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I recently got my wife signed up for Medicare. One saleslady told me it was not uncommon at all to run into people at 65 that had no money in saving at all. So it could well be that the graph is correct. You can't just take into account the people you know in the suburbs. Figure all the people who have been sponging off the govt. for years. No savings. Add to that the people who are spending everything they have, and are entering retirement with CC debt and a mortgage. Even with some equity, they still have nothing in the bank. Just notice how many people over 55 work at your local grocery store or places like Lowe's or Walmart. They aren't doing it for recreation.
Exactly. There are lots of people who never had "careers", just a series of jobs. Life was focused on getting the next rent together, paying the next car insurance bill, buying food, etc. There was no time or money to think about some distant future. I myself have been in that situation, but fortunately I DID stick with one employer, and there was a pension plan involved. I never had the bucks to save much, though. I needed my paycheck for the bulk of my working years to support myself and my daughter.
I know a woman who has been married and divorced three times. Never made great choices, never made much money. She works in an office of a small electrical contractor, and on weekends she waitresses at a diner. She is 60 now. I bet she is going to be working that diner job till her legs give out.
One of the women in my condo complex just quit her supermarket cashier job. She is 80.
There are lots of people without savings or retirement funds. For every person worried about eating Ramen because they only have 1.7 million saved, as someone said in the other thread, there are many more who plan to live on SS alone. They are also people who already know how to live without some of the stuff that wealthier people consider essentials, so they will survive.
I really haven't faced much adversity. I haven't been unemployed in almost 40 years. Some people I have worked with at previous jobs who are just as skilled and motivated as I am have had periods of unemployment and/or poor health. Very few have experienced the kind of financial success I have and one of the main reasons I have is luck; I had no way of knowing this job would last this long and that they would keep increasing rates like they have. It probably won't last all the way to retirement but I will be fine. Most who struggle are not "sponging" by choice.
I don't know a single one. Even my secretary has $120k+ and a nice pension about $3500 a month. She also has a house paid off.
Wow, your secretary must have been paid big bucks to have a pension that large. I am a retired teacher (paid into the state retirement system for 30 plus years) and my pension is significantly smaller than that. I do not even know one fellow teacher who is making that amount per month and a few worked & paid into the system for almost 40 years.
I think it will depend upon the generation people are in. I know lots of people in my age group (50s) who don't have those lovely pensions that were handed out to my parents' generation, and their 401ks took a beating, or their houses went underwater because they got one of those easy mortgages. I always felt they should have planned better, but it really has been tough for people in the last few decades.
My husband and I had a secure retirement, and plans to keep working until our late 60s. Now he's got terminal cancer, and I am his sole caregiver and frankly, the future is terrifying. I know there are people who wasted their opportunities, but there are those whose world was turned upside down by an event you only saw in your worst nightmares.
TarynB, I am sorry about your husband.
I agree that many people who are not faced with a crisis assume that it can't/won't happen to them.
My husband had to leave his high level professional job (trial attorney) and accept a job that only required a GED (night watchman) when he became mildly cognitively disabled, from a type of slowly progressing dementia/brain damage, in his late 40s. He became totally, permanently cognitively & physically disabled at age 58 (unable to function at a level to hold any type of job at all).
And, that was before he suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury and needed total supervision at all times.
Often, on these threads people assume that everyone's life is just a paradise of perfection and that is not always the case. Severe health problems and accidents can easily derail even the best made short & long range plans.
Last edited by germaine2626; 05-24-2016 at 07:42 AM..
This topic reminds me of a co-worker/friend of my husband. They worked for the state of CA, so the friend had a good job, certainly not high paying, but the definitive steady job. I found out that, for several years, my husband had been making "payday" loans to this guy, interest free of course. Here he was, actually making more money than DH and asking monthly for $200-300 to tide him over until their monthly payday. I was stunned. How could someone not be able to manage that one week of being broke, if only to end this cycle of borrowing/paying back a week later?? He had zero savings to pay for food, etc, when his checking account ran out each month, and this is after 20+ years of steady employment and the same expenses he always had. DH said it wasn't a problem for him to make the loan, so he never thought of saying "no" since he was always paid back in a reasonable time. After he was late in paying once or twice, I asked DH to please find a way to say "no" in the future, before he gets burned by the guy.
It's so hard to imagine that people don't recognize the need for at least an emergency fund. I always put away a few twenties each month to build up an emergency fund, even when I was making $650/month.
This topic reminds me of a co-worker/friend of my husband. They worked for the state of CA, so the friend had a good job, certainly not high paying, but the definitive steady job. I found out that, for several years, my husband had been making "payday" loans to this guy, interest free of course. Here he was, actually making more money than DH and asking monthly for $200-300 to tide him over until their monthly payday. I was stunned. How could someone not be able to manage that one week of being broke, if only to end this cycle of borrowing/paying back a week later?? He had zero savings to pay for food, etc, when his checking account ran out each month, and this is after 20+ years of steady employment and the same expenses he always had. DH said it wasn't a problem for him to make the loan, so he never thought of saying "no" since he was always paid back in a reasonable time. After he was late in paying once or twice, I asked DH to please find a way to say "no" in the future, before he gets burned by the guy.
It's so hard to imagine that people don't recognize the need for at least an emergency fund. I always put away a few twenties each month to build up an emergency fund, even when I was making $650/month.
I really haven't faced much adversity. I haven't been unemployed in almost 40 years. Some people I have worked with at previous jobs who are just as skilled and motivated as I am have had periods of unemployment and/or poor health. Very few have experienced the kind of financial success I have and one of the main reasons I have is luck; I had no way of knowing this job would last this long and that they would keep increasing rates like they have. It probably won't last all the way to retirement but I will be fine. Most who struggle are not "sponging" by choice.
My "adversity" was a bad marriage. Alcoholic, gambler, you know the story. But the good part is that the reason he probably married me to begin with--a stable job with a regular paycheck--was still mine after I threw him out. Along with the IRS bill and other debt, but it was easier to manage with him not being there incurring new expenses.
In the last 15 years of my 37 at my job, I made some good progress as far as promotions and salary increases go, and that went a long way toward providing me with a good enough pension.
I still have some debt. I helped my kid with college. But I have done some consulting work since retirement, and I got a job offer that fell into my lap that I can't turn down, so I'll work a bit longer to get myself in a better spot.
Haha! I know! I am thinking "WTF?" Personally, I think there was something going on (gambling?) that was causing this guy to be so inept at budgeting. And DH is so sweet, it never occurred to him that the guy was using him, or that he was enabling him.
We have another 62 year old friend who, despite years of hard work, never saved anything. Then he was rear-ended in the company truck and cracked a vertebrae in his neck. He had used his house as an ATM for years with equity loans and when he went on disability after surgery he almost lost the house. Fortunately he received a settlement for his injuries, but he can never do the only type of work he is qualified for, physical labor. His settlement was enough to pay off the house and put a little away for emergencies. So now he has savings, but is living off SSD in a paid for home. He depends on us for financial advice, but it's all we can do to keep him from blowing his savings in a year.
My sister-in-law's parents might fit that description, although I'm not sure exactly how old they are. The mom apparently is NOT wise when it comes to spending money, and her dad is homeless/staying with friends, although he does have a job.
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