Financial struggles in retirement - people's own fault or not? (55, state)
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Regarding choices, I have a theory called "pinballing." (For those who remember pinball machines with their bumpers).
THere are few clean shots in life, if any. Maybe being 18 and finishing high school is one of 'em. Unfortunately, it's hard to have a forward-looking mature mindset at 18, but you have a clean shot at choices, if you're lucky.
Most choices, as the previous poster said, come off of earlier choices, successes/failures/ideas. It's like a pinball bouncing off one bumper into another area of the game. Not a clean shot.
I am eager for retirement because my night shifts are wearing me into the ground (although it is a job security to work third shift, and my job has never had straight second shifts- only a mix of first/second, and I absolutely canNOT work days). I hope to have enough money to stay in my house and keep up my dog rescues and charitable things while having a safe car. If I can't, then I'll have to move- not sure if I'd move to a trailer in my town (few dogs) or out of state. I don't want to move anywhere where I become more car-dependent than I already am.
I'm not sure if I followed my bliss in all my crazy moves when younger. I was too depressed to have any sense, and too blue collar to understand a big picture. I certainly did everything I thought I wanted to do, and didn't end up with anything except a sense of satisfaction of having tried everything that I thought I wanted.
It's worth every effort, but you have to accept when it's not working and also accept the cost on every level of that effort.
Unless you marry someone with federal benefits. Now THAT's a different story. (Two women I know of).
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Okay, so my point is you can do all the right things and still come up short but you can do all the wrong things and come up smelling like a rose. Luck, opportunity, planning or scheming all plays a part. It's how one takes advantage of them that counts. There are many formulas for sucess; none guaranteed to work but all have possibilites.
And the kind of family you were born into, don't forget.
For those on this thread patting themselves on the back for doing well (and you did do well, so congrats!), how many of you paid for your college educations completely by yourself and how many had mom and dad or granddad pay for it? How many have had mom or dad or granddad help with a down payment on a house No answers needed here (i don't mean the thread to go off on tangent), this is just an introspective question to think about in relation to personal success. Good college = good networking = good jobs with pensions. At least that's the way it was when many here were working their way up .
Every time a group of people get bailed out it increases the national debt, which affects all of us in the long term. Every person who is on Social Security disability who doesn't deserve to be means fewer dollars in the system, which in turn means more pressure on the system. Every person who got a real estate loan they couldn't afford has contributed to the economic meltdown, and it is a rare bird who has not been affected (even indirectly) by that. Every person who smokes, who is obese, and who doesn't exercise takes health care dollars away from the rest of us. Like it or not, we are all in this together. As John Donne so famously wrote about 400 years ago, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
Good points, but for the true source of the financial mess and downhill slide of our country, look to the top of the pyramid, not the base where the masses reside. Those getting a real estate loan they couldn't afford or applying for assistance on iffy grounds, or drinking soda b/c they were never educated are NOTHING compared to the incredible graft and corporate crimes at the top...that are bleeding our economy to death. Those who have "made it" in retirement have just squeaked by before long, hard economic times. The great salaries, the pensions, the smooth retirements of the past may be a thing of the past, unless I'm reading my sources wrong.
Last edited by RiverBird; 08-10-2010 at 04:57 PM..
Good points, but for the true source of the financial mess and downhill slide of our country, look to the top of the pyramid, not the base where the masses reside. Those getting a real estate loan they couldn't afford or applying for assistance on iffy grounds, or drinking soda b/c they were never educated are NOTHING compared to the incredible graft and corporate crimes at the top...that are bleeding our economy to death. Those who have "made it" in retirement have just squeaked by before long, hard economic times. The great salaries, the pensions, the smooth retirements of the past may be a thing of the past, unless I'm reading my sources wrong.
I agree with you that the top of the pyramid is more guilty than the bottom for the economic meltdown which began in 2008 and from which we have not yet fully recovered (and from which we may never fully recover). But unfortunately there is lots of guilt to go around. And I agree that anyone my age (66) just barely got in under the wire by not all that many years, and maybe not even under it depending on the percentage of one's retirement nest egg that was in equities, mutual funds, and/or real estate. My sister is only three years younger than I and she was forced to go back to work a year ago after she and her husband had thought they were all set. And she felt very lucky to have even been able to find a full-time job with benefits, even one with modest pay.
how many of you paid for your college educations completely by yourself and how many had mom and dad or granddad pay for it? How many have had mom or dad or granddad help with a down payment on a house No answers needed here ... Good college = good networking = good jobs with pensions.
That might be true in many cases, but very often it is not true. Divorce is very common, so there are many of us who started life as middle class but became poor, and neglected, because of divorce. We worked summers and part time while in college, and maybe got scholarships. We didn't go to ivy league colleges where the networks are. Yet we may have worked very hard and managed to get decent jobs, or start successful businesses.
I agree with you that the top of the pyramid is more guilty than the bottom for the economic meltdown which began in 2008 ...
Began with Reagan and his unbelievable tax cuts to the wealthy (remember "trickle-down"--? well nothing ever quite trickled down) and the corporations, oh my, let's not go there ...but it goes way back... Our country is built on advantages for the rich, and then we say things about the poor like "he had no ambition," etc. No offense meant, but we really need to understand the disparity between the advantaged and the disadvantaged( yes I know rags to riches stories too! )....
Give us a break. Reagn inherited a economy with double digit unemployemnet plus double digit infaltio form carter. He actaully put this cpountry o course of recovery without the massive debt that Obama is creating that has things like growth trending dfownward . He has spent with no results our children and grand chilrens wealth to come. If oyu look you will see aht people rlly thnik oif the future in the savings rising and lowering of debt. That is zero confidence in his policies and preparing for the severe cuts mandated in payingfor the chinese credit card obama and democrats have been spending on.The working class are always paid by their employers so trickle down in a word for it. If noit tehn anyoihe is free to strikeout on their own i thsi country and not rely on anyone. Right now they are depepdent on trickle down form governamnt that is unsustainable.Enjoy the benfits while they last because they will not last long when the credit card bill comes in.
Give us a break. Reagn inherited a economy with double digit unemployemnet plus double digit infaltio form carter. He actaully put this cpountry o course of recovery without the massive debt that Obama is creating that has things like growth trending dfownward . He has spent with no results our children and grand chilrens wealth to come. If oyu look you will see aht people rlly thnik oif the future in the savings rising and lowering of debt. That is zero confidence in his policies and preparing for the severe cuts mandated in payingfor the chinese credit card obama and democrats have been spending on.The working class are always paid by their employers so trickle down in a word for it. If noit tehn anyoihe is free to strikeout on their own i thsi country and not rely on anyone. Right now they are depepdent on trickle down form governamnt that is unsustainable.Enjoy the benfits while they last because they will not last long when the credit card bill comes in.
We could argue this out on another forum but just a note to say that I don't believe our country's mess is a Donkey vs. Republican issue...it's a wealth vs. "the masses" thing. The rich get the tax cuts, while the folks getting average salaries or low hourly wages get to support the rich (both with taxes and low pay for what they do). It's as old as the hills--and both major political parties operate by it. The good old boy system, all over the world.
Anyway you are right that the current administration is just as bad, bailing out the big guys (at whose expense?) and selling our country down the river. It's not new, it's just a logical extension of a certain way of viewing who;s entitled to what. Entitlements at the top grow entitlements at the bottom.
Began with Reagan and his unbelievable tax cuts to the wealthy (remember "trickle-down"--? well nothing ever quite trickled down) and the corporations, oh my, let's not go there ...but it goes way back... Our country is built on advantages for the rich, and then we say things about the poor like "he had no ambition," etc. No offense meant, but we really need to understand the disparity between the advantaged and the disadvantaged( yes I know rags to riches stories too! )....
I wrote that our current economic meltdown began in 2008. You wrote (above) that the roots of it go back considerably before 2008. I agree with that, although we could talk about the details forever. We are both right. I do not understand why you are setting up this opposition.
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