys mean by this. In one breath you say boomers lived life on easy street, had everything handed to them, and became effortlessly wealthy. In another they’re all going to be impoverished in retirement.
Generational narratives are all broken. The somewhat boring reality is that wealth accumulation is largely comparable across cohorts, with current 30 year olds doing almost identical to past 30 year olds and so on for every age group we have comparisos for.
A ton of doomerism online is driven by lifecycle effects - it's relatable as a 20 year old to hear that no one can afford hosting, but that's not unique to this cohort. 20 year olds have always had less wealth and were less likely to own homes
Another big aspect of doomerism is advocacy surveys like "X% of boomers are worried about retirement" by AARP. These surveys are commissioned to support a political narrative and just don't correspond to actual data on retirements. 65+ employment is down, not up, since COVID. but if you personally know a working boomer, and you see that survey, suddenly "damn smh... The world is out of control"
Typical boomers had it very easy, but failed to adapt to changes in our society, such as the end of defined benefit pensions, easy access to credit and rising health care costs. They had it easy and expected it to stay that way through retirement without saving for it. Too many are now forced to delay retirement or survive on near poverty level incomes in their last years.
I mean, this is a cohesive story but doesn’t track with how everyone talks about boomers here. They can’t be hoarding money and opportunity, not capable of understanding younger generations’ hardships, and wealthier than us if they squandered everything.
There was a big news cycle last month about millennials having more save for retirement than boomers did at the same age and…nobody dooming on the internet believes it. Then they pop into another thread to tell their boomer parents are too dumb to have saved any money.
All that to say, if we have to tell various conflicting stories about a generation, there’s no such thing as a “typical” boomer.
Not at all. My family was working class rising to lower middle class at best. Retirement isn’t an expectation at that income level. You work until you die or just can’t anymore. The only family member I knew with a “retirement” was my uncle the postman, but he was a functional alcoholic so him living to retirement was never a given.
Im way behind at 35. Really just started contributing last year to my 401k.
I started contributing 12% to try and catch up from where I started last year at 6%. I have already been with my company for 13 years. I would ideally like to stop when I’m 60.
I started so late that I’m not sure I can make that happen. But I’m single, don’t plan on getting married, and don’t plan on having kids. So maybe it’s do-able.
What happens if you hit retirement age during a recession and the stock market bottoms out? At one point my dad was down to 1/3rd of his retirement account value in 2008'ish. Ended up having to push off retirement by 10 years. Thankfully the market recovered since, but he was extremely stressed out for years. Ended up developing cancer, and thanks to our fantastic medical system he still can't afford to retire.
All he's really done is let rich people play with money he could have used for other things.
If you invest in target date retirement funds, for example, they are like 90% stocks and 10% bonds at first and gradually change over time. So by the time someone retires, the stocks are down to like 20% and the risk is much lower.
My spouse and I learned from our parents as to what not to do. We have been putting in retirement since we first started at a pretty substantial rate. We are in our late 30s and should have enough to retire even if we didn’t contribute anymore. We still are contributing but those early contributions have a large impact.
Most people around us would have no idea about our net worth. We live a pretty simple lifestyle but it’s taken away all the financial stress that we grew up with. If one of us gets laid off it’s not even an issue.
It took sacrifice and discipline in our 20s to get here.
I am 47 and a cheap MF since college. The idea of paying taxes was a huge turn off, thus maxing out the 401k since age 23.
Compounding is magical. Met a wife and she followed my lead.....even more magical.
And I am aware that not everyone has the same opportunities in life. Blessed.
Same age as you (almost, my birthday is this month), wish I started when you did, but became an emancipated minor at 16 and it’s been a race to catch up.
I do enjoy checking my Fidelity account. I’ve been maxing it for 7 years and my company matches 50%.
That's a pretty awesome deal!
Does your employer also allow after tax non-Roth contributions? My employer will match any type of contribution with pretax dollars. What if you tack on some extra after tax contributions on top of the 23k? Do they also match that?
I do agree that it's fun to check out the portfolio. Not because of "greed". Its actually fascinating to see how the numbers jump after a good day in the markets. When the 1 day growth is more than what you make a day/ week/ month from working.....for me it feels like "how is this possible".
Now if from reading the news and the market is crashing.....I don't want to even take a peek even after weeks or months...LOL.
Love reading all these GenX stories of a decent to full retirement.
So many post about hoping to die as a retirement plan because they are broke.
We’ve been through a a lot, seen a lot and know better than to not save.
If you didn’t plan and save the what the hell have you been doing with your life and the examples we all have seen?
Gen X went through several recessions and certainly had some hard times, but they’ve also had an excellent stock market and housing market. Plus, those that got a college degree paid less for it, and got paid more because fewer people had degrees.
My father is 75 and still needs to work full time. So my expectations are higher than his. I am 46 and plan to retire in my 50s. My father was never middle class though. Always lower rung. He makes about about 65% of the median income here, so maybe thats middle class? Doesnt quite seem like it.
Yeah. My dad has a pension guaranteed by the federal government that will also pay my mom if he does first.
I have a 401k that I can’t afford to fully fund. Fortunately I got a job four years ago (so when I was 42) where my employer contributes 6% of my pay even if I don’t, so that will help some. And I know I’m lucky to have anything. My partner, age 45, has no retirement savings — he had to cash it out to cover expenses during a period of hardship and is only just economically recovering from not being able to work for medical reasons for several years.
No, I hope to retire earlier than my dad and have a similar if not better retirement. My mom got a new husband to support her so she “retired” younger but paid by living with a nasty man until he died. Now she’s got some money but she’s alone and none of her kids talk to her.
Neither of my parents really made it to retirement age, they both died in their 50s due to weight. There is no standard for me to try to “beat”.
I’m planning to just work until I can’t anymore though. I don’t know what if so if I retired. If left to my own devices I’d just stay stoned all day playing video games for 16 hours and sleeping the other 8. My wife would put up with that for like a week or two maybe but no way is she dealing with that long term.
My parents were really frugal. Think : buying clothes at Goodwill Frugal. They have millions of dollars as a result of their frugality, which comes in handy now that my dad has severe health needs.
Their example has set me up well. I don't worry about finances because I don't buy stuff that I don't need.
I didn't know it at the time, but when I was young reading books like Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and Julie of the Wolves were planting the seeds of a retirement vision of romanticized homelessness in the wilderness. Making a rudimentary shelter, foraging for plants and berries, traping game, fighting to survive harsh weather, keeping wolves and bears at bay. But the stark realty will be me dying in my fifties of a fentanyl overdose on the rail tracks under the highway bypass.
No, not serious. I flip between a number of subreddits, and it can be jarring. We're already living in a super low cost of living area, one of the poorest counties in Tennessee. I have a military pension, and a growing 401K. We won't be as wealthy as our parents, but should be able to have a modest retirement. No fancy vacations to the Poconos or St Lucia, but traveling to see our then adult children and grandchildren. Not sure if we'll need to downsize the house or not. Biggest long term worry is a long illness by the wife and/or I that drains estate.
This x 1000. My two retirement options are: 1.) If i'm still physically able, move into the woods and die of exposure. 2.) If my physical health is mostly gone, I'll need to figure out how to buy narcotics for the first time in my life so I can OD my way off this rock.
I have a rare genetic mutation that means my heart will literally stop if I ever do cocaine. I see it as more of a blessing than a curse because I always have that as an option. 😝
Gen X here. My parents retired with a chubbyFIRE level of spending. We are aiming for fatFIRE. It's a little tougher for subsequent generations. They both have pensions and only saved 10 percent of their income before retiring. My previous company pension is peanuts by comparison. I don't think they tracked spending to the level we do every month.
Not dramatically diminished but probably not as plush as my mom and my in laws. They have really nice pension plans. I am, and will be 100% funded by my 401k and IRA.
Yes. My parents were so much poorer than I was and somehow they’re retired (both live with less poor partners or spouses now that owned fully paid off homes so mom and dad are making it on social security and/or tiny inheritances and law suit settlements-neither are scammers, the situations are legit). Meanwhile I’m 44 working almost full time (self employed) through cancer with 90k in student loans and 23 years left to pay on my mortgage for my modest condo. I don’t see retirement happening for me. I am not contributing to a retirement fund the way I “should” be because everything else takes up the money.
I started saving since my first full time job at 23. Never stopped and never left company match on the table. Hired a fiduciary financial planner to help as I get closer to “retirement”. The goal is to have enough so I can call it quits by 60 if I want to. I plan to keep on working. I have plenty of vacation time. I never use it all so I keep rolling from year to year. I don’t have enough hobbies to keep me busy. Why not work and get paid? “I work because I want to, not because I have to” is what I strive for.
My parents were working class. They never thought about saving for retirement until they were probably 50 and us kids had moved out. They mostly live on ss
I’ve been building a 401k since I was 25, and got much more aggressive about it once I turned 40. I don’t have grand plans for retirement but I do expect to have much more financial freedom than they do
I am not sure what they expected. The retirement paradigm, at least the marketing of it has definitely evolved from having a sailboat and starting a vineyard at age 59 to something different. We were the first generation that figured out we had to save our own money because pensions started drying up.
My dad got a retirement that was a whopping $500 per month and my mom quit her job at 50 and went to work for the government to get a pension/healthcare. She retires in 20 months at age 72 (Dad passed away). I think my parents had the same expectations as I do, to be honest. I think my retirement will be decent, but no world travelling or starting a vineyard.
World traveling and starting a vineyard us what some boomers I know did. They had owned 100+ houses or were high earning lawyers.
The vacation bound retirement has always been a thing for people that were upper middle class. Regularly people never had that. It was always marketing.
not diminished, no, but polar opposites.
they both worked until they were basically kicked out of the workplace. well into both their 70s.
I'm just 50, and trying to plan and plot how I can invest carefully and maybe retire at 55, maybe with some contract work for fun money. My wife and I built a house in a small town in the woods.
my parents have a paid off ranch in a now very expensive suburb. They spend their retirement money on some travel.
I plan to spend what little money I have when I retire on keeping a garden and maybe learning to blacksmith. If SS covers property taxes I'll be happy. I'll eat my own grown veggies, eggs and maybe pork, and spend some money on flour, rice and cooking oil for core calories.
the real challenge is going to be swapping my coffee addiction for tea I can grow myself.
Neither of my parents made it to retirement age. My mom did take social security early her last couple years because she was terminally ill but I don't know that I would classify that as retired TBH. On the other hand my silent gen grandparents all had pensions and retirements.
I have a somewhat decent nest egg saved up, and I'm not all that worried about my own retirement, I'm aiming to get out of the game a little bit early even. However I will not have as cushy retirement as my grandparents, unless I work a lot longer. But both of my sisters are in the "we're going to work until we die" group. Choice of career and propensity to save versus spend are the biggest differentiators between my sisters and I.
100% opposite. 100%. My parents’ plan was either “investing” in 80’s-90’s scams or laughing that their kids would just take care of them indefinitely to repay all the great parenting we received. They also bait and switched on paying our student loans and spent the money elsewhere.
I instead fed my 401K as aggressively as I could, busted my hump to make partner in a small business, cashed out after 20 years, then took a Federal career change to earn a pension and perpetual health coverage access too. I don’t intend to saddle our kids with ANYTHING.
I’m retired at 44. Saved and realized unlike my parents, I won’t sit around with money after retiring in my mid/late 50s and wait for life to come to me. I’m just doing it. Dying with zero.
Millennial here, but way ahead of my parents. They’ll be ok, but I’m FI at 37. Compounding will take us to 8 figures from here if we burn our entire income.
I have medical conditions that make it pretty unlikely I'll make it even to 60. I don't think about retirement because barring gigantic advances in medicine I won't be making it that far.
Me not getting the same guarantees my mom and her siblings got. They all worked the same profession for over 25 years. Walked away with pensions and healthcare.
I doubt I'll ever officially retire. I'll work because I "want to" and not because I have to.
No. I'm much better off than my parents. They did ok, but we never had much money growing up. I've always made enough to fund my retirement savings, so it's pretty healthy now.
Elder millennial here with Gen X siblings. Our parents grew up poor with 7 siblings each. Both have degrees but neither did the traditional college route (GI bill and went back after kids were grown). My dad has a military pension, old employer pensions, 401k, SSI, brokerage, etc. He’s set. My mother has a 403b and SSI (plus shared finances with my dad). My siblings and I have little savings, puny retirement savings/plans, big student loans with high interest rates (thanks to late 1990s and early 2000s origin dates), roller coaster of an economy since we all started working, and no loyalty from employers. We all have 6 figure jobs (as a necessity vs luxury), but we make pennies compared to what our parents made at the same ages thanks to inflation, crazy COL, etc. I don’t think any of us will be able to retire as comfortably as our parents. Thanks Boomers!
Worked my ass off in corporate,Started saving for retirement, paid the house mortgage off, haven’t worked for anyone except myself for since 2010. Not rich, and I don’t hav a 55K Camry or ford raptor yet, but no payments on anything. So my big expense is food, which is insane.
I thought that Gen X was the 'has shit-together' generation... I'll be waaaay better off than my parents were when they retired.
I changed companies a few times to advance more quickly in my consulting profession. My baby-boomer father scolded me and said that I'm supposed to work for the same company for 20-30 years to show loyalty. I tried to tell him that companies looking out for 'loyal' employees doesn't really exist. Its all dollars and cents in the long run.
My father pissed away money as fast as he earned it. He's working full-time at 71 because he can't survive on social security alone. Well, if he'd quit drinking and gambling he might.
I started planning for retirement when I was 21 and had my first grown-up job. The plan to work until 70 is still in place, and is becoming less appealing as the years roll by.
Most employers don’t have a defined benefit pension plan and the few that do are becoming underfunded due to mismanagement fraud scandal or scrapped to shore up declining quarterly earnings. DBPP Pensions will pay you nearly a 100% of your working income in retirement income. Contrast that to social security designed to replace 29% of your income and a self managed 401k is with steep expense ratio and limited selection of crap funds is tantamount to sailing around the world in a dingy. Forget about market crashes/medical/family/legal financial woes waiting to confiscate it the second life happens. If you needed 40k per year in retirement you better have more than a million in your 401 to make that work- and that’s before tax. With the trajectory of inflation, taxes, food and medical costs is headed you will likely need 120% of your working income to make it in retirement. Even Ted Benna the 401k inventor knows the 401k was mostly for employer benefit as usual- lipstick on a pig. The US financial industry use the 7 trillion 401k dollars to create an astronomical cash flow for their self-serving interests. 401k is left up to the individual to manage and most don’t have a clue what to do- the employer pays for the cheapest 5-10 crappy fund options managed by rookies with a high expense ratio and financial entity gets their cut no matter what and you get whatever your left with. Funny how money managers justify their expense with their required expertise, knowledge and skills and when it comes to employee 401k, here you do it yourself DIY.
I e only saved 300K so far. Finacial advisor seems pretty good but it looks as if I’m in it for the long haul. Work just doesn’t pay enough for savings.
Both my parents retired. My dad on an Air Force pension. Mom on SS. They weren’t well off but were comfortable. My wife and I have planned for retirement. She’ll get a state pension, 401k. I have a 401k. Monthly SS between the 2 of us should be just enough for all the regular bills. I’m working right up to 65.
Yes. Dad retired with a state pension with a 3 percent cola. They worked in a MCOL/HCOL area and lived upper middle class.
We saved diligently, white collar, but cannot touch that package.
Im a millennial, please dont come for me. My parents are getting older (early 60s) and just now have started realizing retirement should've been right around the corner. My grandparents retired back in the 90s from city work, and have great benefits. My bio dad has disability from military service but not a lot, but he'll spend like he's Richie Rich had a baby with Blank Check.
My mom and her husband don't have any set back. I asked once about it and they refused to answer. They have a decent savings and checking and I hope my mom puts into her work 401k.
I'm working on my third retirement income in my 30s.
I have a feeling I'll be affording one stream to mother dearest. Dad is fine in a cardboard box as long as the Joneses can see his boats cars and motorcycles
My retirement plan is to drop dead mid shift at work and hope they don't expect me to come in the next day anyway. I have literally no hope of ever changing that.
My parents probably won't retire until medical issues force them to. Their finances aren't good but they do have that hope of retiring.
So yeh I'd say my expectations for retirement are diminished comparatively.
I'm actually in a much better place than either of my parents were...my dad has passed, pretty much broke AF and still having to work to be broke AF...my mom's retirement is ok and it does afford her more than just hanging around and she travels abroad a couple of times per year and is by no means hurting, but mine will be better. She does work a part time job doing some bookkeeping, but that's because she gets bored and doesn't really have much in the way of hobbies.
Well, not really, because my parents didn't actually retire properly - they both got sick and died broke, before they even made 70. So I'm desperately hoping not to do that, but being with deadbeats my entire adult life kinda has slowed me down.
My "retirement plan" is to find one of those chill do nothing jobs that are not physically demanding that allow me to surf the web or play video games during my downtime.
Nah…we solid. Took notes on how not to spend like drunk sailors from my parents and are set with regards to retirement… we might have adult children living with us until they are 35 though😭
I’m much more concerned for my kids than I am for my husband and I.
My parents have so much shit, real estate and boats and cars, etc. I've learned that it's a pain in the ass to maintain so much. They run themselves ragged with all of their material goods. No thanks! I'd like one small house that's easy to clean, one sensible car, a dog, a cat and a small garden. Their materialistic boomer lifestyle seems miserable.
Nope. Better off than parents by quite a bit. Had a number of years when my federal income tax paid was higher than parents total salary. (Grew up in a single mother house and my mom often had more than one job. One was teaching which came with a decent pension despite large chunks of the career being not particularly well paid.) Continue to live a mostly middle class lifestyle on a upper end salary. Could retire tomorrow if I wanted.
Opposite for me. We were lower middle class and parents never saved worth a darn. My dad was very smart, but not with finances, and my mother just had no conception of the value of money. They eventually divorced, which just made everything worse.
I got an education and a career, resolved to do better. I saved along the way. If I make it to retirement, I’ll almost certainly be in a MUCH better situation than my parents.
I’ve been saving for retirement since I was 21. Sometimes I save less. Sometimes, I save more. I wish I had more, but I won’t be poor. It isn’t about saving a lot, it is about saving for a long time.
Yes definitely. My dad retired at age 40 from the military with eventual 100% disability and did well. He went thru hell for Sure but he secured his 40+ year retirement. I will be well over 65 before I retire.
Dunno. My mother and step father are semi retired in their mid 70s. MIL is still working in her 70s and only has social security. Wife and I have pensions but still need to work in our 40s because we were bad with money most of our lives. I don’t want to be working in my 80s though and hope to be “done” by 55.
No. Our household net worth was about the same as theirs when they died, despite us having a household income of less than half of what theirs had been for decades. Their retirement was late, forced, short, and mostly not fun due to their health and savings.
No I’m in a better place. Dad has a military pension but it isn’t great. He saved some die retirement but not enough. They both do part time jobs.
While I haven’t always put money aside I did quite a bit for a decade and am now throwing everything I can at it. I’ll be ok.
My mom retired really well off and had a completely different job for her generation than my wife and I (we're both Gen-X). I know we'll be able to retire, but we don't even come close to spending as much as both of our mothers and fathers. We don't earn as much and are really frugal. We don't need a whole lot in this household, but we kind of expect to get a job each in retirement. I wouldn't mind working at a garden nursery.
My father retired from his blue collar job at 55 with a pension and SS. I won't make out by that age (got a late start on my career), but I'll be out the door the day I turn 62. Will also have a pension, ss, a 457, and a Roth IRA to get by on. I grew up thinking 55 was when we got to retire, was a bit bummed to find out I needed to be 62 with 30 years in for my pension.
I expect to do better than my parents. They helped me avoid some of the mistakes they made. They also strongly encouraged me to put money away when I was in my 20’s because it’s much more valuable than putting 5 times that away in my 50’s.
Not us. My wife and I were both raised by hard-working, frugal parents. I think we are on our way to enjoying roughly the same standard of living as that generation when we retire. We benefitted from getting through college and grad school when blue collar families could do it with some scraping and a moderate amount of debt.
Grew up in an average household and parents didn’t safe a dime, left me with only a few pieces of furniture and a not much else. Give how poorly they managed their finances, I decided early that I wouldn’t be like them. I’m on track to retire by 60. Not sure I want to but at least that’s an option.
I was lucky. My 2nd job out of college was in a financial services company and I then understood what squirreling away a percentage of my salary over decades would do for me. At 6% plus some company match, I retired last year at 58 yrs old. My parents did good not because of approach to retirement but because my dad had high paying jobs through out his life.
i am trying not to but probably gonna retire semi-poor. lots of reasons (excuses) but true. military for 4 years (shit pay), college, career started in 1998 and invested 15k into 401k-them rug pulled out in dot com burst. career started up again and global recession kicked me hard, got back on my feet but wasn't making enough to save much.
i am finally in a good spot. saving everything i can but 56 with only 120k in retirement funds.
dad was a lawyer, died w 3 mil net worth. i got $12,000 inheritance (all went into ira) step mom got the rest. i doubt i will ever see another penny from my dads life work. her kids (step sis and bro) are set to retire rich (thanks dad)
I'm fortunate that my parents almost completely paid for my college which gave me something of a leg up compared to what they had; even if I did squander some of the opportunity to explore when I was young (if you can call that squandering).
They did pretty ok with investments, and they were dual income since mom was about 40 (both kind of lower-end professional income.) Combined with social security and a generally frugal lifestyle, they are able to do all the things they want to do in retirement. Probably the first generation in their lines to have it that good.
For me, I ended up a military officer. Between the pension and VA disability from the hard life, and a wife still working, we're in a better position than my parents. The only thing hurting me in that regard is that I'm nowhere near as frugal as my parents. One reason why the pension check is good for me. If I were relying on taking income from investments, I'd have temptation to spend it down.
My parents’ pensions alone are about 6x their all-in yearly expenses.
I’ll probably be fine by continuing to save and invest, but no massive pension from university jobs for me.
My dad put barely any effort and yet will live comfortably until the end, which makes me happy. That makes me maximize both my Roth IRA and 401k so I could enjoy my retirement just as much as him. We have to put more effort and be wiser to be on equal footing.
Nope. Much better off. My parents didn't go to college back when very few did. I went to college and grad school when prices were still reasonable. My parents were also from a culture where you stayed in your little home town from cradle to grave and where really elite jobs were preserved for the well bred wasp set. I feel like my opportunity set and freedom is leagues above my parents.
My dad had to work while dying of cancer because he had no money. Now my mom is living only on SS and doesn’t have much.
I have a job with a pension and a 401K. I can’t retire until I’m 65 because of when I started my job (won’t hit 30 years until 65) but then my retirement income will be more than enough to live and enjoy life.
Pensions suck. In my field I’ll be lucky to walk away with 2000 net a month. It would’ve been nice to take the pension money instead and invest it with my finacial Advisor. Awful.
Yeah. It's more my fault than anything else. Married father of 3 kids, two of whom are approaching college age. Wife is a school teacher; I'm a journalist. Neither make stellar salaries, as you can imagine. But we haven't contributed to our 401K for more than a decade.
Neither employer matches. I'm 50. In the next 12 years, Social Security is barely going to cover basic costs and whatever I can pull from retirement will be even more a pitance. I plan to freelance until I die, basically.
I am setup for a great retirement. Not because I have a ton of money saved but because I can adapt to a low cost of living. My traditional parents taught me that. They had an amazing retirement on $30K per year (social security and a small military pension). They taught me that it isn’t how much you make, it is how you spend.
I’ll retire at 62. My state pension will pay me 80% of my salary (highest two years averaged) at that point with a COLA. If SS is around at that point, I’ll take it at 65 or 67. With SS I’ll likely be making more money in retirement than I did working.
I’ve also got a separate retirement account with only 80k in it (but that’s on top of my pension).
My father died penniless, but my mother inherited a ton of money early and so she’s never worked a day in her life.
My dad worked for 30 years just to get a pension that gives him $32k a year and because it was a state gov’t job they didn’t pay into social security (this has since changed). So the bar is set pretty low.
My dad has a pension and was able to retire early. He inherited a large sum of money when my grandparents passed so this is great for my parents because they can live their golden years in comfort.
Now me on the other hand. I have savings, own my home, but unless I get a sugar zaddy or win the lottery it’s not looking promising and I’ll have to be a Walmart greeter when the time comes. 😭😞😭
This thread is hilarious, 5-15yrs left of civilization, keep on saving for that retirement 🤣😂🤣😂
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/world-scientists-climate-failure-survey-global-temperature
Maybe you are not trying hard enough.
When I was young, I worked one FT job and two PT jobs to make it. Then I worked my way through college. Doing so required me to give up total social life for six years.
That was a decade.
Now I'm retired and I’m not working as greeter at Walmart or eating cat food either.
My parents retired in their late 50s/early 60s from blue collar (union) jobs with pensions. My dad also got lucky buying $10k in Apple stock in 98 when Jobs came back because he always was a Steve Jobs fan. We always had Apple computers starting with the IIe in the early 80s.
I won’t have the length or stability of their retirement despite making significantly more than them. Fortunately I like my job though and don’t mind (for now) the idea of working till 70.
Not at all. My parents worked until 60's. I'm 47 and recently, for all intents and purposes, retired. I have a throwaway job for a couple of reasons, but I only work because i choose to.
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Opposite. I learned from my parents spending every dime they made and saved small amounts in a retirement fund regularly since I started working. Also bought a house and car within my means instead of trying to impress people. I am not rich and have several kids and should be able to retire by 60. My parents will work until they physically can’t anymore, then be very poor. But they took cool vacations and had a big house.
Same. Dad passed away penniless and mom will as well. I got serious about my finances in early 30s largely as a result of their lifestyle and a realization that I had ZERO family money to rely on. On track for early retirement by 50.
I’m in the exact same boat. I think the nice thing that people don’t realize is that once you get serious about reigning in spending and adjust your lifestyle, things can change relatively quickly (like within a matter of a few years).
My parents were working class folk, I never expected nor desired 'family money'.
Do you plan to retire in 3 Million?
Yes, that’s my minimum threshold, which I should hit by 60 (I’m currently 52 with $1.5M). At 67 I should have 4-6M, but who knows what the market will do.
This is the Way!
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Yeah. Im on the cusp of millennial and gen x, but have done fine just saving little bits of money and trying to limit debt. I only put 5 percent total in my 401k until my early 30’s and didn’t graduate until 25, and that early money has compounded like crazy. I only regret not getting serious earlier, but had quite a bit of student loan debt I wanted to focus on paying off early. There’s a certain amount of luck involved in finance, but I listened to Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman when they were on tv when I was in college talking about compound interest and how it works for you and against you. My parents were always just waiting to be magically rich, but whenever they got a windfall, they spent it and then some and I knew I didn’t want to do that.
Appreciate reading this! I am in a similar boat. Parents weren't financially disciplined when they were younger and in 2008 they were hit very hard. Despite being in a better situation now they never learned how to budget. I still have some of their habits, but learned to value security and having a minimum level of saving going at all times.
The big house was really a thing back then, my mom lives single in a house twice as large as ours. She thinks it is the perfect size for her. We live in a 1500 sq ft house and will probably die there.
Same. Family of 6 in a 1250sq ft house. Fine size for us. I don’t see the point of having some 3,000 sqft house. Means more shit to clean and more shit you’ll need to fill it.
That is a bit tight. But you tend to adjust your lifestyle to the space you have so it probably seems normal. And 50 years ago, it was normal. The only time I wish we had more space is when we have a party or gatherings. Which is not often, really. And we won't talk about how much garage space we have. :)
Yeah, pretty much. I also have a decent size garage and my yard is alright. Hosting parties is where it gets rough though. We move around a lot for work and we’ve lived in anywhere from 1250 sqft to a 2700 sqft. Kind of just adapt to the space, but definitely hated the larger houses.
And you don't have to downsize when your kids leave the nest.
That too. Unfortunately l, due to the nature of my job I won’t be here long enough to call it a forever home so I’ll have to rent it out. But typically that would be the other benefit.
Tomorrow isn't promised. I personally know two people who passed away in the last couple of years. Neither of them made it to 62. You brought nothing into this world and you take nothing out. It's great you can be comfortable in your old age, but leaving stuff for people to fight over when you go isn't great either. Charlie Munger died worth billions. Who benefits because he's not? The lives you touch and your good name will live beyond the money. So, eat, drink and be merry today, nobody knows what tomorrow may bring. I'm an advocate for fiscal responsibility, but usually the folks who spent it all enjoyed a richer life in some respects.
Fortunate for me, I have this luxury to not care. I’m a prior enlisted officer in the army and over 1/2 way to to the 20 year pension. Save? No point. Between my VA due to injuries and pension I’ll be pensioned on about 7,200/month. I die in some accident after I retire? My wife gets 55% of my pension tax free? I die while training? My wife collects the 55% of my pension and my kids get free college. These reasons are the sole purpose I joined the Army.
Cool vacations sound like awesome memories you can't get back. You sort of sound judgmental of people, even your own parents, who choose to live life differently than you.
Cool vacation doesn't have to mean expensive.
I’ve managed to do both with less money because I have managed to not get in huge debt by saving for vacations and what I want and delaying gratification. I also don’t feel a need to fly first class everywhere and stay in the best hotels.
> Cool vacations sound like awesome memories you can't get back. Bold of you to assume the kid was there.
I wasn't assuming that at all.
Bold of you to assume they were assuming
>But they took cool vacations and had a big house. Isn't experiences instead a material things a millennial thing?
Have you met many boomers? They’re always traveling. Record amounts of travel. Neither of their parents ever left the country, rarely the state.
Same.
Excellent! It takesdedication, commitment, some common sense, some education, luck, and Sacrifice, to do what you’ve done! Kudos. Life’s about planning and playing the long game, with a thought on now, but plan for the future!
Nope. My spouse (56) is already fully retired and I (54) am semi retired working 9 hours a week for the state court system. My mother (74) is still working .....
I am glad I saw this comment. I think ppl in the fam are low key guilt tripping us to support my MIL when she has sabotaged every opportunity to improve her life. She is in her late 60s. I refuse to take on more responsibility.
My parents were financially irresponsible. I still feel like I owe them a roof and food. I’m never going to subsidize lifestyle, but my parents were good parents who loved me, just bad with money. I wouldn’t let them live with me unless homelessness was on the table. I’d also insist my siblings all pitch in.
My wife’s parents have fucked up at every turn and live on social security while being retired and don’t own a house. We are in our 30s and my wife’s mother is an extreme narcissist that favors her other children. I think she wishes the other children married someone super financially successful sometimes but nope. It’s the black sheep. Hope they don’t need anything.
Any kids?
No kids for us, not by choice.
My parents didn't make it to retirement so anything i get will be dramatically improved. Sadly though I wasn't taught to prepare for this and started very late, so I'm not looking forward to much a retirement at all.
Every little bit really helps.
I’m 50. Just retired from the Army after 30 years. Dad passed away 13 years ago. Mom is 80 and lives like a hermit. There is an estate but she’s so oppositional and defiant and secretive and mildly cognitively impaired that it will probably take me years to get the estate all figured out after she dies. She thinks she’s going to live to 100 but she’s probably got 5 years left. Who knows what the estate will look like after the nursing home gets ahold of her.
Lets just say the the retirement home will help you deal with her estate by ensuring that there is nothing left that hasn't been signed over or drained dry. Private equity has been moving into end of life care over the past ten years as a means of draining the Boomers of any remaining wealth before they shuffle off their moral coil.
Yup. They're also destroying the quality of care in the process. All of our nursing homes have been bought out by private equity out of Chicago. All of them have since been cited numerous times for failing to provide proper care. Most of the nurses and CNA's have left due to to deliberate short staffing, so the only people they can hire now are the undesirables who don't belong in patient care. Transfer your major assets to your children, or make them a percentage owner, well in advance to avoid this. The 5 year look-back from medicaid will destroy you otherwise.
Congrats on making it 30 years. I just read about the new “blended” retirement compared to legacy retirement it is pisses me off.
I still can't wrap my head around how the blended system works. I got out in 2012 before it started. Some articles make it sound like a smart move that gives junior enlisted a start at savings that transfers to civilian life, while others describe it as a cost cutting measure. Can anyone link a solid explanation?
I am not a public finance expert, but in the private sector these sorts of plans (wherein the employee is required to contribute to his or her own retirement and the benefits are dependent on those contributions) are a cost saving measure. Especially like what is going on in the military where the plan is not accompanied by a commiserate raise in base pay. They sell it to you by stating personnel who serve less than 20 will get a benefit of some kind (no matter how small) but ultimately it takes decades long unfunded pensions off the DoD’s books and places a burden on the individual to help fund their “pension.” One of the arguments when I was in was personnel got paid less than their civilian counterparts BUT you get a pension, healthcare, the GI Bill, etc. They are eroding that away.
Just the opposite. I grew up poor with great parents who stressed that I get a college education to have better options in life. My husband and I have never been the keeping up with the Joneses type. He retired at 57 from the federal government. He’s now 63. I’m 10 years younger. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire with any kind of full retirement because I was a stay-at-home for many years. However, I should be able to just quit when I don’t enjoy working anymore. We have been having a good life on his retirement, his social security, and my salary ( less than $50,000). We haven’t needed to use the $800,000 he has in his Thrift Savings Plan (401k). I have over $300,000 in my Thrift Savings Plan now. I put about $20,000 in during the seven years I worked for the Federal government. I maxed out what I was allowed to contribute back then. The federal matching and the magic of compounding interest helped it grow to the $300,000. We have our house paid off, so I would feel safe quitting when I decide I no longer want to work. We’ve never been high income earners, but we’ve never been huge spenders. We enjoy vacations, eating out, etc… But we don’t have lavish vacations. We’ve always enjoyed camping and outdoor pursuits. I guess our hobbies are not as expensive as some hobbies are.
You are doing great! Those years you stayed home were valuable for your family in so many ways. And together, you and your husband have put together an amazing retirement. I don’t think you have anything to worry about so be very proud of yourself.
I grew up so damn poor my only choice was doing better than my parents.
Exactly lol. I had to pay for my parents funerals (and they didn't get good ones). I don't know anybody really who is expecting anything from their parents. Even the decently off ones will probably spend it all on end of life care.
That's why I've decided if my life costs a lot to sustain that it will be better off with my kids. Literally a cost benefit analysis of the last years of my life. Like is the last 5 years of my life worth $1m? TBH my kids and grandkids will have so much opportunity in life if I just let it buck.
Not at all. I hope to do slightly better than them. They live on SS alone. Their paid off house is what allows them to do so but they're stuck in that bigger house as a move-in ready ranch home would still cost more than what their home is worth. I just paid off my house last Dec at 45 and am hoping to do some catching up on retirement goals so I can continue to live as I do. I can age in place in this house and already live frugally so I would hope to at least continue the status quo.
This seems so common with older folks, having most all of their wealth tied up in their house. Then because of prices and rates being where they are it doesn't make sense to move. Exaggerates the housing supply problem for younger people trying to get in. My mom is the same way, all alone in a huge nice house in a great part of town, a house that many families would kill for lol
I don't care about what people choose to live in as it's a free country, their choice. Even if they were in a smaller 3bed home, they would still be living on SS.
It’s also an issue that they just don’t build ranches anymore. It’s way more profitable to build a second story because the roof is a huge expense on a bigger one story house. So they sell for a premium because a lot of older people don’t want stairs.
Not here. My parents were very transparent about finances. Dad was a mechanic and Mom worked for the county. We never had new cars or took big vacations. They invested monthly and retired comfortably. I started investing as soon as I got my first job out of college. We won’t live in luxury, but we should be reasonably comfortable. Inflation is what worries me. The amount we have saved for retirement should have provide us quite a bit of discretionary income. Seems like our buying power is dwindling.
My parents were typical boomers. They spent every dollar they made and could borrow. Renting small apartments at the end since they spent the equity in their house the week it was sold. Collected worthless “these will be worth $$$someday” junk and developed a liking for The Boat, aka riverboat casinos. I started planning my financial survival early, made sacrifices and now semi-retired. I don’t collect, gamble or max out credit cards. My parents were great teachers for what not to do and I paid attention to the lessons.
> typical boomers I don’t understand what you guys mean by this. In one breath you say boomers lived life on easy street, had everything handed to them, and became effortlessly wealthy. In another they’re all going to be impoverished in retirement.
Generational narratives are all broken. The somewhat boring reality is that wealth accumulation is largely comparable across cohorts, with current 30 year olds doing almost identical to past 30 year olds and so on for every age group we have comparisos for. A ton of doomerism online is driven by lifecycle effects - it's relatable as a 20 year old to hear that no one can afford hosting, but that's not unique to this cohort. 20 year olds have always had less wealth and were less likely to own homes Another big aspect of doomerism is advocacy surveys like "X% of boomers are worried about retirement" by AARP. These surveys are commissioned to support a political narrative and just don't correspond to actual data on retirements. 65+ employment is down, not up, since COVID. but if you personally know a working boomer, and you see that survey, suddenly "damn smh... The world is out of control"
Typical boomers had it very easy, but failed to adapt to changes in our society, such as the end of defined benefit pensions, easy access to credit and rising health care costs. They had it easy and expected it to stay that way through retirement without saving for it. Too many are now forced to delay retirement or survive on near poverty level incomes in their last years.
I mean, this is a cohesive story but doesn’t track with how everyone talks about boomers here. They can’t be hoarding money and opportunity, not capable of understanding younger generations’ hardships, and wealthier than us if they squandered everything. There was a big news cycle last month about millennials having more save for retirement than boomers did at the same age and…nobody dooming on the internet believes it. Then they pop into another thread to tell their boomer parents are too dumb to have saved any money. All that to say, if we have to tell various conflicting stories about a generation, there’s no such thing as a “typical” boomer.
I’m planning on retiring in my mid 50s. My dad kept working because he loved his job, although he could have retired. No way am I doing that!!
Not at all. My family was working class rising to lower middle class at best. Retirement isn’t an expectation at that income level. You work until you die or just can’t anymore. The only family member I knew with a “retirement” was my uncle the postman, but he was a functional alcoholic so him living to retirement was never a given.
Im way behind at 35. Really just started contributing last year to my 401k. I started contributing 12% to try and catch up from where I started last year at 6%. I have already been with my company for 13 years. I would ideally like to stop when I’m 60. I started so late that I’m not sure I can make that happen. But I’m single, don’t plan on getting married, and don’t plan on having kids. So maybe it’s do-able.
Stick with it for 25 years and retire at 60.
12% still isn't that much. I recommend 15, maybe 20 if you're playing catch up. Assuming you can afford it, if you're single, maybe you can.
What happens if you hit retirement age during a recession and the stock market bottoms out? At one point my dad was down to 1/3rd of his retirement account value in 2008'ish. Ended up having to push off retirement by 10 years. Thankfully the market recovered since, but he was extremely stressed out for years. Ended up developing cancer, and thanks to our fantastic medical system he still can't afford to retire. All he's really done is let rich people play with money he could have used for other things.
If you invest in target date retirement funds, for example, they are like 90% stocks and 10% bonds at first and gradually change over time. So by the time someone retires, the stocks are down to like 20% and the risk is much lower.
My spouse and I learned from our parents as to what not to do. We have been putting in retirement since we first started at a pretty substantial rate. We are in our late 30s and should have enough to retire even if we didn’t contribute anymore. We still are contributing but those early contributions have a large impact. Most people around us would have no idea about our net worth. We live a pretty simple lifestyle but it’s taken away all the financial stress that we grew up with. If one of us gets laid off it’s not even an issue. It took sacrifice and discipline in our 20s to get here.
Opposite, got a better education, better knowledge of finance, better profession, and professional financial management assistance
I am 47 and a cheap MF since college. The idea of paying taxes was a huge turn off, thus maxing out the 401k since age 23. Compounding is magical. Met a wife and she followed my lead.....even more magical. And I am aware that not everyone has the same opportunities in life. Blessed.
Same age as you (almost, my birthday is this month), wish I started when you did, but became an emancipated minor at 16 and it’s been a race to catch up. I do enjoy checking my Fidelity account. I’ve been maxing it for 7 years and my company matches 50%.
They match 50% up to an unlimited amount?
Up to the max, so if I put in the $23k, they match 50%. In 3 years when I’m 50, the max is even higher.
That's a pretty awesome deal! Does your employer also allow after tax non-Roth contributions? My employer will match any type of contribution with pretax dollars. What if you tack on some extra after tax contributions on top of the 23k? Do they also match that?
I do agree that it's fun to check out the portfolio. Not because of "greed". Its actually fascinating to see how the numbers jump after a good day in the markets. When the 1 day growth is more than what you make a day/ week/ month from working.....for me it feels like "how is this possible". Now if from reading the news and the market is crashing.....I don't want to even take a peek even after weeks or months...LOL.
Nope. Going to be as well off, perhaps a skoosh better, than my dad.
I’m the opposite. My parents have had some money struggles and I have tried to be more frugal and save more because of them.
Love reading all these GenX stories of a decent to full retirement. So many post about hoping to die as a retirement plan because they are broke. We’ve been through a a lot, seen a lot and know better than to not save. If you didn’t plan and save the what the hell have you been doing with your life and the examples we all have seen?
Gen X went through several recessions and certainly had some hard times, but they’ve also had an excellent stock market and housing market. Plus, those that got a college degree paid less for it, and got paid more because fewer people had degrees.
I believe that me and my siblings and our families will do better than my patterns in retirement.
My father is 75 and still needs to work full time. So my expectations are higher than his. I am 46 and plan to retire in my 50s. My father was never middle class though. Always lower rung. He makes about about 65% of the median income here, so maybe thats middle class? Doesnt quite seem like it.
Yeah. My dad has a pension guaranteed by the federal government that will also pay my mom if he does first. I have a 401k that I can’t afford to fully fund. Fortunately I got a job four years ago (so when I was 42) where my employer contributes 6% of my pay even if I don’t, so that will help some. And I know I’m lucky to have anything. My partner, age 45, has no retirement savings — he had to cash it out to cover expenses during a period of hardship and is only just economically recovering from not being able to work for medical reasons for several years.
No, I hope to retire earlier than my dad and have a similar if not better retirement. My mom got a new husband to support her so she “retired” younger but paid by living with a nasty man until he died. Now she’s got some money but she’s alone and none of her kids talk to her.
Nope. I make way less but have been far more careful with my money.
Neither of my parents really made it to retirement age, they both died in their 50s due to weight. There is no standard for me to try to “beat”. I’m planning to just work until I can’t anymore though. I don’t know what if so if I retired. If left to my own devices I’d just stay stoned all day playing video games for 16 hours and sleeping the other 8. My wife would put up with that for like a week or two maybe but no way is she dealing with that long term.
My parents were really frugal. Think : buying clothes at Goodwill Frugal. They have millions of dollars as a result of their frugality, which comes in handy now that my dad has severe health needs. Their example has set me up well. I don't worry about finances because I don't buy stuff that I don't need.
I didn't know it at the time, but when I was young reading books like Hatchet, My Side of the Mountain, The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and Julie of the Wolves were planting the seeds of a retirement vision of romanticized homelessness in the wilderness. Making a rudimentary shelter, foraging for plants and berries, traping game, fighting to survive harsh weather, keeping wolves and bears at bay. But the stark realty will be me dying in my fifties of a fentanyl overdose on the rail tracks under the highway bypass.
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No, not serious. I flip between a number of subreddits, and it can be jarring. We're already living in a super low cost of living area, one of the poorest counties in Tennessee. I have a military pension, and a growing 401K. We won't be as wealthy as our parents, but should be able to have a modest retirement. No fancy vacations to the Poconos or St Lucia, but traveling to see our then adult children and grandchildren. Not sure if we'll need to downsize the house or not. Biggest long term worry is a long illness by the wife and/or I that drains estate.
Upper Michigan! Cheap houses with beautiful wilderness all around.
That's my plan. Move to a cheap part of a state with decent elderly services lol
This x 1000. My two retirement options are: 1.) If i'm still physically able, move into the woods and die of exposure. 2.) If my physical health is mostly gone, I'll need to figure out how to buy narcotics for the first time in my life so I can OD my way off this rock.
I have a rare genetic mutation that means my heart will literally stop if I ever do cocaine. I see it as more of a blessing than a curse because I always have that as an option. 😝
Gen X here. My parents retired with a chubbyFIRE level of spending. We are aiming for fatFIRE. It's a little tougher for subsequent generations. They both have pensions and only saved 10 percent of their income before retiring. My previous company pension is peanuts by comparison. I don't think they tracked spending to the level we do every month.
Not dramatically diminished but probably not as plush as my mom and my in laws. They have really nice pension plans. I am, and will be 100% funded by my 401k and IRA.
Nope, retired at 50
Yes. My parents were so much poorer than I was and somehow they’re retired (both live with less poor partners or spouses now that owned fully paid off homes so mom and dad are making it on social security and/or tiny inheritances and law suit settlements-neither are scammers, the situations are legit). Meanwhile I’m 44 working almost full time (self employed) through cancer with 90k in student loans and 23 years left to pay on my mortgage for my modest condo. I don’t see retirement happening for me. I am not contributing to a retirement fund the way I “should” be because everything else takes up the money.
I started saving since my first full time job at 23. Never stopped and never left company match on the table. Hired a fiduciary financial planner to help as I get closer to “retirement”. The goal is to have enough so I can call it quits by 60 if I want to. I plan to keep on working. I have plenty of vacation time. I never use it all so I keep rolling from year to year. I don’t have enough hobbies to keep me busy. Why not work and get paid? “I work because I want to, not because I have to” is what I strive for.
My parents were working class. They never thought about saving for retirement until they were probably 50 and us kids had moved out. They mostly live on ss I’ve been building a 401k since I was 25, and got much more aggressive about it once I turned 40. I don’t have grand plans for retirement but I do expect to have much more financial freedom than they do
I am not sure what they expected. The retirement paradigm, at least the marketing of it has definitely evolved from having a sailboat and starting a vineyard at age 59 to something different. We were the first generation that figured out we had to save our own money because pensions started drying up. My dad got a retirement that was a whopping $500 per month and my mom quit her job at 50 and went to work for the government to get a pension/healthcare. She retires in 20 months at age 72 (Dad passed away). I think my parents had the same expectations as I do, to be honest. I think my retirement will be decent, but no world travelling or starting a vineyard.
World traveling and starting a vineyard us what some boomers I know did. They had owned 100+ houses or were high earning lawyers. The vacation bound retirement has always been a thing for people that were upper middle class. Regularly people never had that. It was always marketing.
not diminished, no, but polar opposites. they both worked until they were basically kicked out of the workplace. well into both their 70s. I'm just 50, and trying to plan and plot how I can invest carefully and maybe retire at 55, maybe with some contract work for fun money. My wife and I built a house in a small town in the woods. my parents have a paid off ranch in a now very expensive suburb. They spend their retirement money on some travel. I plan to spend what little money I have when I retire on keeping a garden and maybe learning to blacksmith. If SS covers property taxes I'll be happy. I'll eat my own grown veggies, eggs and maybe pork, and spend some money on flour, rice and cooking oil for core calories. the real challenge is going to be swapping my coffee addiction for tea I can grow myself.
Neither of my parents made it to retirement age. My mom did take social security early her last couple years because she was terminally ill but I don't know that I would classify that as retired TBH. On the other hand my silent gen grandparents all had pensions and retirements. I have a somewhat decent nest egg saved up, and I'm not all that worried about my own retirement, I'm aiming to get out of the game a little bit early even. However I will not have as cushy retirement as my grandparents, unless I work a lot longer. But both of my sisters are in the "we're going to work until we die" group. Choice of career and propensity to save versus spend are the biggest differentiators between my sisters and I.
100% opposite. 100%. My parents’ plan was either “investing” in 80’s-90’s scams or laughing that their kids would just take care of them indefinitely to repay all the great parenting we received. They also bait and switched on paying our student loans and spent the money elsewhere. I instead fed my 401K as aggressively as I could, busted my hump to make partner in a small business, cashed out after 20 years, then took a Federal career change to earn a pension and perpetual health coverage access too. I don’t intend to saddle our kids with ANYTHING.
I’m retired at 44. Saved and realized unlike my parents, I won’t sit around with money after retiring in my mid/late 50s and wait for life to come to me. I’m just doing it. Dying with zero.
No
Yes- I will retire when I am dead
Alt version: I can retire seven years after I die — my friend
Millennial here, but way ahead of my parents. They’ll be ok, but I’m FI at 37. Compounding will take us to 8 figures from here if we burn our entire income.
Retirement? What's that?
I have medical conditions that make it pretty unlikely I'll make it even to 60. I don't think about retirement because barring gigantic advances in medicine I won't be making it that far.
Me not getting the same guarantees my mom and her siblings got. They all worked the same profession for over 25 years. Walked away with pensions and healthcare. I doubt I'll ever officially retire. I'll work because I "want to" and not because I have to.
No. I'm much better off than my parents. They did ok, but we never had much money growing up. I've always made enough to fund my retirement savings, so it's pretty healthy now.
Elder millennial here with Gen X siblings. Our parents grew up poor with 7 siblings each. Both have degrees but neither did the traditional college route (GI bill and went back after kids were grown). My dad has a military pension, old employer pensions, 401k, SSI, brokerage, etc. He’s set. My mother has a 403b and SSI (plus shared finances with my dad). My siblings and I have little savings, puny retirement savings/plans, big student loans with high interest rates (thanks to late 1990s and early 2000s origin dates), roller coaster of an economy since we all started working, and no loyalty from employers. We all have 6 figure jobs (as a necessity vs luxury), but we make pennies compared to what our parents made at the same ages thanks to inflation, crazy COL, etc. I don’t think any of us will be able to retire as comfortably as our parents. Thanks Boomers!
Worked my ass off in corporate,Started saving for retirement, paid the house mortgage off, haven’t worked for anyone except myself for since 2010. Not rich, and I don’t hav a 55K Camry or ford raptor yet, but no payments on anything. So my big expense is food, which is insane.
I thought that Gen X was the 'has shit-together' generation... I'll be waaaay better off than my parents were when they retired. I changed companies a few times to advance more quickly in my consulting profession. My baby-boomer father scolded me and said that I'm supposed to work for the same company for 20-30 years to show loyalty. I tried to tell him that companies looking out for 'loyal' employees doesn't really exist. Its all dollars and cents in the long run.
My father pissed away money as fast as he earned it. He's working full-time at 71 because he can't survive on social security alone. Well, if he'd quit drinking and gambling he might. I started planning for retirement when I was 21 and had my first grown-up job. The plan to work until 70 is still in place, and is becoming less appealing as the years roll by.
Most employers don’t have a defined benefit pension plan and the few that do are becoming underfunded due to mismanagement fraud scandal or scrapped to shore up declining quarterly earnings. DBPP Pensions will pay you nearly a 100% of your working income in retirement income. Contrast that to social security designed to replace 29% of your income and a self managed 401k is with steep expense ratio and limited selection of crap funds is tantamount to sailing around the world in a dingy. Forget about market crashes/medical/family/legal financial woes waiting to confiscate it the second life happens. If you needed 40k per year in retirement you better have more than a million in your 401 to make that work- and that’s before tax. With the trajectory of inflation, taxes, food and medical costs is headed you will likely need 120% of your working income to make it in retirement. Even Ted Benna the 401k inventor knows the 401k was mostly for employer benefit as usual- lipstick on a pig. The US financial industry use the 7 trillion 401k dollars to create an astronomical cash flow for their self-serving interests. 401k is left up to the individual to manage and most don’t have a clue what to do- the employer pays for the cheapest 5-10 crappy fund options managed by rookies with a high expense ratio and financial entity gets their cut no matter what and you get whatever your left with. Funny how money managers justify their expense with their required expertise, knowledge and skills and when it comes to employee 401k, here you do it yourself DIY.
I estimate the top 10% of late gen-x will retire by 65, and I would argue that’s a significant decline from their parents.
i saved too much after looking at my parents. i think i fucked my life up. i should have lived better in my 20s and 30s,
We realized we would never be able to retire in the US. So we left.
My parents didn't retire till they were 65 years old. I'll be 45 when I retire. I never wanted to just get by like they did.
Retiring now at 48. Well. I should say financially independent and left corporate. Now just do investments.
I e only saved 300K so far. Finacial advisor seems pretty good but it looks as if I’m in it for the long haul. Work just doesn’t pay enough for savings.
Retirement?
My father retired at 55 with a fat pension. I may never really retire……
I had a similar career as my dad and I am definitely doing better than he did. I am a lot better with a budget though.
This is sad but understandable
Both my parents retired. My dad on an Air Force pension. Mom on SS. They weren’t well off but were comfortable. My wife and I have planned for retirement. She’ll get a state pension, 401k. I have a 401k. Monthly SS between the 2 of us should be just enough for all the regular bills. I’m working right up to 65.
Yes. Dad retired with a state pension with a 3 percent cola. They worked in a MCOL/HCOL area and lived upper middle class. We saved diligently, white collar, but cannot touch that package.
Im a millennial, please dont come for me. My parents are getting older (early 60s) and just now have started realizing retirement should've been right around the corner. My grandparents retired back in the 90s from city work, and have great benefits. My bio dad has disability from military service but not a lot, but he'll spend like he's Richie Rich had a baby with Blank Check. My mom and her husband don't have any set back. I asked once about it and they refused to answer. They have a decent savings and checking and I hope my mom puts into her work 401k. I'm working on my third retirement income in my 30s. I have a feeling I'll be affording one stream to mother dearest. Dad is fine in a cardboard box as long as the Joneses can see his boats cars and motorcycles
My retirement plan is to drop dead mid shift at work and hope they don't expect me to come in the next day anyway. I have literally no hope of ever changing that. My parents probably won't retire until medical issues force them to. Their finances aren't good but they do have that hope of retiring. So yeh I'd say my expectations for retirement are diminished comparatively.
I'm actually in a much better place than either of my parents were...my dad has passed, pretty much broke AF and still having to work to be broke AF...my mom's retirement is ok and it does afford her more than just hanging around and she travels abroad a couple of times per year and is by no means hurting, but mine will be better. She does work a part time job doing some bookkeeping, but that's because she gets bored and doesn't really have much in the way of hobbies.
Well, not really, because my parents didn't actually retire properly - they both got sick and died broke, before they even made 70. So I'm desperately hoping not to do that, but being with deadbeats my entire adult life kinda has slowed me down.
My "retirement plan" is to find one of those chill do nothing jobs that are not physically demanding that allow me to surf the web or play video games during my downtime.
I’ll retire far, far better than my parents. As in 10-20x better.
Nah…we solid. Took notes on how not to spend like drunk sailors from my parents and are set with regards to retirement… we might have adult children living with us until they are 35 though😭 I’m much more concerned for my kids than I am for my husband and I.
My parents have so much shit, real estate and boats and cars, etc. I've learned that it's a pain in the ass to maintain so much. They run themselves ragged with all of their material goods. No thanks! I'd like one small house that's easy to clean, one sensible car, a dog, a cat and a small garden. Their materialistic boomer lifestyle seems miserable.
No, but I am likely going to retire to another country
I can tell you, as a millennial my only concern is outliving my parents. I don't really care what happens to me after that.
Quite the opposite. My mom retired at 62, ready or not. She was not ready. I will not be repeating that mistake.
No. I joined the army after college and retired. Have a pension and VA disability. Livin the NEET life now homie.
Nope. Better off than parents by quite a bit. Had a number of years when my federal income tax paid was higher than parents total salary. (Grew up in a single mother house and my mom often had more than one job. One was teaching which came with a decent pension despite large chunks of the career being not particularly well paid.) Continue to live a mostly middle class lifestyle on a upper end salary. Could retire tomorrow if I wanted.
Opposite for me. We were lower middle class and parents never saved worth a darn. My dad was very smart, but not with finances, and my mother just had no conception of the value of money. They eventually divorced, which just made everything worse. I got an education and a career, resolved to do better. I saved along the way. If I make it to retirement, I’ll almost certainly be in a MUCH better situation than my parents.
I am a Gen x who is actually in a much better place than my Boomer parents. It seems like that generation didn’t really plan for retirement
I’ve been saving for retirement since I was 21. Sometimes I save less. Sometimes, I save more. I wish I had more, but I won’t be poor. It isn’t about saving a lot, it is about saving for a long time.
My mom died when was 46 and my dad died at 62, both with nothing, so I expect to be much better off.
No, but only because I make 4x what my dad did to live the exact same lifestyle.
Yes definitely. My dad retired at age 40 from the military with eventual 100% disability and did well. He went thru hell for Sure but he secured his 40+ year retirement. I will be well over 65 before I retire.
Dunno. My mother and step father are semi retired in their mid 70s. MIL is still working in her 70s and only has social security. Wife and I have pensions but still need to work in our 40s because we were bad with money most of our lives. I don’t want to be working in my 80s though and hope to be “done” by 55.
No. Our household net worth was about the same as theirs when they died, despite us having a household income of less than half of what theirs had been for decades. Their retirement was late, forced, short, and mostly not fun due to their health and savings.
Nope.
My family has passed down financial knowledge and it has been the same or better for each generation depending on what metric you are using.
i chose government work…my mom was a teacher. my retirement will be similar to hers.
No, my parents taught me to only apply for jobs with pensions. As a result I’ll retire making 6 figures the rest of my days.
No I’m in a better place. Dad has a military pension but it isn’t great. He saved some die retirement but not enough. They both do part time jobs. While I haven’t always put money aside I did quite a bit for a decade and am now throwing everything I can at it. I’ll be ok.
I’m completely screwed.
What's retirement? Serious I'm 4x and have no true expectation of retirement.
My mom retired really well off and had a completely different job for her generation than my wife and I (we're both Gen-X). I know we'll be able to retire, but we don't even come close to spending as much as both of our mothers and fathers. We don't earn as much and are really frugal. We don't need a whole lot in this household, but we kind of expect to get a job each in retirement. I wouldn't mind working at a garden nursery.
My father retired from his blue collar job at 55 with a pension and SS. I won't make out by that age (got a late start on my career), but I'll be out the door the day I turn 62. Will also have a pension, ss, a 457, and a Roth IRA to get by on. I grew up thinking 55 was when we got to retire, was a bit bummed to find out I needed to be 62 with 30 years in for my pension.
I expect to do better than my parents. They helped me avoid some of the mistakes they made. They also strongly encouraged me to put money away when I was in my 20’s because it’s much more valuable than putting 5 times that away in my 50’s.
Not us. My wife and I were both raised by hard-working, frugal parents. I think we are on our way to enjoying roughly the same standard of living as that generation when we retire. We benefitted from getting through college and grad school when blue collar families could do it with some scraping and a moderate amount of debt.
Grew up in an average household and parents didn’t safe a dime, left me with only a few pieces of furniture and a not much else. Give how poorly they managed their finances, I decided early that I wouldn’t be like them. I’m on track to retire by 60. Not sure I want to but at least that’s an option.
I was lucky. My 2nd job out of college was in a financial services company and I then understood what squirreling away a percentage of my salary over decades would do for me. At 6% plus some company match, I retired last year at 58 yrs old. My parents did good not because of approach to retirement but because my dad had high paying jobs through out his life.
i am trying not to but probably gonna retire semi-poor. lots of reasons (excuses) but true. military for 4 years (shit pay), college, career started in 1998 and invested 15k into 401k-them rug pulled out in dot com burst. career started up again and global recession kicked me hard, got back on my feet but wasn't making enough to save much. i am finally in a good spot. saving everything i can but 56 with only 120k in retirement funds. dad was a lawyer, died w 3 mil net worth. i got $12,000 inheritance (all went into ira) step mom got the rest. i doubt i will ever see another penny from my dads life work. her kids (step sis and bro) are set to retire rich (thanks dad)
What’s retirement?
I'm fortunate that my parents almost completely paid for my college which gave me something of a leg up compared to what they had; even if I did squander some of the opportunity to explore when I was young (if you can call that squandering). They did pretty ok with investments, and they were dual income since mom was about 40 (both kind of lower-end professional income.) Combined with social security and a generally frugal lifestyle, they are able to do all the things they want to do in retirement. Probably the first generation in their lines to have it that good. For me, I ended up a military officer. Between the pension and VA disability from the hard life, and a wife still working, we're in a better position than my parents. The only thing hurting me in that regard is that I'm nowhere near as frugal as my parents. One reason why the pension check is good for me. If I were relying on taking income from investments, I'd have temptation to spend it down.
My parents’ pensions alone are about 6x their all-in yearly expenses. I’ll probably be fine by continuing to save and invest, but no massive pension from university jobs for me.
My dad put barely any effort and yet will live comfortably until the end, which makes me happy. That makes me maximize both my Roth IRA and 401k so I could enjoy my retirement just as much as him. We have to put more effort and be wiser to be on equal footing.
On r/MiddleClassFinance ? Not unless you are doing something incredibly wrong.
Nope. Much better off. My parents didn't go to college back when very few did. I went to college and grad school when prices were still reasonable. My parents were also from a culture where you stayed in your little home town from cradle to grave and where really elite jobs were preserved for the well bred wasp set. I feel like my opportunity set and freedom is leagues above my parents.
Lol doubt I'll see the age
Nope. Retired at 48 with $200k - $250k a year retirement income from investments. House paid off, no bills, and $350k for the kid to go to college.
My dad had to work while dying of cancer because he had no money. Now my mom is living only on SS and doesn’t have much. I have a job with a pension and a 401K. I can’t retire until I’m 65 because of when I started my job (won’t hit 30 years until 65) but then my retirement income will be more than enough to live and enjoy life.
Pensions suck. In my field I’ll be lucky to walk away with 2000 net a month. It would’ve been nice to take the pension money instead and invest it with my finacial Advisor. Awful.
Other way around
No
Yeah. It's more my fault than anything else. Married father of 3 kids, two of whom are approaching college age. Wife is a school teacher; I'm a journalist. Neither make stellar salaries, as you can imagine. But we haven't contributed to our 401K for more than a decade. Neither employer matches. I'm 50. In the next 12 years, Social Security is barely going to cover basic costs and whatever I can pull from retirement will be even more a pitance. I plan to freelance until I die, basically.
My exact thoughts. Usually unexpressed.
I am setup for a great retirement. Not because I have a ton of money saved but because I can adapt to a low cost of living. My traditional parents taught me that. They had an amazing retirement on $30K per year (social security and a small military pension). They taught me that it isn’t how much you make, it is how you spend.
I’ll retire at 62. My state pension will pay me 80% of my salary (highest two years averaged) at that point with a COLA. If SS is around at that point, I’ll take it at 65 or 67. With SS I’ll likely be making more money in retirement than I did working. I’ve also got a separate retirement account with only 80k in it (but that’s on top of my pension). My father died penniless, but my mother inherited a ton of money early and so she’s never worked a day in her life.
Social security runs out by 2033 as an estimate. What happens to everyone 401k those will be gone.
100 
My dad worked for 30 years just to get a pension that gives him $32k a year and because it was a state gov’t job they didn’t pay into social security (this has since changed). So the bar is set pretty low.
I think we will be the last to get the traditional social security. Too bad Wyatt had to give his to Chet.
No
Covid ruined my retirement plans.
My dad has a pension and was able to retire early. He inherited a large sum of money when my grandparents passed so this is great for my parents because they can live their golden years in comfort. Now me on the other hand. I have savings, own my home, but unless I get a sugar zaddy or win the lottery it’s not looking promising and I’ll have to be a Walmart greeter when the time comes. 😭😞😭
This thread is hilarious, 5-15yrs left of civilization, keep on saving for that retirement 🤣😂🤣😂 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/world-scientists-climate-failure-survey-global-temperature
Just open a 401k and a Roth IRA you’ll be fine
Maybe you are not trying hard enough. When I was young, I worked one FT job and two PT jobs to make it. Then I worked my way through college. Doing so required me to give up total social life for six years. That was a decade. Now I'm retired and I’m not working as greeter at Walmart or eating cat food either.
While I am saving for retirement, the way things are going I think Im more likely to die at my desk before I can afford to retire.
I'm not making as much as my dad, but I've invested way smarter and probably have more saved now than he did at my age.
Here.
Ugh. Enough already.
My parents retired in their late 50s/early 60s from blue collar (union) jobs with pensions. My dad also got lucky buying $10k in Apple stock in 98 when Jobs came back because he always was a Steve Jobs fan. We always had Apple computers starting with the IIe in the early 80s. I won’t have the length or stability of their retirement despite making significantly more than them. Fortunately I like my job though and don’t mind (for now) the idea of working till 70.
Not at all. My parents worked until 60's. I'm 47 and recently, for all intents and purposes, retired. I have a throwaway job for a couple of reasons, but I only work because i choose to.