Most Millennials Have an Unrealistic View of Their Retirement Prospects, Analysts Say (hsbc.com) 557
From a blog post on research firm HSBC: HSBC calls for millennials to wake up to living and working longer, as research finds only 1 in 10 expects to work past 65. Most millennials have an unrealistic view of their retirement prospects according to a new report from HSBC. The latest report in The Future of Retirement series, Shifting sands, finds that on average millennials expect to retire younger than other working age generations. Millennials expect to retire at 59, two years younger than the working age average of 61. The survey of over 18,000 people in 16 countries finds that only 10 percent of millennials expect to continue working after 65 -- even as their generation faces unprecedented financial pressures and state retirement ages continue to rise around the world. This is despite 59 percent of millennials agreeing they will live much longer and will need to support themselves for longer than previous generations.
Opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking that I won't be able to retire the way things are.
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Ever see the reality show "Live Free or Die?"
That's my retirement plan.
Re:Opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking that I won't be able to retire the way things are.
Nor I. But when I was 25 I thought I would retire at 55 (and actually all things remaining equal, my plan and habits would have enabled it). But all things do not remain equal. Unexpected, previously undesirable and sometimes unforeseeable things happen in life: wives, children, crashing economies, jobs constantly being shifted overseas, etc.
I guess this aspect of millennial thinking isn't new or scary. As with all of us, life will grind away hopes and dreams, no action is required from us.
Re:Opposite (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear you. Fresh out of college, I figured I was smart and impressive enough to find a way to retire by 50. Preferably by becoming a world-famous novelist in the next few years, or a dot-com millionaire by the turn of the millennium. Basis: nothing but wishful thinking, and the belief that I sure as hell couldn't keep doing this work crud five days a week for half a century. (Oh yeah, I can also distinctly remember telling my brother, "I really think I'm meant to win the lottery. I know the odds are against it, but it should happen to me.")
By 35, married, dual income, no kids, I had a plan, based on actual, mathematical evidence (if with some optimistic assumptions) that I could retire at 60, with a paid-off house and a decent retirement fund.
In my mid-forties with kids and a spouse that stays home, past one really terrible financial mistake with a house, plus several minor financial setbacks at work, I'm now looking at 65, more likely. I still have my doubts about the sanity or feasibility of doing this work crud five days a week for a few decades, but at least I've now worked almost half of the mandatory time, so there's that.
Re: Opposite (Score:4, Interesting)
Couldn't agree more, except I'd say don't get married ever. I married someone that I'd literally grown up with and we'd been dating for 8+ years. If ever I thought I knew and could trust someone it was her. Plus, she was a fellow engineer and made roughly the same, if not a bit more.
She had a midlife crises, flipped out and we split. Even with a relatively amicable split, I still had to write her the $100k check on my thirtieth birthday because I kept the house. Nevermind it was largely my reserves that paid for it in the first place...
That said, I made a couple very cool career and investment moves in my thirties and have recovered nicely. I'm now in my forties, financially comfy and on track to retire before I hit fifty. I have a girlfriend who has her own life, place, and income, and we're quite happy not placing each other's financial future at risk.
Just don't get married. Ever. It's a racket and a scam and statistically, you're not going to come out a winner.
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Re:Opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly.
I'm a gen X'er and I *know* I won't have a pension. Even if I retire, the government or the pension providers will default on me - either through inflation, or just because the damn pension providers will flatly announce they just don't have anything left in their coffers. I know this because they've already done it to my dad, who was born in the silent generation. So it's nothing new, but it sure won't get no better.
So, I'm not putting any money in a system that'll shaft me and I'm not saving anything for old age - most likely I'll be working until I die anyway.
What I do instead is, I enjoy as much free time now while I'm still young: I found me one of the last "old-style" jobs still available that lets me work 36 hrs/week with unreasonably great pay, in a heavily unionized old company that does business in a market that doesn't know the word recession.
In other words, I've maximized my salary/work ratio and I do as little work as possible to enjoy life the the fullest while I'm still in a condition to enjoy it. Time enough when I'm old and decrepit to kill myself at work for a living.
Demographics say different (Score:3)
Most of us don't have that option - our companies are not going to keep us on until we die. We'll get downsized, outsourced, etc. at least once or twice and then not hired on anyplace else because of rampant age discrimination. After all, with more available workforce every year,
Demographics say otherwise. The demographic data, in this case, are helping you (assuming you want to stay employed...)
The reason for age discrimination is that employers can. That's because the baby boom generation means that there are an excess of population; you can afford to not hire the older ones, 'cause there's plenty of people looking for jobs. But the baby boom was last millennium.
it isn't like there are going to be enough jobs to go around.
That demographic bulge is over-- by the time millennials are ready to retire, there won't be that big bulge of popula
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sounds about right, though im not a millenial even, and it still sound about right. work 7-8pm every day and some more on the weekend, til death, seems to be the norm atm.
Re:Opposite (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Opposite (Score:5, Funny)
Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Funny)
They don't expect to live past 65, given the state of healthcare in this country.
jail / prison has better healthcare then the ER! (Score:2)
jail / prison has better healthcare then the ER!
Re:jail / prison has better healthcare then the ER (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it doesn't. It's a popular meme around here but completely untrue. In jail, they will offer you some base level of care for serious problems but prison officials get to determine how serious it is and if it gets treated. Jail providers tend not to be on the right side of the bell curve, so even if you get to see the doc or midlevel, you may end wishing you hadn't.
If you need to be treated for a psychiatric illness, your choice of medicine will be significantly limited since many of those drugs can make you feel good (and thus have a marketable value in jail and are heavily restricted. If you hurt, well, too fucking bad. You get a tylenol or, if you're very lucky a tylenol and an ibuprofen.
The major downside of going to the ER for care is that the guy next to you might be strapped down to the gurney and being rather vocal about it. He's the one that got the bill from the last time he was in the ER.
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They don't expect to live past 65, given the state of healthcare in this country.
"The survey of over 18,000 people in 16 countries ..."
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
I expect that we'll eventually see the pendulum swing the other way. Eventually this is going to start catching up to people and when enough of them start screaming bloody murder we'll collectively figure out what we should have been doing decades ago and start working towards it. Humanity tends not to make smart decisions at the highest levels, and looking back at history we only tend to do things better after having our previous and catastrophic actions blow up in our face so to speak. For example, the way we treated the Axis powers after WWII was markedly different from how Germany was treated after WWI, only because we came to realize that it was a terrible idea and would lead to future war. Now Germany and Japan are economic powerhouses that contribute greatly to the world economy because humanity realized that its better to build the defeated enemies back up instead of leaving hatred to fester.
Healthcare is always going to be tricky though just because at the end of your life (assuming it doesn't abruptly end in such a way that makes medical intervention impossible) everyone is going to wind up ill, run-down, or broken in a way that requires a lot of resources to fix. Historically, people were just okay with that, but modern technology has made it a lot easier to prolong the life of people with conditions that would have left them dead before age 2 in any other time period, and so there's a societal demand to keep on living. Maybe science will figure out a way to make that so cheap that it's no longer a problem to provide it so freely, but right now it's not an easy problem.
In the U.S. it's a particularly large one because as a country we've decided we want a huge military, whereas if we scaled that back we could provide better health coverage, even as unhealthy as we are as a population. But that ties back into the problem of responsibility and we have a society that doesn't view their health as their own concern, but rather someone else's responsibility to fix when it invariably fails. I'm sure a government system could be created to incentivize people to take better care of their own health, but I'm not sure the people would collectively vote for it. Humanity hasn't quite hit the necessary rock bottom in terms of what modernization does to health yet in order for us to go down the right path.
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Informative)
The US Govt (at least on the Federal level) is mandated by the US Constitution to provide for defense...that is one of its few enumerated responsibilities and powers.
I don't really think it is anywhere in the constitution for the government (at least on the federal level) to provide healthcare for the citizens, at least not without a constitutional amendment.
I find it interesting you say that. Comments about providing for/promoting the "general Welfare" literally appears in the same sentence as "provide for the common defence" in the taxing and spending clause, and in the preamble of the Constitution.
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
If "provide for the common defense" can be used to justify spending as much on the military as the next 10 countries combined then perhaps "promote the general Welfare" might be considered to include keeping the citizens of the country healthy.
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:4, Informative)
If "provide for the common defense" can be used to justify spending as much on the military as the next 10 countries combined then perhaps "promote the general Welfare" might be considered to include keeping the citizens of the country healthy.
You're quoting the preamble, which simply explains why they wrote the Constitution. The actual powers of the federal government are vested in Article I, Section 8. Specifically, items 12, 13, and 14:
12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
13: To provide and maintain a Navy;
14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
There is no specific power granted for "promote the general welfare". Item 1 may come close, saying that "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States", but the fact that the founders didn't start building hospitals means that they never meant it that way. It's something the states can do, much in the same way that states establish university systems.
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that provide for general welfare, has to be taken in the meaning of the day, not as "welfare" as we think of it today. Basically general welfare as used in the constitution was defined as the overall state of wellbeing of the nation as a whole.
Then so does "provide for the defense", which "in the meaning of the day" most certainly DID NOT mean the permanent standing military of the size and scope that we have today.
Basically your argument is shit.
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
Ho hum, that old line of reasoning.
Nobody is suggesting that the military go away. GP said "scaled ... back" Heck, before WWII we had a much smaller military. The Constitution doesn't require military spending to be 1%, 3% or 10% of GDP. Specifically it says "provide for the common defense." BTW, in the very same sentence it also says "promote the general welfare." So far we have interpreted "common defense" to mean "have a standing army." But you know what? Excluding WWI and WWII, up until WWII our military spending was < 1% of gross GDP[1]. Now it's over 3%, and Twitler wants to double it. Do we really need to double it? Opinions are nice, but objectivity is better.
You're all hot to point out that the Constitution requires the government to provide for the common defense. But you seem to want to gloss right over the promote the general welfare part. Why is that, do you suppose?
And if we the people want it, it seems to me that the government can solve the affordable health care problem. No Constitutional Amendment required/ We already do lots of other things under the banner of promoting the general welfare, e.g. seatbelt and airbags in cars, safe food, clean air and water, etc., etc. (and Science, bitches.)
OTOH you know what isn't in the Constitution? There's nothing in it that guarantees that every business will succeed. While Conservitards everywhere are obsessing over the possibility that some theoretical welfare queens somewhere (that typically don't actually exist) are bilking the government for millions, Corporate Welfare Queens are getting tax breaks and using bookkeeping tricks to avoid paying taxes they owe on billions in income. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Oh, and those Corporate Welfare Queens are people too, thanks to Citizens United, so they can donate huge sums of money to the very same Congress Critters who give them those tax cuts, bookkeeping dodges, and "people" status. Something's fishy in Denmark if you ask me. (And hey, I'm a person too, I want that same 15% tax rate that Twitler wants to give them.)
But yeah, keep whining about health care not being in the Constitution. The ACA didn't give health care to anyone. It required the freeloaders who weren't buying insurance and driving the rest of our rates up to be adults and finally buy insurance. Maybe you didn't like the subsidies that the poor got, is that what your gripe was? Let me ask you, do you call yourself a Christian? Ask yourself, would Jesus have helped the poor? Should he have helped the poor? Would he have wanted you to help the poor? Is there a reason you don't think the poor should get help with buying the insurance they need? And want to buy?
[1] http://www.usgovernmentspendin... [usgovernmentspending.com]
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
See my other post in this thread about the General Welfare clause. You have to take that as it was meant when written...it means more of the welfare of the UNION of the states, and the ability of the Feds to lay taxation for that purpose.
No, it doesn't.
Where the hell do you get these bullshit interpretations?
The meaning of the "welfare" in 1787 meant health and prosperity. Of the people. You know, that "we the people" thing? People.
Re: (Score:3)
And the defense bit would have meant no standing army and a very limited navy, relying on militias for national defense.
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:5, Informative)
You have to take that as it was meant when written...it means more of the welfare of the UNION of the states
SCOTUS doesn't agree with you, AFAICT
See U.S. v Butler, 1936
But it doesn't mean "welfare" in the same way that people in this century try to translate it.
If by "welfare" you mean the (((Entitlement))) part of Social Security? No, I I'm not aware that anyone in this exchange is translating it that way. Excepting perhaps you?
Re:Unrealistic for you, maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is routine medical not subsidized is several hundred dollars a visit. Times a wife and two kids and you are talking about thousands annually.
Women have been giving birth since the dawn of mankind. Yet now the average child birth costs $30,000.00
Something where the doctors do little but monitor costs more than a car. Now I would rather have a doctor monitoring the situation as a lot can go wrong quickly, but that's a lot of money for just in case.
Health care expenses are so far out of whack it isn't funny. The whole industry is out of whack and keeps pushing itself farther away.
Most didn't (Score:4, Interesting)
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unless they were very, very wealthy. Also, google the phrase "infant mortality" sometime while you're at it. Or spare a thought to the 45,000 people who die unnecessarily every year because they don't have access to health care. Health care that we could easily afford if but choose not to because freedom. The freedom to die sounds great when you're not the one doing the dying.
At the end of the day you can have nice healthcare or mass immigration of poor people. You can't have both. Not unlike you can have low taxes or nice infrastructure but you can't have both. Both political parties are living in fantasyland and both can only see the flaws of the other. You can tell a true idiot by someone who spend all their time spouting that one is clearly superior to the other - since neither party really has a solid game plan. And since the moderates in both parties are marginalized
The view fails to account getting &*#@ed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Don't forget, what jobs we can't export we want to import cheap labor for. Because we're so smart.
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yeah but on the other hand by the time they reach 59 they probably wont be able to get a job anymore with the way the economy is going... thats a form of "retirement"
Re:The view fails to account getting &*#@ed (Score:5, Insightful)
As a boomer, when i went to college, it was $180 a semester. Even adjusted for inflation that's a fraction of the cost today.
Tuitions went up enormously when the law was changed to allow loans not forgiven by bankruptcy.
Boomers are running about 10 years behind my age for every major landmark.
That being said- save hard, don't pamper yourself with eating out and starbucks and you can still retire years earlier.
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Re:The view fails to account getting &*#@ed (Score:5, Insightful)
And the lack of bankruptcy means the banks would loan unreasonable amounts of money to 18 year olds who had no clue how much pain they were signing up for.
If the bankruptcy was removed, loans would drop, and so would tuition.
Grants are a factor but they were tiny amounts of money compared to student loans.
Re:The view fails to account getting &*#@ed (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said- save hard, don't pamper yourself with eating out and starbucks and you can still retire years earlier.
That's funny, because I have just spent the last few years learning how not to do that. I worked really hard (graduated at a young age), and just saved for about 10 years. I paid down debt and put my money into what I thought were safe investments, and pretty much did nothing fun for that time. I barely ate out, I had one beer a month on average, I had a $1500 car that I kept going by spending weekends fixing it.
However, the one thing I didn't do was buy a house. So in that time, I saw people who took out what I thought were irresponsible mortgage becoming stupidly wealthy, while drawing down their newfound equity and living life to the full. Meanwhile the purchasing value of my savings has become a joke, rents and expenses went up (regardless of what the govt says inflation is) and I basically just try not to think about all the opportunity cost of squirrelling money for so many years.
I keep enough to live off for about 2 years now, and just try to work my way through a list of life experiences. Part of me still really wants to save, but I beat that part back by reflecting on how much of life I missed out on because I was apparently 'doing all the right things'.
Until the housing bubble sorts itself out, I think saving is a waste of time. You will lose it all anyway when govt needs to bail out all the people who took on too much debt (which is the other side of your savings). Until then, the best 'savings' a millennial can make right now is keeping their career in good order and skills sharp. It will get really tough when the next recession hits, but if you didn't have any money to lose, and can do something useful, history suggests you'll be able to muddle through to better times.
Re:The view fails to account getting &*#@ed (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a chart of historical tuitions [ed.gov] (inflation-adjusted). The change in student loan bankruptcy law [wikipedia.org] was in 2005.
So contrary to your claim, the rate at which tuitions were climbing actually slowed down after it was made virtually impossible to discharge student loan debt via bankruptcy.
It was the widespread availability of loans and grants, starting way back after WWII with the GI Bill, which led to high tuitions. The schools simply sopped up that extra money by increasing their tuition. The change to bankruptcy law, while a cute theory, had nothing to do with it, according to numerical evidence.
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In every place the government has encouraged loans, prices have bubbled drastically, for instance in both housing and education.
The outcome of these things is predictable and indeed has been repeatedly predicted. The reasons that were given for not doing these "progressive" programs have literally come true, but the progressives didnt listen and still will not listen.
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The "boomer" gen was the one with a significant number who fought against wars, starting with Viet Nam. Not always successfully, but there's the military-industrial complex to put up with, and political reality. The draft was eliminated after Viet Nam; without later gens voluntarily signing up (mostly for the benefits), later wars wouldn't have been possible.
"Sane housing costs?"
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While your premise is correct your conclusion is not... What makes you think any of them will be able to find jobs when they hit 60 years old?
I don't think they actually talked to any of them. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Millenials don't expect to work past 65 because they'd be surprised if they make it past 50 without committing suicide.
I don't think Uber [slashdot.org] can employ *that* many people.
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Too soon man, too soon.
Who did they talk to? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never met someone below the age of 30 that thought they had a chance of retiring at all. The majority expects Social Security to be gone, they have never seen a job with a pension, and they just lived the prime of their lives through the economic recession shattering both 401k investments and realestate.
Millenials are keenly aware of how screwed they are.
Re:Who did they talk to? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Who did they talk to? (Score:4, Informative)
Trump Recession? Implying that the Great Recession isn't over.
The Great Recession was over in 2009. We had eight years of an expanding economy and we're overdue for a recession. Since Trump won the election, it won't be called the Hillary Recession.
Re:Who did they talk to? (Score:5, Interesting)
I just retired at age 57. I bought my own home and even though I'm not rolling in dough I don't have to work to live. No house payment and if I make it to 62 I can expect around 2K more per month which will set me up pretty nice. I spent a lifetime working in avionics with a 60K yearly income at retirement. I still expect to work but no longer at a daily grind kind of pace. I look to do projects and temp work just to make play money. Not bad for a high school education.
I'm in my ate thirties (Score:2)
and you've accurately described my world view.
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I have never met someone below the age of 30 that thought they had a chance of retiring at all. The majority expects Social Security to be gone..
While the state of Social Security is not good, it is not nearly so dire as that. It is one of the most popular government programs around, and current projections are that in 203x when the trust funds are exhausted (and yes, the trust funds are nothing more than bonds that have to be paid by the Treasury, so in some senses don't really exist), ongoing payroll deductions at the current level would pay 71% of current benefits (inflation adjusted).
So a haircut, not a death sentence. And the popularity of the
Save 30%, retire early (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, the math is not hard. Live a simple life that concentrates on happiness instead of stuff, and make saving a healthy percentage of your income. You will be financially independent and have the option to retire well before 50.
Or you can choose to save 10% or less, inflate your lifestyle at every raise and work until you are 70+. More likely you will get laid off in your 50's and have to "retire" badly when all you can find is low wage jobs.
Re:Save 30%, retire early (Score:4, Insightful)
Your simple plan is dependent on having above average salary, not getting sick and no close family member getting sick. Low salary forces you into simple life and you still wont save all that much. It is kinda hard when cheap rent in bad district eats all money you earn. It is hard to concentrate on happiness when you drive almost hour and half each day to get home after long hours.
Math is easy, it is just that economy does not guarantee everyone well paid job you can easily save from.
Re:Save 30%, retire early (Score:4, Interesting)
Your simple plan is dependent on having above average salary, not getting sick and no close family member getting sick. Low salary forces you into simple life and you still wont save all that much. It is kinda hard when cheap rent in bad district eats all money you earn. It is hard to concentrate on happiness when you drive almost hour and half each day to get home after long hours.
The plan you're criticizing depends upon saving a percentage of income. It doesn't require an above-average salary. If you save 10% of income, you're buying a year of spending every 9 years (assuming 0% inflation and 0% rate of return). If you save 25%, you're buying 1 year of spending every 3 years. Percentages don't care if you're bringing in $100k or $50k.
Savings rate is the most important number. A lot of people chase the income number, not accounting for the cost of attaining that income. This includes commute time and stress, which translates into health cost.
Most middle class people won't retire in their 50s not because it's impossible, but because their savings rate is out-of-whack. If you optimize for Problem A, don't expect a solution to Problem B.
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I put all my 401K into government securities 2 years before I retired just because I feared exactly that. I lost out badly on the Trump bump to the stock market but I seriously thought Hilliary would get elected. Still, better safe than sorry.
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The market has always rebounded. Betting against that is just foolish.
Re:Save 30%, retire early (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's hardly that simple. While you espouse a perfectly reasonable plan, there are lots of things that can get in your way. That job that concentrates on happiness (whatever that is) just laid you off. You run through your savings in 9 months looking for another job. Then your wife comes down with breast cancer.
I see this stuff all of the time. It's not just American Hedonism that is going to screw the Millenials - it's hedonism, no safety net and an economy run by those nice people that brought you 2008. If you're of the Buddhist persuasion then you can sigh, work some more on your karma and hope next time you get reincarnated as a housefly. The rest of us just get depressed.
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Granted those happen- but buying too much house, eating out too much, buying too much car, traveling too much, buying clothing that's too nice, drinking after work, starbucks, and many other activities enjoyed by the young do not help.
I lived on half I made and saved the rest from 1987 onwards. I retired 16 years early.
Re:Save 30%, retire early (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot to include a few steps:
-Be lucky enough to never face a serious health issue.
-Be lucky enough to never be unemployed for an extended period of time due to forces beyond your control.
-Have zero family or friends that failed the previous two steps. Or even better, zero family or friends.
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Plus the most important one - never get divorced as that is the most common setback people will face. My advice to my kids is to only marry someone who makes as much or more than you.
If we apply these rules across the board, basically internet match services will only need 2 criteria: sexual orientation, and monthly salary. They would then only need match those that had equal salary (within some tolerance) and compatible sexual orientation.
I had a similar discussion with a relative of mine the other day that insisted that her kids would need to "marry-up" or she would disown them. My response was how could that possibly work? Why wouldn't your future in-laws cut-off their kids for "mar
Re:Save 30%, retire early (Score:4, Insightful)
Saving crap piles of money makes dealing with ALL of those issues much easier, they are not reasons to avoid savings. Money in the bank gives you options if you get sick, or family has a disaster. Living paycheck to paycheck makes minor medical or job problems an instant emergency. Not being able to keep your job because you get sick without large savings can be quickly ruinous.
Becoming financially independent and retiring early gives you more time to cook healthy food and exercise more, not to mention huge reductions health destroying stress. Chances of major illnesses can be reduced greatly as a result.
I've already been through a year long unemployment episode, and never want to be at the whim of an employer for my livelihood again.
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That sound is the point sailing over your head.
Your advice requires having a lot of good luck so that you actually have the money to save.
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Work from 20 to 50, save 30%, and expect to live from 50 to 90 off those savings? I can do the math on my fingers to see that's not going to work.
Even if someone saved 100% for 30 years, inflation will ensure they can't live off that for 40 years afterwards.
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Work from 20 to 50, save 30%, and expect to live from 50 to 90 off those savings? I can do the math on my fingers to see that's not going to work.
Even if someone saved 100% for 30 years, inflation will ensure they can't live off that for 40 years afterwards.
I think by "save" he meant "invest."
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You can't calculate compound interest on your fingers, is the problem.
Even if someone saved 100% for 30 years, inflation will ensure they can't live off that for 40 years afterwards.
I don't think that most people save by holding onto cash, as you're suggesting.
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The only way I retire on that schedule is by carefully managing my expenses - something I'm working very hard to do. I'm not sure what others are expecting, but saving enough money to retire early is hard.
I'm really not sure what you were getting at in your post. Basically what I gleaned from it is: I'm 35. I pull in around $1M/year. Math Math Math. I plan on retiring in 5 years. You can't retire on a million dollars any more. Saving money is hard.
I don't mean to be a dick, but "carefully managing your expenses" is a little easier when making "literally close to 10x the average income" in my area. Not knocking what you've accomplished. You're either exceptionally smart, exceptionally lucky, mostly like
Retirement is unreealistic, period (Score:5, Insightful)
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X has unrealistic expectations about Y (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news, I hear a bunch of buggy makers expect to be able to pass their trade down to their grandson.
Or coal miners expecting a boom in coal consumption.
Or unskilled laborers expecting those pesky computers and robots to disappear someday.
Or Americans expecting to work less, produce less but get paid more than the other 80% of humanity forever and ever.
Re:X has unrealistic expectations about Y (Score:5, Insightful)
i have enough money for the rest of my life (Score:4, Funny)
So they're only very slightly optomistic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Millennials expect to retire at 59, two years younger than the working age average of 61
So they're only slightly more optimistic than actual stats would play out? I bet that's par for the course for any generation when they were still 20 years out from retirement.
Plan to succeed or plan to fail... (Score:4, Interesting)
The Wall Street Journal had a recent article about people who are least concerned about outliving their retirement savings are most likely to be a financial risk. The days of retiring at 65 and dropping dead at 70, which was the reality when Social Security got set up in the 1930's, are long gone..
https://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2017/02/17/the-people-least-concerned-about-outliving-their-savings-may-be-most-at-risk-financially/ [wsj.com]
Re:Plan to succeed or plan to fail... (Score:4, Interesting)
The days of retiring at 65 and dropping dead at 70, which was the reality when Social Security got set up in the 1930's, are long gone..
Actually, they dropped dead much earlier than that.
Only 53.9% of men and 60.6% of women made it to 65. https://www.ssa.gov/history/li... [ssa.gov]
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Actually, they dropped dead much earlier than that.
Only 53.9% of men and 60.6% of women made it to 65. https://www.ssa.gov/history/li... [ssa.gov]
Well duh, they dropped dead before reaching their 20s.
Straight quote from your link: "Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood."
And then they show of all the
And HSBC is a honest broker here (Score:5, Informative)
So it's not that the millennials are unrealistic, they are saving a plenty, it's that the Fed and other national banks are keeping the interest rates artificially low to boost asset prices and prop up failing mega-banks including HSBC. So please HSBC, tell me more about how I need to "save" more for the retirement so that the government can bail you and your ilk out again when you blow up the economy with asset bubbles.
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My search for 'hsbc ripoff' resulted in 36,000 results. This is one of the nastiest financial institutions on earth. The Wiki will explain some of the controversies around this London/Hongkong monstrosity but there is no easy way to grasp the financial pain that they have inflicted on ordinary individuals. Avoid at all cost!
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Prices don't rise much on a day-by-day basis, but every few decades there's a fairly huge jump.
Fat chance that before you retire you'll experience such a jump in value. There's your gain.
Isn't it obvious? (Score:2)
Ob (Score:3)
Is there anything they *do* have a realistic view about?
Not designing UIs, that's for sure.
We must beat the optimism out of them!!! (Score:2)
Otherwise they might not be as accepting of their next 60 years of shit pay for shit jobs.
Unrealistic expectations = any at all (Score:2)
OTOH, since robots will have all the jobs, they won't have anything to retire from.
Who wants to retire? (Score:2)
I'm in my 40s, so I've started thinking about it. You know what? I can't see myself retiring, and it's not about money.
I just wouldn't know what to do with myself other than become a couch potato. I've already travelled the world as much as I care to (and have a bit more travelling to do to keep the spouse happy).
I'm not rich enough to just do 'whatever', but have more than I need to get by. Unless I win the lottery so I can fiddle around on a large scale, I'll keep working just for something useful to
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Jobs for 65 YOlds? (Score:2)
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Perhaps a future in packing boxes at Amazon. Except in 40 years robots will probably be doing that.
Makes sense (Score:2)
Millennials are starting to work later than previous generations, so they plan to make up for it by retiring earlier.
Millennials are kids (Score:2)
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What's a "Retirement"? (Score:2)
Question is what work will be like (Score:2)
Social security will most likely be around in some form, and may have to be expanded at some point to cover the realities that no one is saving on their own. I'm not worried about the baby boomers or the generation after -- they all have pensions and will most likely die off quicker than future generations will. Just think of how many people smoked in the 50s compared to today, or drank themselves into oblivion after work every night, or spent the late 60s on drugs. Overall, they will have more health probl
Advice from a late gen boomer (Score:3)
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Good advice, but I fear it won't work these days, given the people getting voted into politics these days (not talking only about the US).
Wages will continue to be suppressed, until there's basically a revolution (the protests of the 2008 financial crisis was really nothing more than two kittens having a hissy fit, and looking absolutely adorable while doing it).
Work until you're 75 (Score:2)
Then when a quarter of you die while on the job, we can send those benefits to cover the people who live longer than average.
Why should retirement be any different? (Score:2)
Well (Score:2)
They're just optimistic.... (Score:2)
work till death (Score:2)
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of course there are "boom" areas that prove the exception, but for the most part it's both.
Most *people* don't have a realistic view. (Score:3)
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