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OK folks, I've read these posts for about a year or so. Either it's the crowd that this forum attracts or somewhere along the path people didn't learn how to save for the future. So, what is it?
Did many of you never learn about planning for your future?
Was there just not enough income to save for the future?
Was it not important to save for the future?
Why is it that so many people facing retirement are so ill-prepared after 30-40years of working?
I meet a lot of nice people that just live day by day... by that, I don't mean down and out or they believe social services, social security, Section 8 and medicare will be there for them in their golden years...
Hmm, let's see...most people spend more than they earn and therefore can't or don't save much, raising a family is extremely expensive even when you live frugally and many are in denial - thinking they have lots and lots of time left to get it together, or like Ultrarunner has pointed out, they believe someone or something will take care of them - it will all work out. Another reason: People underestimate how much money they will actually need once they are retired.
Since most people haven't saved enough for retirement, many of us fall into the category of not being fully prepared financially for our older years. This problem isn't unique - actually the odd man/woman out here it is the prepared individual who has been planning and saving for retirement for years.
I'm not sure if this is still true. I did some research on the topic back in the late 70s/early 80s but in China, they have no social security type of system. The oldest son is responsible for the parents in their old age. So when the one child per couple rule/law in China went into effect (to reduce the population), some parents killed their newborn girls.
Imagine if Americans had to rely on their oldest male child to support them in retirement. Hardly any of us would retire.
You haven't seen Nothing yet! The retires of the last 20 years will be the last ones to have an employee sponsored retirement. The next 30 years are going to be a "Bloodbath" unfortunately. And when SS runs dry it won't be pretty.
Newmover99 - There are many, many government employes (Federal, state and local) and they still provide a very nice retirement for their employees - so I have to disagree with you. Many of those employees do not rely on Social Security - I know we don't - no need, we have a nice pension from our city government - fully funded.
Americans generally want everything right now with no sacrafice or work. Big generality but think about our debt levels and how young people want to step out of college and into the life their parents spent decades working towards getting.
It was against the tide but we have saved diligently and provided a financial cushion for the future. Even with pensions and such, we wanted choice and that takes a boatload of savings. We never bought the house we "could have afforded" according to everyone or the new cars "we deserve" or the new fashions "to look like everyone else".
Now since we have been living on our retirement amount of income for years, retirement is a breeze.
Best to teach your kids how to maximize their earning power, to minimize their expenses and provide for their own future. Cause there isnt going to be that safety net in the future unless you provide it yourself.
I blame a lot of the problem on people falling prey to the ads of "cashing in your equity on your house" that were unheard of years ago.
When I entered the labor market sone 45 years ago, the dream was to buy a house and have it paid off before you retire so you have eliminated a huge expense ( mortgage payments) once your income drops due to retirement.
I recall some of the first home equity ads. They showed a couple going on a cruise or island vacation. The ad said---"you work hard, you deserve this"--" cash in the equity on your home"
A relative works doing mortgage closings. For many years she has noticed most are done for re-financing and she is seeing many people reaching retirement who still owe 75% + of the value of their house in mortgage.
Somehow the timetable of having ones house paid off by retirement was deemed "old fashioned" and we are about to see the fallout from the abandonment of that good fiscal practice.
Somewhere around the time when the government ceased to call us "citizens" and started calling us "consumers" instead. We live in a consumption-based culture, and if people actually stopped buying things and started saving money, the whole economic carousel would grind to a halt.
Hence this latest tax rebate, which is one of the stupidest, short-sighted concepts I've heard - "the economy is slowing down, so let's give people money so'll they'll spend it and keep the economy going." Either the tax revenues are necessary to keep the government going and a tax rebate gets "repaid" by cutting gov't services/functions (which won't help the economy) or they were collecting too much in the first place.
OK folks, I've read these posts for about a year or so. Either it's the crowd that this forum attracts or somewhere along the path people didn't learn how to save for the future. So, what is it?
Did many of you never learn about planning for your future?
Was there just not enough income to save for the future?
Was it not important to save for the future?
Why is it that so many people facing retirement are so ill-prepared after 30-40years of working?
I am 30 so I still have time and am just now preparing like I should be. I learned haphazardly from my parents, neither of whom saved for the future. Also, I earned a lot of money for a while, didn't save it, then when I was ready to save my income dropped to 40% of its peak and there was no longer enough...
I think Social Security and relics such as pensions are just so ingrained in us that we as a society don't learn to.
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