When you were younger , when did you plan to retire when you got older?

[galaxyhi]

In the 80s, in my 20s, i had a good retail supervisory job.
The company had 401k and a profit sharing "pension" set up for us.

My retirement date was my birthday, 2025. (62)

In the 80s, the millennium seemed so far away, and 25 years beyond that seemed even further away.

Still, i managed to save $75k, plus emergency, which if still invested would be $1.5m then, had i not put another dime away.

But life and crap happened. My degenerative disc disease start at age 24. My "depression " was actually rediagnosed as bipolar in 2008, i spent my 30s in the hospital a lot, both physically and mentally.

I had no idea in my 20s when i was si full of life that I'd be early medically retired at age 40 on SSDI.

Now 55, to be 56, i am working part time to have more money to save for retirement. Im allowed, and considered a "working person with disabilities ". I only work 16 hours a week, fortunately above minimum.

My OH already knows will be working til age 70 to withdraw SS. Thats another 10 years away. My oh just turned 60.

I will at least try to work until my OH retires, so we can save more. When we got together 19 years ago, neither of us had anything. My OH was just out of bankruptcy and i was coming off welfare awaiting my SSDI.

Since then. We have bought a house, have 2 paid for vehicles, one 14 paid in cash, and have retirement.

It seems to grow slower now than in the 80s, but in the 80s my e-fund was getting like 13% interest at the bank.

Im also no longer insurable for life insurance. And my oh has two small old policies with FIL as beneficiary, but FIL is not going to change them to me.

We will have some inheritance unless it is needed to pay for a home, whuch is where 91 yo FIL is headed. So we are not counting in that at all. My father is fairly healthy at 85.. but doesn't have the assets FIL ha, and thats not a lot.

So we will keep plodding along.

I wanted to save/invest to retire at age 45, little did i know I'd be retired at 40, nor that I'd still be working at 55.

We will make it if current trajectory pans out to be real, even without inheritance.

[rothbear]

We both had a good future with college educations in medical (me) and environmental (DH). We planned to retire at 62 and then do a lot of travel. Yeah, right. Apparently fate had a lot of other plans.

Lost my good job at 46 when company sold off our division. Developed back problems from all the standing while training customers and flying on planes carting luggage and briefcase tool kit. Had to have surgery which ended up not working well so couldn't take any jobs that involved standing, plus by that time I had been out of the field for several years and no one wanted to hire me at age 50. Decided to "retire" to SC and found another job in customer service. Worked there for 1.5 years when I lost that job due to age discrimination (try to prove it!). No one hires when you are almost 60! Ended up taking SS at 62, but not because I wanted to and since it was so low DH had to still keep working. Thought I would get a PT job and then wham...I had to have a hip replacement, which the doc screwed up by damaging 2 nerves in my leg. When things were starting to look better I had to have major abdominal surgery with a follow-up surgery after 6 months.

So now I have to use a cane, still have some bad pain in my back and hubby is still working PT at age 67.5 even though he is now getting SS. Our plans of travel have pretty much gone out the window and I have to sit at home bored out of my mind most of the time. Had two places I really wanted to visit but had to cancel out of the Alaska cruise because of my first surgery. Seems every time we plan something I have a problem. Really afraid to even try to plan the cruise again or a visit to Ireland. People ask me if I want grandchildren...…..why? Not like I can do anything with them or take them anywhere or even be a fun grandma. Just a crippled up one that can't plan on anything.

[fluffythewondercat]

DH planned his retirement last week at age 67. His last day is tomorrow.

It's not involuntary. I would like to think I had finally managed to talk some sense into him but the reality is that his workplace is being converted -- even as we speak -- into an open office plan.

If you've never heard of the open office, you might be appalled. The drawbacks are many and obvious.

First, you tear down the walls and dispense with the soulless cubicles. Then you put everyone at long tables, shoulder to shoulder, so that they can talk more easily. Ditch any remaining private offices, which only enforce the idea that some people are better than others, and seat your most senior employees in the mix. People will collaborate. Ideas will spark. Outsiders will look at your office and think, This place has energy. Your staff will be more productive. Your company will create products unlike any the world has ever seen.

That is the myth of the open office, a workplace layout so pervasive that its presence is taken for granted, and its promises–of collaboration and innovation–are sacrosanct.

There’s just one problem. Employees hate open offices. They’re distracting. They’re loud. There’s often little privacy.

So why do companies use open office plans? One word: Money. You can cram more employees into the same space. Office space is incredibly expensive in Silicon Valley. In cubicle farms, studies have shown that people tend to surround themselves with personal items. Remove the walls, remove assigned seating, and you've got a workforce that never knows where they're going to sit the next day, so they don't leave personal items behind.

I don't blame him for wanting to flee. I wouldn't work under those conditions, either, if I had an alternative. So he's going around telling people he's retiring, which must be interesting because about 80% of their workforce consists of Indians here on H1B visas. I wonder if there is such a thing as "retirement" in India.

[ABQ2015]

My government employer was in the final design stage of a new building when I retired in late 2017. The offices were to have low cubicles with lots of conference rooms throughout the building and hardwall offices for the managers. The design was to promote collaboration although most of our engineers worked on individual projects. Our current offices were high cubicles with a number of hardwalled offices for managers and some lucky senior staff. It was already noisy and was going to get worse.

The new building was supposed to be completed several years earlier but got delayed due to funding. I felt lucky that I was able to retire before I had to move into that mosh pit. Our government employees were usually eligible to retire at age 56 but often worked to age 62 to increase their pension or because their children were in college. We had an older workforce, 1/4 were eligible to retire, and that number was increasing every year. Some of my co-workers were already threatening to retire if they had to make the move.