Most people retire earlier than expected- I sure did. (55, move, psycho)

[JRR]

I worked for a large national financial services company. My department had people who had been doing the job anywhere from 3-10 years and pretty much ran like a well oiled machine. I was planning to stay another year or so as I liked the job and the people I was working with.

We got a new director who decided she was going to change things for the better (meaning get a mark on the wall towards her next promotion). Changed procedures all over the place. When that didn't work, changed them back. Then changed them again differently and that didn't work. Then she decided that it was our fault that the changes didn't work. Decided to make it as miserable as possible for everyone (especially us older folks) so that she could clean house. My manager actually told us that if we could retire we should before she pushed us out (he took a demotion shortly after I left to go to another department). So three of us retired on the same day. Most everyone else was gone to different departments or left the company or retired within a year, so she got her wish.

Three years later the department is still having trouble getting the work done as it is a revolving door of people who are hired, then don't like the job and leave.

[InchingWest]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

How do people with private sector jobs.....retire before they are 65 and eligible for Medicare?

Frugality? Seems few people have heard of this term.

I'm well on my way down that road and hoping to retire mid- or even early-50's. Helps to have seen this coming back at 15 of course.

You'd be surprised at how reasonable my quality of life is by spending relatively little of my income over the past 16 years. I would hate to be a stressed out debt slave working pay-check-to-pay-check but then upwardly adjusting my habits with each raise and promotion and constantly living on the edge.

I barely fear a job loss (highly unlikely) but only because the next employer might wonder why I had a gap. It'll take half a decade before I'd run out of funds if I stopped working tomorrow, but who knows, at that point I'd probably just employ myself.

[augiedogie]

My employer wanted me to stay on indefinitely. But I ran out of energy and enthusiasm, so pulled the plug.

[nicet4]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

the company i left found the opposite problem . us retiring seniors are leaving the company with all rather inexperienced youngin's .

they have me coming in and working as many days as i want ,when i want just doing technical training . this is year 2 i do this once a week unless we are away.

ironically we build ,sell and service those robots and factory automation gear that put others out of work . it created a flood of opportunity on our end as the company grew in the 20 years i was with them from 8 million to a 100 million dollar company today .

That is a big problem in my industry where certification is absolutely a must have. People who know what they are doing when hiring don't care about level of education, age or anything else it is 99% "do you have the certification or do you not?" That's it, there are no other questions.

I have the most senior level of certification, it takes a minimum of ten years to get it and then there's four days of written tests and it isn't easy. I do a lot of hydraulics and what kept most people from passing was hydraulic calculation element where you had to use the Hardy Cross method to solve head loss through a series of loops and grids in pipes. Computer and programmable calculator were not allowed to used and we were checked.

The Hardy Cross method is an iterative method for determining the flow in pipe network systems where the inputs and outputs are known, but the flow inside the network is unknown. The method was first published in November 1936 by its namesake, Hardy Cross, a structural engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. The Hardy Cross method is an adaptation of the Moment distribution method, which was also developed by Hardy Cross as a way to determine the moments in indeterminate structures.

That, for me anyway, was one tough nut to crack but several thousands of dollars later, lots of one on one tutoring, I could solve the problem good enough to pass the test and that is all I wanted to do. I am glad I passed it then because if I doubt I could do it again today. Everything today is computerized, I can solve that problem with 5 minutes of inputs, but they still make you do it by hand which is the best way to determine if you understand what is happening.

Not easy and if you understand it you're better than I am. I passed and that is all that counted.

Today the median age of all senior level certificate holders in the United States is 62 years old. There are no young pups. The youngest in the State of Georgia is now 40 years old... you can get younger than that because nobody is younger than that.

It gets worse, over 85% of our herd is over the age of 45 but anyone who does hiring is older than that anyway.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by InchingWest

Frugality? Seems few people have heard of this term.

I'm well on my way down that road and hoping to retire mid- or even early-50's. Helps to have seen this coming back at (age)? 15 (yrs ago?) of course.

You'd be surprised at how reasonable my quality of life is by spending relatively little of my income over the past 16 years. ....

Best wishes for an early retirement ASAP

I consider my FIRST retirement was at age 15, when I left Dairy farm Boarding School. 3rd was age 49.

I always had part-time + FT jobs, so I lived on the income from my PT jobs and banked / invested ALL of my FT job $$. And as you... kept a very nice QoL while being intentionally frugal. We still eat on $100/ month, as we did in 1970's, and raised our family with that budget. Sure we could spend more (And we do whenever we want to), but in general we get by quite inexpensively. Currently traveling every week (free buddy pass for entire yr), last yr did RTW trip for 12 mo. (very inexpensively... only used 8 hotels). Daily driving a 41 yr old car that runs on free used cooking oil. More importantly (to us) we have always given away at least as much as we spend, usually far more. We have been well cared for and are grateful for that.

Originally Posted by nicet4

That is a big problem in my industry where certification is absolutely a must have. People who know what they are doing when hiring don't care about level of education, age or anything else it is 99% "do you have the certification or do you not?" T...
Today the median age of all senior level certificate holders in the United States is 62 years old. There are no young pups. ...

Similar here. When I finished my apprenticeship in 1976, the median age was 62 and very few young bucks have followed. Just paid / renewed re-cert (since I am well below age 65, tho never intend to return FT to work. I keep engaged enough to keep certs and continuing ed / instructing active. JUST-IN-CASE!

But... the bosses / employers / businesses hold the cards, and sometimes they enjoy, or need to FOLD the cards on the older workforce (high vacation and pay rates). At that point we need to move-on to another adventure. "As-the-world-turns" and will continue to do when we finally bail out.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by saralvr

How can we afford it? DH was laid off just before 61st birthday. You use the rainy day savings you have. No other choice. Very hard,if not impossible to get hired FT with benefits at that age. Life throws you curves. Always be prepared.

Originally Posted by InchingWest

Frugality? Seems few people have heard of this term.

I'm well on my way down that road and hoping to retire mid- or even early-50's. Helps to have seen this coming back at 15 of course.

You'd be surprised at how reasonable my quality of life is by spending relatively little of my income over the past 16 years. I would hate to be a stressed out debt slave working pay-check-to-pay-check but then upwardly adjusting my habits with each raise and promotion and constantly living on the edge.

I barely fear a job loss (highly unlikely) but only because the next employer might wonder why I had a gap. It'll take half a decade before I'd run out of funds if I stopped working tomorrow, but who knows, at that point I'd probably just employ myself.

No amount of saving for a rainy day or frugality will allow you to afford something that basically does not exist at any price.

[Jstarling]

Originally Posted by Lastfire

Mitsguy - Happened to us. Husband forced to retire at 62. We paid from private savings for health insurance until Medicare kicked in. That is what "savings" is for.

Same here. Savings used for 3 years of health insurance so far , less than two years until Medicare but not looking forward to what the next 2 years will cost. Very relieved and grateful we started saving early.
Love retirement.

[leastprime]

Lucky you, 2017, the Market has recovered and is still strong.
We got RIF'd in 2010 (60/63yo), Market was still recovering and Obamacare had just passed. We took early SS on the bet that my investing prowess was better than 7.5% . I was better and we needed the
Boomers really got hurt in the years 2006-2010.

[Escort Rider]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

No amount of saving for a rainy day or frugality will allow you to afford something that basically does not exist at any price.

I had to go back and read your other posts in this thread to figure out that the "something that basically does not exist at any price" is health insurance. At least that is my interpretation of your post. Why do you resort to that kind of hyperbole? It does exist at a price - a shockingly high price for the average person - but savings and frugality will in fact allow a lot of people to be able to pay for it for a few years while waiting to reach Medicare age.

[StilltheSame]

OP- Get an attorney.