So how much did you really need for retirement? (retiree, gift, payment)
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interesting. I think it sways readers of retirement forum (many who are not yet retired and are younger readers) in a misguided way.
The posters who are on the public dole with their lucrative government pensions making a financial windfall make unknowing readers think it is a norm - as they never mention that most people in the U.S. do not get a pension.
But the number getting a pension is small. (and the vast majority who get a pension worked for the government)
What is there a different retirement lifestyle expectation for public v private sector workers?
It is still income whether you worked private or public sector. On the other hand few public sector employees have matching 401K benefits. Hmmmm employee contributes and employer contributes. The difference is whether the benefit is defined or variable.
you say it's a myth for most people then give an example of n =1
and then this:
I know there are a few public pensions where you can retire at 100% of salary, but mine was 60%. That is a huge shortfall to make up with investments.
my pension was 56%, I took home more after retirement than while working. this does not include expenses like commute, etc. it was net pay b/4 any of that. I'm fine
My pension is 50% of my 'base-pay'. My base-pay was typically around half of my total paychecks, though sometimes my extra pays varied as high as twice as much as my base-pay.
We itemized our income tax filings every year during my Active Duty career, I spent a lot of money to upkeep my uniforms and professional training. I never really thought much about either of those expenses until after I retired when I stopped paying for those things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ddeemo
... Almost no pensions cover 100%, much of the rest is expected to be made up from savings in payroll taxes, collecting SS and through investments. If your pension covers 60%, SS will likely cover about another 20-30%, that is enough for most to live like before, especially if have no debt - add a little savings if needed to live better.
My pension started in 2001. This year [2021] was my 20th anniversary of living on a pension, and this year [2021] I started my Social Security benefit. My pension has been sufficient for the past 20 years.
The constant touting of "working for the government is the tradeoff for lower pay" (and no bonuses or stock options) is silly - especially the misguided notion of working for lower pay - most people are not executives and administrators - they are average run of the mill employees - most workers are grunt lower level workers who would not be making a larger salary working in the private sector - and certainly would not be getting stock options.
The above is how government employees try to convince others in society that they are worth the big pensions.
Question: How is your local school district doing with staffing and student bus transportation and cafeteria workers and most importantly teachers. Are they shoving the throngs wanting cushy jobs out the human resources door?
interesting. I think it sways readers of retirement forum (many who are not yet retired and are younger readers) in a misguided way.
The posters who are on the public dole with their lucrative government pensions making a financial windfall make unknowing readers think it is a norm - as they never mention that most people in the U.S. do not get a pension.
But the number getting a pension is small. (and the vast majority who get a pension worked for the government)
But you want to totally discount it as if it should not count.
There are still people with pensions...
So you think the government could just hire most everyone in the U.S.
That is the height of absurdity.
They don't have to hire everyone because the vast majority of people don't care enough about a pension to find a job that has one, or are willing to stick with a job for 20 or 25 or 30 or 40 years to collect it. It's not their priority. Back when pensions were fairly common, people were switching to jobs without a pension for higher salaries, losing their pensions. Very few people have a 30 year outlook. Just like most people don't care about getting a masters degree, only 8% of people have them, but almost anyone can get one if they really want it.
So bobspez, your ideal world in the U.S. is where the government would hire all workers.....
and the government would provide jobs for all workers.
(and you think the government could just hire millions and millions of more workers up to 107 million more, and just hire most all workers in the U.S., and that would be good)
Last edited by matisse12; 12-16-2021 at 04:27 PM..
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Simple, at a minimum you need EXACTLY the amount of money your making right now.
IF you want to do MORE in retirement, you will need more money.
Are you going to change once you retire??
That is SO not true -- or at least not for everyone.
Our net retirement income is about 50% what our net pre-retirement income was, and we are doing just fine. The reason?
Our current mortgage is much less, our transportation costs are much less, and our discretionary expenditures are much less. (Our net retirement income is now $3,800 a month, and including our average "non-set" expenditures -- figured over a total of almost 18 months now -- we have about $200 a month to spare, plus we have considerable cash savings as a back-up.) Also, as we now live in "Vacationland", we no longer have the need to take vacations, plus we very seldom go out to eat these days -- and instead of putting about 2,000 miles a month on our (one) vehicle, we now average about 500 miles a month.
Before we retired, we estimated what we would need and did the math. Although we did underestimate by about 10%, it was not enough to matter to a great extent. However, if we had not moved, money would be much tighter right now, I think.
P.S. We had hired an independent financial adviser (not a wealth management person) about ten years ago, who gave us the same advice you posted. We argued that what would apply for many people would NOT apply to us; we were right, and he was wrong. Btw, our pre-retirement income did exceed our monthly spending, so we were able to save quite a bit before retiring.
So you think the government could just hire most everyone in the U.S.
That is the height of absurdity.
People who want a pension would look for companies that offer pensions and it's not just government jobs.
UPS, Coke, 3M, J&J are companies that still offer pensions to new hires.
But younger people today do not tend to stay at a company for 25-30 years and so a pension is not important to them. But it is to some and there are jobs that offer them.
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