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I am 60, and have never had an employer that didn’t have a company match on the 401k. A high school & college friend, same, and we both worked in different private industries and we both have pensions. Both our companies NOW have no pension benefits (mine in 2008, his in 2010 for new employees) but both increased company match significantly for their new hires. It’s all about choices and capabilities.
Different strokes. I never had a employer that offered a 401K of any kind until my last job. Then I maxed it out, but it was so late, it is only an augment to SS- but it helps. Aside from my own consulting business, which was growing well until 2007, when it crashed along with some big clients going down, most of the other companies I worked for were startups and under-funded. Learned the hard way that going for the gold by the way of the startup is not all it's cracked up to be...finally got smart and went the traditional route, or else I would not have been able to retire after living paycheck to paycheck for most of my career. Lots of different career paths out there; some good, and some not.
Many employers do not offer 401ks or employer match. Sometimes the choices suck. Sometimes the choices are very very hard or limited because of earlier choices. Ones life is a sequence of cascading choices built one upon the other, with uncontrollable future outside influences totally rearranging how ones choices end up being good or bad. I have been extremely lucky, in general, mostly from making what ended up being sound choices in employment, searching for the right fit/pay/benefits for me.
But 26 years ago, during that recession, at least $60k in debt, imprisoned in a childless failed marriage, in a house that had maybe $20k equity, but at least a job that was ok paying, I had to make a hard choice. I was totally miserable, and decided I had to make the difficult choice to take advantage of a severance package and divorce, basically to allow myself to start over with “only” $20k debt and a much lower paying job that had promised potential. That next year was horrible. The job had little opportunity that I could influence. The recession cut spending on al the clients I was assigned. My reduced debt was growing. But luck intervened and I met my now DW of 20 years. The recession ended & I searched for and found successively better and higher paying jobs.
Yes, and also to look for a different job that offers matching. No need to leave free money on the table.
Not just yet. He took the job in March. It's still work, but it's the best job he's ever had.
It's a small company, and they have all sorts of little perks. A couple of weeks ago, the owner decided that because he had to leave work early, that everyone else should be able to leave. They knew three days ahead. There are three buildings on the property, and no one thought to tell the employees in building 3 that they could leave. One week later, they got to leave early.
The owner likes baseball, buys season tickets, but ends up not going to many games. He gives most of them to the employees. My son, the junior employee, was quite surprised to be offered the seats one week. His manager asked, "Do you like baseball? Would you like tickets to a game?" My son said, "Yeah, I want to go to a game." They were the good seats. The guy who took his drink order asked him how he and his friend happened to be sitting in those seats. He told him that he worked for That company for Mr. Big. If he hadn't answered correctly, he'd have been booted out.
Last summer, a guy who had worked there for 10 years left for greener pastures. Half hour lunch became an hour and a half catered BBQ. They had a Christmas party with an open bar and endless hors d'oeuvres at a country club.
Show me the money? He got a $75 dollar bonus for showing up for work on Monday because many call in sick on MLK Day.
He thought he was going to have to wait until his one year anniversary for any sort of cost of living increase or a couple more days off. Nope. They doubled his paid time off and gave him a small raise at the end of the year.
Over the years I did spend considerable dough on things that made life more interesting like vacations, various items for my hobbies, eating out, etc. Sure I could have hoarded all that money into my savings. Last year I found out a former boss of mine dropped over dead in his kitchen of undiagnosed pancreatic cancer he was only 62,and a few months away from retirement and collecting his pension. It kind of put things in perspective for me. I have always lived like each day could be my last day.
Let's say you retire early and then your money runs out about the time when you start collecting Social Security.
It seems like you could do OK even as a single person. Let's say you get $1,500/month in Social Security.
You can move into a subsidized senior complex where you pay 1/3 of your income, which would be $500. You'd also get $200/month or so in food stamps, and you would also get Medicaid. If you live in a city, you could get senior bus/train passes which should be very cheap.
So really, your monthly expenses would be as follows:
$500 Rent
$50 Bus pass
$300 Food (since $200 is covered by food stamps)
$0 Medical since you get Medicaid
$50 cell phone with unlimited data
$100 household goods
------------
$1,000 total expenses per month
That means you would have $500 left over for whatever you want. Not a bad deal if you ask me.
People with $1,500. per month income would get no food stamps. They are issued on a sliding scale and only those with no income at all, get the full amount.
This should be taken into consideration with disability as well. Before I moved to a low cost area, I lived in socal, which is very expensive. My check was just below the line. We got a 'bonus' raise and all of a sudden I got about fifty dollars more.
That was the good part. The bad part was that it put my check above the medi-cal limit. The worse part is that with a pre-existing condition, and continuing expense whatever the amount, I lost medi-cal. This was before obamacare. And my portion of the rent went up because it was a percentage.
Sure was an expensive fifty dollars. At the time I lived in California, and the max was about 800 a month. Lots of people were renting rooms, living with relatives, or just out of the car since other kinds of housing were above the budget. I wasn't eligable for food stamps at all during this time.
At the time I was on medication which had multiple side effects and I doubt I could have even gotten a job. I worked myself off the medication for health reasons as it was making things worse even at low doses.
The way its handled sounds like a lot more like Russian Roulette than health care.
My son's employer doesn't contribute anything, so I advised him to save and invest elsewhere.
I've never had an employer that offered a match and I have always worked in professional offices.
I've always funded my own accounts and did quite well
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