Posted on 04/23/2006 7:49:45 AM PDT by SmithL
One of my readers is an underemployed 59-year-old man from among us here in the South Suburbs. Call him Harry. He works in information technology. Slowly and wearily, he says: "Once you get past 50, I swear, it gets tough, it gets really tough."
For instance, Harry applied for a job with a city of Chicago department that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He got an offer for some contract work. There were no benefits, but it was a paying job.
A woman from the city called him one Monday morning and wanted to know if he could start at midnight. Harry said he'd like to give his current employer a week's notice. That wasn't good enough. The job was gone. The caller told him: "This is a brave new world. Learn to live with it."
(Excerpt) Read more at starnewspapers.com ...
Amen.
No it isn't DU. How much money do you have saved for retirement? (I don't expect an answer) But say you posted an amount. You have worked hard and are proud of what you were able to do but someone else comes along and tells you, that you didn't try hard enough and you should have worked harder and started sooner because he has twice as much saved as you do. You wouldn't like that .I can't speak for everyone else but that's kind of the way I feel. How about just sharing what has worked for you that others might be able to think about.
So what did you do with your 7000?
I do draw lines though and I "ain't driving no rabbit" :')
1) a very few tragedy (illness, etc.) cases occur where savings is wiped out - completely understandable but that's not the bulk of the problem.
2) They say that very few people can afford to put $5/day away instead of buying that six pack of beer, or lunch at McDonald's. If this were started early enough retirement would not be an issue. Just mentioning that really angers some.
Again( what, my eighth time mentioning this?) - saving in the US is abhorrently low. It's a fact that we spend recklessly, as a nation, rather than save for retirement. And please don't tell me that the vast majority of people can't save. They choose not to. My first few years out of school I also choose not to save so I've been through that "life experience." I don't blame my not saving on anyone.
You seem to be very proud of knowing Bible verses...
It appears that 69ConvertibleFirebird is the one who is upset. He said of others on this thread, more than once, in several ways that their problem was a desire to spend irresponsibly. Example pulled from one of his posts: It's just too hard!!!! I had to buy a new car... I wanted a boat for weekends...
I find it ironic, 69ConvertibleFirebird, that you are slapping the 'whiners' for not saving enough because they supposedly all bought new cars or toys instead. That certainly wasn't on Miss Marple's excellent list of life 'troubles' that can occur even if one does save enough to retire. Yes, you are wise and you are set for the rest of your life because of that wisdom. Thing is, 'the rest of your life' could be only a few hours or days. Will you have enjoyed it?
The best things in life aren't things. :o)
I had to look it up.
Thanks for your answer. Do agree with you that saving in the US is very low.
People are faulting me due to their ignorance. I have a great deal of compassion for people who loose it all due to tragedies, etc. Yes, I have less for my tenant who pays $200/month cell phone bills but doesn't want to pay rent, and, of course isn't saving a thing for retirement (just imagine how that $200/month could be built up over 40 years!). It is certainly harder to have a lot of compassion for those who make their own problems. In general, not saving for retirement is a HUGE problem, of people's own making, in the US (yes, tragedies excepted). If I went to Las Vegas and lost it all I wouldn't expect a huge outpouring of compassion for me. Apparently I would get it on FR...
Anyway, it was a good discussion - I've got to run now...
Absolutely!!! Some of the best days of my life were working with family and friends building my house! It's all in how you do it.
Well the way I see it is that I'm better off than some folk but not as well off as a lot of others. I really don't care though. It's just money. Are you ok now? Can you quit one of your jobs?
These folk have paid into a pension plan all their life. I think that is the big difference in the people closer to 60 vs us closer to 50. They were expecting to retire on SS. When I get my statements it's like we'll see and I better plsn just in case becuse I don't want to be old and broke.
I can complain about self-righteous boobs who think it's their freaking business to lecture me about overpopulating the planet.
60 isn't that old. Trust me. If it was, retirement age would be 55. If a man wants to work at his trade until he is 100, he ought to be able to do so. There is real age discrimination out there, by the way. It's not subtle.
Your inevitable day will find you as well, and, if you are fortunate, you will not be one of those saps that retires only to die six months later of boredom or terror.
But it is very educational for 30-somethings who never gave a hoot about retirement issues before. Due to living the "if that card's maxed out, use another one" high life and never having opportunity to be faced with making decisions about 401k's.
Now grinding away at mortgage, school debt, etc. and thinking of buying cheap acreage in the boondocks of southwest Texas or some such. Wouldn't be a bad place to retire as long as there's a 24-7 diner and an ammo shop nearby, I reckon.
That was a "nice" thing to do for an employer booting you out the door. You could have given your customers your cell phone number and offered to contract them at a more favorable rate than your soon to be ex-employer. It's not like you were in danger of losing a big severance.
I didn't want to screw over my clients, and I knew that my manager didn't want to let me go. It came from corporate HQ. I was a Novell specialist, and the level of Novell service calls had been steadily going down. They did ask me to help their Novell clients "off the record," if I could, and it did help somewhat while I was unemployed. But now that I've got a full time + job, I can't help them anymore, and they've had to find new sources of support.
Actually, one reason that they let me go was because "I wasn't a Windows expert." Funny, the 3 clients who had problems that they used for that reason never were able to get the problems solved by my old company, even when they called in "Windows experts" from out of town. And now I work in a Windows shop, and my boss thinks that I'm pretty darn good at fixing serious Windows problems. I'm sort of happy they lost business because of letting me go, but then again, it was a business decision, and the company was crap to work for.
My new company is SO much better.
Mark
Something that many people forget to do is figure the amount of taxes and insurance your home will be costing you, even after you've paid it off. I know that in the 15 years that I've owned my home, that portion of the mortgage payment has trippled.
Mark
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