I am amused with the commercial where you see people walking around with a paper mache number that describes the amount of money they need to retire the way that they want. I am amused because they are big numbers. Folks want to retire with 2-3 million in the bank according to these commercials. Wow.
This is a sign that the greed and desires of the bourgeois is way out of line. 20 years of retirement is pretty standard before you get to talk to St Peter. Two million means around 150,000 a year for your "golden years". Man, if you got that much saved you are a champ.
But the cold reality is, most of us Lumpen types won't have that kind of money. The dot com boom wiped out quite a bit and the upcoming slump/crash/slide/boom will take care of a lot more. And the folks who get social security will be the early ones in, that trough is already pretty empty and not going to be filled. Couple that with the way inflation is setting us up to put less aside to to take care of trivial things like gasoline and food and you have a scenario when we will be working a lot longer into our lives than we originally thought.
Its OK, this dream of a happy motoring retirement has only been a recent delusion. We are all reasonably healthy and we will be working until 65-70. Plan on it. It won't be bad though, you will not drive your wife crazy this way, you will have something useful to do instead of sucking your gum's and reminiscing about the good old days. You will be a useful and contributing member of society instead of demanding overfed parasite.
Looking in a mirror every morning won't be nearly so difficult.
1 comment:
Build up your preps and get some cheap land and a travel trailer, or build a simple cabin. Then ya ain't gotta worry about anything, much less retirement. I'm only 34, socialist security will be a distant memory when I'm of retirement age. Then again, so will life as we know it today. There's more than one way to skin a cat..... Ya just gotta think outside the ol' box is all.
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