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Wow...life is unpredictable. If you die at 39, would you have enjoyed life?
I think we would all have different answers to this. If I had died at 39, I would have enjoyed life tremendously. Now that doesn't mean I didn't look forward to my retirement at age 61 and a half, but while working I was still able to pursue various hobbies and meaningful activities outside of work, and there were some aspects of work I enjoyed too, along with periods of horrible stress and misery, which fortunately were not continuous.
In reading the retirement forum during the past 8 months, I have seen this question answered in various forms and wordings over the entire gamut of the possible: One poster implied that he would commit suicide if he could no longer work because life would no longer have any meaning outside of work. Others hate their jobs so much that they wonder if their mental health will hold out until whatever retirement date they are shooting for financially, and they long for retirement as a pure heaven. Most of us probably fall between those two extremes, as I do.
I think we would all have different answers to this. If I had died at 39, I would have enjoyed life tremendously. Now that doesn't mean I didn't look forward to my retirement at age 61 and a half, but while working I was still able to pursue various hobbies and meaningful activities outside of work, and there were some aspects of work I enjoyed too, along with periods of horrible stress and misery, which fortunately were not continuous.
In reading the retirement forum during the past 8 months, I have seen this question answered in various forms and wordings over the entire gamut of the possible: One poster implied that he would commit suicide if he could no longer work because life would no longer have any meaning outside of work. Others hate their jobs so much that they wonder if their mental health will hold out until whatever retirement date they are shooting for financially, and they long for retirement as a pure heaven. Most of us probably fall between those two extremes, as I do.
ill tell you this much, having the savings and choice to work or not can make what you do even more enjoyable . the fact that you are doing it because you want to and not because you have can put things in a much better light.
i was going to retire early in june but i find i really enjoy what i do now since its on my terms and when the day comes i no longer want to do it ill stop.
being retired doesnt have to mean not working,it can meant just not having to work .
In reading the retirement forum during the past 8 months, I have seen this question answered in various forms and wordings over the entire gamut of the possible: One poster implied that he would commit suicide if he could no longer work because life would no longer have any meaning outside of work. Others hate their jobs so much that they wonder if their mental health will hold out until whatever retirement date they are shooting for financially, and they long for retirement as a pure heaven. Most of us probably fall between those two extremes, as I do.
Although, I would agree that most are not so extreme, I think a lot of people that are aggressively planning for retirement are short changing themselves today. Not so much in the financial sense, many can afford to save for retirement and live decently today, after all someone making $100k can easily save $15k and still have an income higher than most. But rather in terms of life, working some job you don't like, waiting until your old to take big vacations, etc etc seems rather depressing to me. Although, not everyone can have a job they love, I don't get why so many accept working in careers for 30~40 years that they don't enjoy or even are just so-so about. At least from my experience, there seems to be a high correlation between people focused on "retirement planning" and people that aren't really taking advantage of today.
I know plenty of people who started trying to build net worth when they were still in their twenties. Many have had their savings confiscated in one way or another. Inflation ate up the value of their savings. The rental properties they bought were rendered worthless by 'Diversity'. But they had to pay Capital Gains 'recapture' on them, even though they sold them for far fewer Dollars than they'd paid, and even though a Dollar was worth half what it was when they'd bought the properties.
Now, people's IRAs are being wiped out. This, after the value of their stocks evaporated.
People think I'm 'set for life'. Personally, I have no confidence in the future. I've seen too many thrifty, prudent people wiped out to believe in anything.
So, I can't blame anyone who doesn't bother to save for the future. For most people, what's the point?
not sure where your investing but its not in diversified markets here... we are just about back to the highs and if you rebalanced instead of bailing at the low you already broke new highs..... there arew no diversified funds that are not up big time from the lows..
as far as working at jobs we may not like... thats life, thats why its called work. very few of us had the luxury of falling into something we like . usually its based on your first job and you just drift into that career or else we graduate and take a job and being that is our area of expertise thats where our value is.
The only reason someone, who has invested over the last 20-30 years would find themselves broke today, is if they made extremely poor investments. Even putting all your money in treasuries would have resulted in a decent return.
for the first time i think we are on the same page
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