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Married couples could have the wives stay at home just like they did in 1950 if they lived a 1950 lifestyle.
According to the Home Builders Association be average size of a house built in 1950 was 948 square feet and had a one car garage. I will give you three guesses as to why they had a one-car garage.
The average house, in 1950, didn't have internet, computers, cable television, or even a telephone. Toys back then consisted of a jump rope, jumping jacks or maybe a cap gun not the $400 PlayStations of today.
There's no way we would have the assets we've accumulated and be able to afford the retirement lifestyle we hope to have had we both not worked.
The problem is not money. The problem is education. People need to be taught in schools about how to save, about compound interest, and how powerful it is. Its been proven over and over that if you start saving early, and you dont have to save a lot, that compound interest will give you a good savings by the time you reach retirement age. That, along with Social Security, should be plenty to retire on. But no one does it.
Ive never made a lot of money during my lifetime. But I started saving early and investing. I started with $50 a month. When I retire, hopefully next year, I will be very comfortable. It can be done. It has been proven it can be done. But that means DOING it, not waiting until you are 50 and then wondering if you can ever retire.
^^ Would help a lot.
Friends are off traveling and partying in their twenties.
I've been socking away whatever I can get my hands on.
I'll travel in my thirties and stay in five star hotels vs their hostels and run down motels.
Use to work with a lady who made $100k+ who said she was going to live it up, spend everything she made, and rely on the government to take care of her in her old age.
It's funny, but a lot of people who are against providing some kind of universal retirement are actually giving reasons why we need it. Yes, you can say it is their fault, but it's really obvious that saving isn't something you can depend on everyone doing. Call it a character flaw if you must, but realize that a lot of people have it and in many cases it seems to be incurable. Then there are those who really don't have enough. Not everyone can get ahead; it's a pyramid with less jobs the further up the pay chain you go. I made it pretty far and I saved, so I am in pretty good shape. But I realize not everyone can or will.
The devil is always in the details. Just about everyone agrees we shouldn't let people die; it's when we get into providing sufficient quality of life so they don't wish they were dead that most disagreements start. I am just slightly left of Bernie, and I realize it's lonely over here, but I think preventive and urgent medical/dental care, a safe place to live in a room you only have to share if you want to, clothes (functional and only as needed for replacements) food to eat with some variety and a few treats and access to some sort of community and recreation. When the conversation gets really dicey is for special needs. Often those special needs are a major factor in how they became impoverished to begin with.
A quick use of the savings calculator:
Monthly Savings Amount: $250 ($3,000/yr)
Annual Rate of Return (%): 7.0%
Number of Years: 35
= $450,263.65 (at 40 years its $656,203.35)
One issue with your math is that 35 years ago, I did not have $250 a month left, even living in an almost empty apartment driving a clunker. At the end of the 35 years, I was adding way more than $250 a month to my k plan, so not sure what the numbers would be if it was mostly at the end.
With all the sentiment about people needing to learn to save and take care of themselves, there still is the question of what to do about the current population of people 45+ that have little or no savings and possibly even a lot of debt on top of it. Go back a little further and you start running into younger people with massive student debt that are worried about how they will pay that off and have a reasonable quality of life at the same time. Not nearly everyone who isn't financially prepared for retirement put in no effort to make that different; some made bad choices or failed to understand what level they needed to save at and some really don't have extra.
Use to work with a lady who made $100k+ who said she was going to live it up, spend everything she made, and rely on the government to take care of her in her old age.
Why not? At age 70, someone who has a career making 6 figures gets a $40k+ tax free Social Security check. If you own a modest house with low ownership costs, you can live comfortably on that. The trick is being able to defer collecting until 70.
It's funny, but a lot of people who are against providing some kind of universal retirement are actually giving reasons why we need it. Yes, you can say it is their fault, but it's really obvious that saving isn't something you can depend on everyone doing. Call it a character flaw if you must, but realize that a lot of people have it and in many cases it seems to be incurable. Then there are those who really don't have enough. Not everyone can get ahead; it's a pyramid with less jobs the further up the pay chain you go. I made it pretty far and I saved, so I am in pretty good shape. But I realize not everyone can or will.
We have one. It’s called Social Security. It doesn’t fund a McMansion in the Bay Area. You have to move to a low cost of living place to make it work and you have to work until full retirement age. If you choose not to work at age 62 and are able to work, I don’t have any pity if that piddling age 62 Social Security check doesn’t pay your bills. That takes care of 70% of the 60-something population. We can talk about the other 30% but that’s not universal. I’d love to be retired at 60 with a lifetime 6 figure cash flow. Not happening. I have to keep working more years so the Social Security math works.
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