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Old 02-11-2014, 08:52 AM
 
Location: San Diego California
6,795 posts, read 7,268,829 times
Reputation: 5194

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coseau View Post
I work next to a guy that has met the age requirement (55 years of age) to retire but cannot due to kids in High school and college and mortgage payment for nice big house in suburbs. So now he has to work many years past retirement age in order to pay for these things because he has the attitude you only live once. I always tease him by saying just think you could be home chillin instead of putting up with all this bs at work here. He counters that he enjoys working and maybe he does enjoy some aspects of the job but other times he gets so pissed off because he is forced to work overtime that he walks off the job in the morning claiming stress or sickness. So now he's trapped to work at a job that is becoming more unpleasant as time passes by. He didn't save enough because he had to keep up with the Joneses and now he has to work where as he could enjoying his 50's retired.
The really sad part about people who are forced to work into their later years is that is often has detrimental effects on their health.

There is almost nothing worse for your health than stress, and as people get into the retirement years they often find it is harder to keep up with the rapidly changing workplace and increasing demands.

This usually means they make more mistakes and the quality of their work is not as high as some of their younger working colleagues, which increases their stress levels even more.

It becomes a vicious cycle that I would not wish on anyone.
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Old 02-11-2014, 12:07 PM
 
30,876 posts, read 36,830,889 times
Reputation: 34467
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimhcom View Post
I think desires are more emotional than cerebral. Greed and fear drive economic decisions more times than intelligent thought.
As a society, we spend the majority of our time…
working jobs in which we feel trapped...
in order to get money to buy things we don't need....
in order to impress people we don't really like....
Yep, exactly.
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Old 02-11-2014, 12:16 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,914 posts, read 31,038,232 times
Reputation: 47285
I don't think it's necessarily an issue of people not being able to imagine their "future self." As I've aged, I'm just now starting to lose family members and old family friends. Most of these people were in the "greatest generation." Three of my four grandparents are still alive and healthy (the only one that is dead died in 2009 when I was 23), but most of the great aunts and uncles are dead. Due to the large number of family members of that age, I've seen a lot of death lately.

Sadly, our "future but end self" is probably going to be pretty dismal, no matter how much or little we save. Pretty much every family member that I've seen pass away, and all were past 75 but no older than 85, were in nursing homes. One was on dialysis, a couple had severe dementia, and all of them were in pretty terrible shape. I can think of few people I know who made it past 75 that died a "clean" death - most lingered in nursing homes. A few have died young and those were sudden, unexpected deaths.

The sad thing is that by the time many retire at 65 or so, they only have around a decade of good health, if that. Others have chronic conditions long before then and by retirement, quality of life has already declined. My mother started going downhill around 50 (granted, she's obese, diabetic, and doesn't take very good care of herself) and can't do things she used to do. Likewise, my mother and father have withdrawn from their retirement partly to pay medical debt.

I also don't think many people are "living it up," running up the cards, and then dying in poverty. Some people are excessively wasteful, but most people have fritter a lot away over a long period of time. Several years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I had built numerous computers, largely with spare parts I had gotten for cheap or from repairing other people PCs. If I had a motherboard and process, I picked up a used case and video card. It wasn't expensive relative to a lot of hobbies, but I had accumulated of possessions that I couldn't even use. I know most people are chock full of possessions that are obsolete, useless, duplicates, etc. It takes money to accumulate all these things, and over time, it's a lot of money.

Stagnant wages and more nontraditional (single parent, single, etc) households are the biggest culprits. It's harder for one person to pay all household expenses and save than two working adults in a household splitting expenses and saving. If your wage is stagnant and you are barely making enough to subsist, there's nothing to save anyway. That is the biggest problem.
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Old 02-11-2014, 02:16 PM
 
2,845 posts, read 5,998,985 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CouponJack View Post
Life is all about choices. You choose to live in a very expensive part of the country.
I guess I look at things a little differently than you.

I look at it like we live in the greatest country in the world with the opportunity to do anything you want if you put your mind to it. Let's keep that in the basis of conversantion. This is not North Korea or any other banana republic. In so many ways we are given things throughout life that our older parents and grandparents didn't have. To name a few we have Medicaid/Medicare, free school, free school lunches, assistance w utility bills, food stamps, wic, earned income credit, etc....

No one ever said saving was easy. It's very hard in a lot of cases. Don't you think I'd rather be doing something else on my time off instead of warning extra money as a tax preparer? I choose to do this instead of complain and whine like a lot of people do. But the reason I do it is so I can have a better retirement and help provide for my kids.

Like I said in an earlier post, society's version today of 'sacrifice' in a lot of cases is either samsung or Apple or digital vs basic. Let's be honest.

It's really pathetic the whining that goes on.
I'm a scientist, if you want a career, you can't live in some cheap area (for the most part). The choices are west coast or east coast mostly. Which are generally more expensive areas to live in. I also DO choose to live where my family does, not going to isolate myself from family so that I can save 15% or more for retirement. I don't need to do a job like preparing taxes when I spent quite a good amount of money to further my education in a good career.

And most retirement plans start out with paying smaller amounts of money when you are younger, then increasing that amount when you are older, being 31, I think 10% is right on track I wouldn't expect someone who is 21 with their first job to be saving the same amount of money who is 51 and closer to retirement.

I still think cost of living is much higher than it used to be vs. the increase in salary.
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Old 02-11-2014, 03:56 PM
 
Location: Wouldn't you like to know?
9,116 posts, read 17,673,167 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by beera View Post
I'm a scientist, if you want a career, you can't live in some cheap area (for the most part). The choices are west coast or east coast mostly. Which are generally more expensive areas to live in. I also DO choose to live where my family does, not going to isolate myself from family so that I can save 15% or more for retirement. I don't need to do a job like preparing taxes when I spent quite a good amount of money to further my education in a good career.

And most retirement plans start out with paying smaller amounts of money when you are younger, then increasing that amount when you are older, being 31, I think 10% is right on track I wouldn't expect someone who is 21 with their first job to be saving the same amount of money who is 51 and closer to retirement.

I still think cost of living is much higher than it used to be vs. the increase in salary.
I don't dispute that things are tough for alot of people.

My point is and I'm only going by individual cases I've seen, most people can cut things or sacrifice and improve their financial well being alot better than what they state.

Again, and no one has addressed this, being 'poor' and 'sacrificing' is relative.

I'm sure if we looked at individual cases, people will be surprised how they can improve their lives...
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Old 02-11-2014, 06:37 PM
 
2,845 posts, read 5,998,985 times
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I can agree, when I see people complaining they are broke but just bought the new iphone 5, I take it with a grain of salt. I have a smartphone, but it cost me nothing except the taxes for it, which was like $30? My work pays of a portion of my bill too (20%)

But as many cases as there are of overspending, I'm sure there are quite a bit of people who aren't overspending. Housing, children, medical bills, etc, just come first unfortunately.
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Old 02-11-2014, 07:59 PM
 
2,401 posts, read 3,247,497 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CouponJack View Post
I don't dispute that things are tough for alot of people.

My point is and I'm only going by individual cases I've seen, most people can cut things or sacrifice and improve their financial well being alot better than what they state.
.
And most people can try harder to make a living and saving too. If you plan for retirement and realize you'll need a boatload of money by retirement you'll find the motivation to work harder and earn more.
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Old 02-11-2014, 08:19 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,914 posts, read 31,038,232 times
Reputation: 47285
Quote:
Originally Posted by beera View Post
I'm a scientist, if you want a career, you can't live in some cheap area (for the most part). The choices are west coast or east coast mostly. Which are generally more expensive areas to live in. I also DO choose to live where my family does, not going to isolate myself from family so that I can save 15% or more for retirement. I don't need to do a job like preparing taxes when I spent quite a good amount of money to further my education in a good career.

And most retirement plans start out with paying smaller amounts of money when you are younger, then increasing that amount when you are older, being 31, I think 10% is right on track I wouldn't expect someone who is 21 with their first job to be saving the same amount of money who is 51 and closer to retirement.

I still think cost of living is much higher than it used to be vs. the increase in salary.
Ideally you want to contribute more when you're younger in order to have a higher amount of funds to grow over time. If you have a large "base" on your retirement "pyramid" by 35 or so, investment growth can take care of a lot of the rest. If you don't start until 35, then you have lost not only straight funds, but many years of growth.

I also agree that many of the best careers are found along the coasts. I'm from Tennessee and our state's forums frequently get posters from economically strong, blue, coastal states wanting to relocate to TN, wanting cheap housing, good schools, low crime, and seemingly thinking they can keep their high powered coastal career.

It doesn't work that way generally. If one wants a career, they go to the coasts. If they are more family oriented or tied to their home, they can stay inland, often at a financial cost. I can't believe that most of the TN posters do not realize this simple fact.
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Old 02-11-2014, 11:17 PM
 
1,496 posts, read 1,849,740 times
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I don't know any of my peers that save for retirement. Everyone is just living paycheck to paycheck. Mainly because they recklessly spend their money. I think there is a lot of truth of not envisioning the future self. When I was 20 could I envision myself at 30? Hell no, 30 was old to the 20 year old me. Why would I want to think about that?

Same goes for the 30 and 40 year olds that don't envision the 60 year self.
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Old 02-12-2014, 03:15 AM
 
106,143 posts, read 108,118,136 times
Reputation: 79692
if folks really wanted to save they would find a way. since they don't they just find an excuse.
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