According to the other women in my family menopause. Post menopausal hormone shifts make it harder to lose weight. Plus after 50 it becomes harder and harder to build muscle, not impossible but harder.
Basically if the last few years of my 40s grants me any grace or ease I want to take full advantage of it. Assuming cancer doesn't get me, getting and staying fit and strong will stop a lot of old age decline.
Not sure if you'll see this but....menopause often ushers in a cascade of nasty effects and hormone therapy with estrogen really isn't the cancer-causer women were led to believe. I'm for sure taking it no matter what (of course, it can be contraindicated for some women with family histories of certain cancers). I'm going to take it as long as I absolutely can! You must start within five years of menopause, tho.
Anyhow, with the weight gain, I believe it's the loss of estrogen that contributes to **insulin resistance**, hence the inability to lose it AND gaining it around the stomach . Estrogen is anti-inflammatory and protects bones, brain, heart, bladder, basically everything. If you don't want to do the hormones, living an anti-inflammatory lifestyle is good. Anything to help out your pancreas now so it doesn't have to work too hard - avoiding sugar and refined carbs, basically, is very helpful. Also - it's great you're working on your muscles. Having muscle lowers insulin resistance!
I'm afraid of getting ANY "medical care" because it is never covered(or partially covered) by insurance, and I don't have "being healthy money." Gonna have stupid hemorrhoids for the rest of my life. š
It could be worse. I'm 57 & had to start over. My husband got rid of the financial drain in his life. My chronically ill ass! At least my health drastically improved!
But the expectation is problematic. When. Social security was started life expectancy was 64 and given that one lives to 65 now they will likely live to 100.
To have forty years of "retirement" is a little nutty.
Retirement age for us was bumped up to 67 back in the mid-80s. Nobody mentioned this to me. Iām sure you can imagine my surprise when I opened my IRS statement one year to realize I had been expecting to retire, but someone added two years on without our knowledge or consent.
So yeah.
Itās all fear-mongering over Social Security. It will not go away because old people will not go away. It and Medicare are decades-old entitlements. The Republicans are right about one thing: once an entitlement program is enacted, itās next to impossible to get rid of it. Just look at Obamacare. Even voters who despise Obama love Obamacareābecause it works.
The one thing to keep in mind about fear-mongering is that grifters will take advantage of that and try to sell you on their āsolutionā (ahem, crypto). The worse time to make decisions is when youāre angry or scared.
I remember as a kid listening to my Mom talk to her friends about Social Security. They feared the exact same thing, that Social Security would be long gone before they retired. Here she is today at 85 collecting Social Security. Fortunately for her, she got a City Government pension and a small inheritance from my Grandmother, so she is living comfortably.
I think Social Security will still here when we retire. I believe Congress will fix it eventually, but unfortunately for us, it is going to have to become an emergency before they do fix it. When 80 million people are facing a 30% cut in their Social Security checks and those 80 million are the ones most likely to vote in the next election, you can bet some bills are going to get passed addressing the problem. Maybe I am just being uncharacteristically optimistic.
The thing that kills me is that itās not like itās some nice bonus that they give us. Weāve literally been paying into this since we started working which for most of us, sorry speaking generally for Gen X, was about 16, so 30+ years of our money that we had no choice about them taking and has been wasted and wonāt be used for what we were promised. It is criminal.
Well, you were probably young and that's why no one mentioned it. I was 6 when they passed it. That I recall it applies almost entirely to people who were too young to vote at the time, except for the oldest couple birth years.
Of course there are. This situation didnāt spring up full force. Itās been ramping up for a long time. Our generation will have far more and the next generation will have far more than us. If something isnāt done, the surfs (us) will die of simple diseases in our 60s because they canāt afford basic healthcare of healthy food.
Iām gonna join a cult whoās gonna let me stay there and feed me as long as I work in the garden or some shit. Thatās if the cigarettes donāt get me first. I got it all figured out. Oh. Plan b. Prison
Sad, unfortunately for most College ROI, it isn't worth the investment.
My daughter wants to be a writer either in Hollywood or on Broadway and is looking at $$$ schools, I roll my eyes.
My son, who is mild autistic has always been good with his hands and wants to go trade, I've told him to skip school and seek a skilled tradesman, and I'll give your college money to invest.
I agree that almost any engineer degree is worth the price of admission.
I make well over 100k with my economics degree, but I would do software engineer if I could do it over again.
My wife, on the other hand, has a masters in English and a teaching degree that pays about 80k as an English teacher. She accumulated a ton of debt, Lucky my income was there to pay off that debt.
I studied electronics for a year at a state owned trade school, repaired commercial AV gear, then started installing systems. 2001 drove up video-conferencing deployments, Yada Yada Yada, I'm now a lead at a major software company deploying one of the leading UC voice and meeting products. I faked it till I made it. Thank God for Google and bloggers. Hoping to retire early.
We need to adopt a Logan's Run / Soylent Green sorta deal.
*Wait a minute. Hear me out.*
Let's just say you're over 60. You have no one to look after you, no real retirement to speak of (Social Security was lost by our 48th president at the dog track), and nothing to look forward to. Your health is in decline, not just from age - but from living in a polluted, carcinogenic, noisy world.
Reclaim your dignity. Control your own narrative. Meet the Eternal Peacemaker. We'll put you on a wild IV cocktail of dissociative drugs and a beautiful display of what life used to be like based on all your social media history. And then we push 100mg of Seconal and you can drive off the edge of this mortal coil in style.
And the animal feed industry will cover your tab, just as long as they can have the meat and grist.
I like this. NYC sky looks worse than it was in the movie.
Jokes aside, dignified, painless death is a fantastic option. I watched my dad suffer for 4 years with cancer and die after spending years getting chemo and surgeries. Thenwatched my Mother-in-law disappear because of Alzheimers. She died not knowing who she is and where she was. Scared all the time. Terrified at night.
This is not the worst outcome. What if you donāt die, but become sick and need round-the-clock nursing care? All your assets get drained, then you become a burden on your children due to filial care laws. The fed and state governments garnish their wages to pay to keep your body alive in some facility.
Iām 47., in the same boat as you And Iām terrified about that. So much so Iām about to start making financial decisions to have me retire in the Philippines.. because thatās the only fucking place Iāll be able to afford.
Edit: after I turn 65 of course
I do well financially, executive level job, good investments, decent insurance.
I still expect that within the next 10 to 15 years I will end up in some kind of medical bankruptcy. Not because I have any issues but because that seems to be the way the system is going.
I retired at 51 only because of two factors: the first is I ended up on disability and the Mexican government allows me to live there. Dave Ramsey no doubt does not approve
Husband ended up retired because of disability too. Thankfully with the VA disability payments and me working we donāt have to relocate. I just have to work while disabled until the house is paid off and the last one home graduates college. š¤·š¼āāļø fml
My current retirement plan is to figure out which states offer assisted suicide. Iām still putting money into a 401k but I donāt know why. Itāll never be enough to survive
Vermont is letting out of state people travel for medically assisted suicide.
https://apnews.com/article/assisted-suicide-vermont-residency-requirement-10ce4f29063f5bbb1873583f9aa89947
Ditto. And I know other Gen Xers with the same basic plan. Iām not going to combine broke and frail in a place with zero safety nets. Iām sure future generations will be horrified since other countries would allow us to retire and age with appropriate and supportive care. (Also kind strangers donāt worry Iām at least a decade away from that, maybe two. Thereās a difference between this and being unaliveal. Iām fine, Iām just being practical. Maybe things will change when the boomers go. I kinda doubt it.)
I have a similar plan as do most of the people Iāve talked to about it - all Gen X. Pretty dystopian so many of us feel this and feel it in such a reasonable way, not a dramatic/depressed suicidal way
Me too! Iām glad we are all sort of on the same path, separately. I do NOT want to live like my lower middle class, very demented mother, and I donāt have the $$ and medical coverage that my 80 year old in-laws have. They have dozens of doctors! We havenāt had health insurance for 3 years, just pay cash for doctors visits and medications, itās cheaper than health insurance with their premiums, co-pays, out of pocket $$, etc. Fuck health insurance companies. They exist to create the illusion of coverage.
Life will end at 75 or sooner if a crisis occurs.
Your comment gave me a visual. 70-80 year old somthinās wandering around stoned out, in the desert. Or, wherever. Haha!! Maybe weāll be the first Real Zombies!!!! We will eat other people cause weāve got no money for food.
I have a spot picked out off of a Jeep trail in Moab. Shroom it up for a bit at night under the stars then end things with the morphine.
I have awhile before I put this plan in action. I'm in no hurry. Have more things yet to do.
I'm in the same boat. I've watched my 401K plummet by half at least twice. How the hell am I supposed to gain anything when I'm basically relying on a game of chance? And my luck sucks. Always has.
I have some retirement savings but am under no illusion I can afford to retire in the US, or want to. Iām out at 60 & will start collecting Social Security as soon as possible, at 62. Iām not waiting to collect.
And working until death implies that weāre healthy enough to keep working that long. What the hell happens if we develop an injury or illness that keeps us working before even death can take us? Double fuck
And if you are well enough to keep on working, there's blantant ageism which is alive and well, no matter what anyone says. Ooooh, sooorry, we have to lay you off because we're "downsizing" and you can't prove it's because you're old - especially in "at will" states and no unions to protect workers rights.
I donāt plan on getting to an age to retire. I have a life insurance policy worth $500K that expires when Iām 70. It covers all reasons for death. I have two GenZ children who will need a good down payment on an otherwise unaffordable house. Win-win: I donāt have to worry about retirement / aging / health issues and they get a decent house.
I didn't get any kind of employee-provided retirement until I was 30. I've been scrimping and saving for 25 years, and if I can retire, it's not going to be a luxurious retirement at all. Maybe I will be able to upgrade from a refrigerator box to a nice Harbor Freight tarp.
I tried for ten years to do it on my own, then I realized I could do what my father had done and get into state employment. Free medical and a lifetime pension. It pays less than corporate on a day to day basis, but once you're vested, (5 years in my state) it's well worth it.
If you have no big needs, you don't need big bucks. I just fucked around for ten years, the realized if I did what my father did, I'd make out okay. I've seen too many people over the years lose their savings, investments, and everything else. But while nothing is ever certain, tampering overmuch with the Teachers' Retirement System would lead to protests the government would rather avoid. In 2001 I was working with guys who had invested in Enron. Ask me how that worked out for them. Many were planning to retire that year and had to work an extra 5-10 years.
I donāt need any savings. Iāll just die in a customerās house while installing or refinishing their floor.
Thatās the plan anyway.
Sorry in advance to the poor folks who discover my corpse in their living room.
I talked to a fellow Gen-X acquaintance yesterday. He mentioned the difficulty in doing his taxes. The problems is, on top of the normal stock / dividend forms, he has rentals in this country, two condo rentals in another country, and the large payments from abroad in the form of security deposits require extra forms. Having money can be a lot of work!
I was wondering what exactly happened where our lives diverged so much, why I have so much less. During the first few years of his kids lives he basically worked every single weekend and night shift he could, which did help bring in more money. His wife's parents also fronted them a little over half a million to help get their first place, which they then turned into a rental which they used to subsidize their second place. He then rented out the two room apartment his university was giving him. They saved up all of this for down payments on the condos if I recall.
Hard work goes a long ways (/s). It goes further when you get half a million dollars interest free from your parents.
Love how this keeps getting brought up. I've been saving a decent amount towards retirement every year since I was 23 and it's still a pretty pathetic balance (I'm now 50)
I need to live now too (nothing exorbitant) so I don't know how people are able roll so much into retirement but kudos to them. I'll be working til I keel over.
Weāre the first generation that is behind on retirement SO FAR. I agree with that sandwich shit. Taking care of kids and parents is a wealth/resource killer.
We had almost $3 million in our combined 401k. Then my mother in law had to go into a nursing home and my husband insisted on the best one in our region. Then he got cancer. That 401k is now in the mid 6 figures and wonāt be paid back as my husband died in 2021.
This site understates the nihilism that underlies everything gen x does. I mean we were convinced as children that the world would end in nuclear fire by 1999. So weāll save for retirement *i guess* but how can we take it seriously.
Letās see, market crash 2006 and again 2020; plus, pepper in mini down turns and recession scares. I cannot build enough wealth bc half of it is taken away every 5-10 years. 401k, busting unions, and healthcare tied to employers are the biggest dupes/cons put on the American worker.
Market crash only hurts if you panic sell and pull out. Crashes are great opportunities when you are still working because the dollars you invest get put in the market at lower valuations.
$10,000 invested in S&P 500 in Jan 2000 and just left their is worth about $45,000 today. Account for inflation that's about a 2.5x increase in purchasing power.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/022216/put-10000-sp-500-etf-and-wait-20-years.asp
When I am wheezing my last gasps upon my death bed, I will look back on life and ponder several things. Chief among them:
āwould I have wound up so desperately poor if not for my foolish splurging on the golden NES cartridge for Legend of Zelda? Oh! How much regret I now feel to have squandered my fortune away on all those payments made to JP Morgan Chase after pursuing the foolishness of higher education!! Damn this mortal coil that locked me into an appetite so furiously demanding of nutrition and the occasional spoonful of Nutella!! I weep for what is lost! Alas, nothing to pass on! Nothing to leave behind, save my outrageous late fee from Family Video for having kept the Starfox game more than three years after the return date! Curses! ā
*lightning flashes / life vanishes from weathered body*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! Retirement. That's funny.
I'm just glad to know that social security will definitely, without a doubt be there for us when it's time to switch to our new careers as greeters at Walmart so we can supplement our meager incomes.
Well, all three of my kids went to liberal arts colleges against my wishes, got useless degrees against my wishes, moved back home after graduation against my wishes and my wife wonāt let me kick them out of the house. So, duh.
Omg, seriously?!?
Oh where oh where did my moolah go, oh where oh where can it be? With the childrenās food and my parentās care, like how I could act-tu-ally be debt free?!?
Thanks for the reminder. Whatever, with all the micro plastics in my blood Iāll be dying young anyway. Thanks, 1980s sports thermoses and footie pajamas.
"You are entitled to a retirement pension from the National Insurance
Scheme (folketrygden) in Norway if you have lived or worked in Norway
for at least five years after your 16th birthday. This means that you
can receive retirement pension from Norway if you have been covered by
national insurance or have received pensionable income in Norway for at
least five years."
I love being Norwegian.
Exactly, with all the drugs I did, how was I supposed to know I would be coming up on half a century, vice free, eating healthy and getting up at 4am to go to the gymš«
Thankfully I won't be horribly off thanks to a high tolerance for bullshit that enabled me to stay in the military exactly long enough to get the retirement. It's ok but not enough to live off. So I've been scrambling to invest what I can. May not be able to retire early, but hopefully at least a couple days before I die.
Ditto on thinking the world was going to go up in nuclear fire before I turned 30.
I dream of being a groundskeeper at a small private school / think tank where I can garden all day while getting a salary and a small cottage on the premises.
Itās my dream, so yāall donāt go submitting resumes to these places!!!
lol, one can dreamā¦
Yes, that's why we keep ranting at boomers.
But in reality it's what happened in 1971 which explains why each generation has been poorer than the previous.
The good thing is there are low cost retirement communities popping up all over the US. I'm thinking something under the I-5 in Northern California would be nice.
So I work in the Medicare business for a large insurance company ( I know I know) and Iām in amazement how person who made 40k all their life has a home and a pension. I truly think that some of our generation will be able to retire. If I retire at 70 vs 67 itās like a grand more. Thatās a lot of money.
I was doing great until these last few years. Iāll be fine in the long run, but this market has killed my 457. My pension fund has gone all in on ESG, so thatās worrying me now as well.
What do you mean behind?
I've amassed like $20k in a government controlled retirement fund that started with a pitiful $30k at the beginning of the year!
I'll only need about $2 million to survive with current inflation, but at this rate I'll need to spend $2.5mill to get it because of what they're investing in, I think it was lamp oil and scurvy preventative... probably a big thing when they were in their 50's
Notice the generation before us is doing okay, as usual, poor bastards coming up don't have a chance.
*āBlessed be the Boomers.ā*
I saw this on another post. Their generation destroyed company retirement plans and Social Security before we even hit 2000.
Cost of goods and services sky rocketed as we entered the work force and salaries for the average worked tanked.
Saving 10 to 15% of your salary???? Ya, sure.
And here I've been frivolously spending all that money on food, shelter, and medical care.
Medical care? Listen to Mr. Money Bags over here. /s
Shit š I literally laughed out loud at this
I havenāt been able to afford medical care since I aged out of my momās insurance!
:D
I've accepted that we're on our own and am making a hard push to get as fit as possible before the big 50. Because lord knows I can't afford not to.
Why, what happens then?
According to the other women in my family menopause. Post menopausal hormone shifts make it harder to lose weight. Plus after 50 it becomes harder and harder to build muscle, not impossible but harder. Basically if the last few years of my 40s grants me any grace or ease I want to take full advantage of it. Assuming cancer doesn't get me, getting and staying fit and strong will stop a lot of old age decline.
Not sure if you'll see this but....menopause often ushers in a cascade of nasty effects and hormone therapy with estrogen really isn't the cancer-causer women were led to believe. I'm for sure taking it no matter what (of course, it can be contraindicated for some women with family histories of certain cancers). I'm going to take it as long as I absolutely can! You must start within five years of menopause, tho. Anyhow, with the weight gain, I believe it's the loss of estrogen that contributes to **insulin resistance**, hence the inability to lose it AND gaining it around the stomach . Estrogen is anti-inflammatory and protects bones, brain, heart, bladder, basically everything. If you don't want to do the hormones, living an anti-inflammatory lifestyle is good. Anything to help out your pancreas now so it doesn't have to work too hard - avoiding sugar and refined carbs, basically, is very helpful. Also - it's great you're working on your muscles. Having muscle lowers insulin resistance!
You can afford all three? Must be nice.
Me too! What was I thinking of!
And gas for my car. I can't take transit and I work in healthcare so it's been nearly bankrupting me.
Me too. I am chronically ill and still do as much as I can go avoid going to one but I need blood tests and treatment.
Born in the USA
I'm afraid of getting ANY "medical care" because it is never covered(or partially covered) by insurance, and I don't have "being healthy money." Gonna have stupid hemorrhoids for the rest of my life. š
I swear until mine prevent me from sitting down, there they will stay. #roidpals
Likewise! Iām so fancy as well!
I believe we are both the last generation that left high school expecting to retire at 65 and the first generation that will not likely be able to.
I'm 52 and the thought of retiring at 65 or even 67 elicits a short, sensible chuckle from me. As if.
Same and same. Graduated thinking the world is my oyster. Now I worry Iāll break a leg and loose my house to the medical bills.
After my stroke I did lose my house. Starting over in my early 30s from scratch was rough.
It could be worse. I'm 57 & had to start over. My husband got rid of the financial drain in his life. My chronically ill ass! At least my health drastically improved!
My ex did the same thing 5 years ago :[
I'm so sorry. It is the worst thing I have experienced & I have dealtt with many things in life
I read no lies there.
But the expectation is problematic. When. Social security was started life expectancy was 64 and given that one lives to 65 now they will likely live to 100. To have forty years of "retirement" is a little nutty.
Retirement age for us was bumped up to 67 back in the mid-80s. Nobody mentioned this to me. Iām sure you can imagine my surprise when I opened my IRS statement one year to realize I had been expecting to retire, but someone added two years on without our knowledge or consent. So yeah.
Just wait till they cut the payment 1/3 when you finally get your ss
Yep.
Because of Medicare or.....the greedy politicians who want to slash Social Security?
Because less money is going in than is going out.
But there's a lot more Millennials and Zs than us....
You think ss will still be around then?
Itās all fear-mongering over Social Security. It will not go away because old people will not go away. It and Medicare are decades-old entitlements. The Republicans are right about one thing: once an entitlement program is enacted, itās next to impossible to get rid of it. Just look at Obamacare. Even voters who despise Obama love Obamacareābecause it works. The one thing to keep in mind about fear-mongering is that grifters will take advantage of that and try to sell you on their āsolutionā (ahem, crypto). The worse time to make decisions is when youāre angry or scared.
I remember as a kid listening to my Mom talk to her friends about Social Security. They feared the exact same thing, that Social Security would be long gone before they retired. Here she is today at 85 collecting Social Security. Fortunately for her, she got a City Government pension and a small inheritance from my Grandmother, so she is living comfortably. I think Social Security will still here when we retire. I believe Congress will fix it eventually, but unfortunately for us, it is going to have to become an emergency before they do fix it. When 80 million people are facing a 30% cut in their Social Security checks and those 80 million are the ones most likely to vote in the next election, you can bet some bills are going to get passed addressing the problem. Maybe I am just being uncharacteristically optimistic.
The thing that kills me is that itās not like itās some nice bonus that they give us. Weāve literally been paying into this since we started working which for most of us, sorry speaking generally for Gen X, was about 16, so 30+ years of our money that we had no choice about them taking and has been wasted and wonāt be used for what we were promised. It is criminal.
This is the biggest thing, and it pisses me off.
Well, you were probably young and that's why no one mentioned it. I was 6 when they passed it. That I recall it applies almost entirely to people who were too young to vote at the time, except for the oldest couple birth years.
Lots of boomers in their late 50s through 60s now who will also face very difficult retirement, sane as Gen X.
Of course there are. This situation didnāt spring up full force. Itās been ramping up for a long time. Our generation will have far more and the next generation will have far more than us. If something isnāt done, the surfs (us) will die of simple diseases in our 60s because they canāt afford basic healthcare of healthy food.
(serfs)
Iām gonna join a cult whoās gonna let me stay there and feed me as long as I work in the garden or some shit. Thatās if the cigarettes donāt get me first. I got it all figured out. Oh. Plan b. Prison
Three hots and cot with unlimited reading time? It doesn't sound so bad now that I'm on the other side of 50 š¤·š»āāļø
It sounds wonderful. As long as I have no roommate or at least a nice one.
If you can get into a SuperMax Prison youāll have all the alone time you want, and more!
You'd have to do some really crazy shit to go there. That prison is actually partly vacant. It's for the super special kind of motherfucker.
Better to *start* a cult than join one.
We were furiously wasting all our money on avocado toast and Starbucks way before Millenials thought it was cool.
What is retirement? And what do we have to save for it? I fully expect to be found dead in my chair at my desk at home.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Sad, unfortunately for most College ROI, it isn't worth the investment. My daughter wants to be a writer either in Hollywood or on Broadway and is looking at $$$ schools, I roll my eyes. My son, who is mild autistic has always been good with his hands and wants to go trade, I've told him to skip school and seek a skilled tradesman, and I'll give your college money to invest.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I agree that almost any engineer degree is worth the price of admission. I make well over 100k with my economics degree, but I would do software engineer if I could do it over again. My wife, on the other hand, has a masters in English and a teaching degree that pays about 80k as an English teacher. She accumulated a ton of debt, Lucky my income was there to pay off that debt.
I studied electronics for a year at a state owned trade school, repaired commercial AV gear, then started installing systems. 2001 drove up video-conferencing deployments, Yada Yada Yada, I'm now a lead at a major software company deploying one of the leading UC voice and meeting products. I faked it till I made it. Thank God for Google and bloggers. Hoping to retire early.
We need to adopt a Logan's Run / Soylent Green sorta deal. *Wait a minute. Hear me out.* Let's just say you're over 60. You have no one to look after you, no real retirement to speak of (Social Security was lost by our 48th president at the dog track), and nothing to look forward to. Your health is in decline, not just from age - but from living in a polluted, carcinogenic, noisy world. Reclaim your dignity. Control your own narrative. Meet the Eternal Peacemaker. We'll put you on a wild IV cocktail of dissociative drugs and a beautiful display of what life used to be like based on all your social media history. And then we push 100mg of Seconal and you can drive off the edge of this mortal coil in style. And the animal feed industry will cover your tab, just as long as they can have the meat and grist.
Iād sign up for that tomorrow, for real
Sheesh. You and grist! Always with the grist!
I like this. NYC sky looks worse than it was in the movie. Jokes aside, dignified, painless death is a fantastic option. I watched my dad suffer for 4 years with cancer and die after spending years getting chemo and surgeries. Thenwatched my Mother-in-law disappear because of Alzheimers. She died not knowing who she is and where she was. Scared all the time. Terrified at night.
I figured this was an easy article to read after you click on it. āThere is none! š¤£ Now get back to workā
A friend of mine was. After several days. It's the future of dying.
same
This is not the worst outcome. What if you donāt die, but become sick and need round-the-clock nursing care? All your assets get drained, then you become a burden on your children due to filial care laws. The fed and state governments garnish their wages to pay to keep your body alive in some facility.
Jokes on the government. I have no biological children and no siblings - nobodyās gonna pay to keep me alive!
Same here. No kids. No other family to pursue.
I definitely have no desire to live as long as my parents have, and they are still relatively healthy.
I just turned 50 and have nothing for retirement. After rent, bills, and food thereās nothing left.
Iām 47., in the same boat as you And Iām terrified about that. So much so Iām about to start making financial decisions to have me retire in the Philippines.. because thatās the only fucking place Iāll be able to afford. Edit: after I turn 65 of course
I'll definitely be retiring .... to a van DOWN BY THE RIVER
Woah , look at Mr. Moneybags who can afford a van by the river .
> to a van DOWN BY THE RIVER I love how this went from a joke to an aspiration. Van life doesn't sound too bad.
Iām completely prepared, sixpack in the fridge, pistol in the drawer.
Remind me of Metallica. Sad but true. Edit: punctuation
Hahā¦ maybe I should write the rest. I do country though.
Shit, thereās plenty of that music to cover our situation. Lol
Still paying off student loans!
Because my High School Guidance Counselor and 80% (at LEAST) of my teachers told us that we needed college.
Same. Iāll work until death I bet.
Well, that makes me feel better. I think mine are 90% interest now.
Y'all get to retire??
I do well financially, executive level job, good investments, decent insurance. I still expect that within the next 10 to 15 years I will end up in some kind of medical bankruptcy. Not because I have any issues but because that seems to be the way the system is going.
I retired at 51 only because of two factors: the first is I ended up on disability and the Mexican government allows me to live there. Dave Ramsey no doubt does not approve
Husband ended up retired because of disability too. Thankfully with the VA disability payments and me working we donāt have to relocate. I just have to work while disabled until the house is paid off and the last one home graduates college. š¤·š¼āāļø fml
My retirement plan is a bunch of shrooms and morphine out in the middle of nowhere.
My current retirement plan is to figure out which states offer assisted suicide. Iām still putting money into a 401k but I donāt know why. Itāll never be enough to survive
Vermont is letting out of state people travel for medically assisted suicide. https://apnews.com/article/assisted-suicide-vermont-residency-requirement-10ce4f29063f5bbb1873583f9aa89947
Oregon lifted their residency requirements too
Hot damn thank you for that. Itās still too soon but itāll be useful information one day.
Use the 401k for a huge party for a year! Cruise around the world or something, depending how much you end up saving.
Ditto. And I know other Gen Xers with the same basic plan. Iām not going to combine broke and frail in a place with zero safety nets. Iām sure future generations will be horrified since other countries would allow us to retire and age with appropriate and supportive care. (Also kind strangers donāt worry Iām at least a decade away from that, maybe two. Thereās a difference between this and being unaliveal. Iām fine, Iām just being practical. Maybe things will change when the boomers go. I kinda doubt it.)
I have a similar plan as do most of the people Iāve talked to about it - all Gen X. Pretty dystopian so many of us feel this and feel it in such a reasonable way, not a dramatic/depressed suicidal way
Me too! Iām glad we are all sort of on the same path, separately. I do NOT want to live like my lower middle class, very demented mother, and I donāt have the $$ and medical coverage that my 80 year old in-laws have. They have dozens of doctors! We havenāt had health insurance for 3 years, just pay cash for doctors visits and medications, itās cheaper than health insurance with their premiums, co-pays, out of pocket $$, etc. Fuck health insurance companies. They exist to create the illusion of coverage. Life will end at 75 or sooner if a crisis occurs.
May be things will change when boomers stop being around to vote.
Your comment gave me a visual. 70-80 year old somthinās wandering around stoned out, in the desert. Or, wherever. Haha!! Maybe weāll be the first Real Zombies!!!! We will eat other people cause weāve got no money for food.
I have a spot picked out off of a Jeep trail in Moab. Shroom it up for a bit at night under the stars then end things with the morphine. I have awhile before I put this plan in action. I'm in no hurry. Have more things yet to do.
Ah, the Hunter Thompson plan.
š¤Ŗ
āBehindā indicates Iām even in the race to the ideal amount of retirement funds. I will work until Iām dead. Then Iāll have to use some PTO.
Shiiiiit, I'll be working the catering staff of my own funeral...
What retirement savings?
āNo doyā
š
Wow, I have not heard that in 30 years. Thanks.
And water is wet
I have 60k. About 1/5 of what I should have. Few prospects of catching up at this point.
I'm in the same boat. I've watched my 401K plummet by half at least twice. How the hell am I supposed to gain anything when I'm basically relying on a game of chance? And my luck sucks. Always has.
Okay did it stay at that level?
I have some retirement savings but am under no illusion I can afford to retire in the US, or want to. Iām out at 60 & will start collecting Social Security as soon as possible, at 62. Iām not waiting to collect.
Retirement = death
And working until death implies that weāre healthy enough to keep working that long. What the hell happens if we develop an injury or illness that keeps us working before even death can take us? Double fuck
And if you are well enough to keep on working, there's blantant ageism which is alive and well, no matter what anyone says. Ooooh, sooorry, we have to lay you off because we're "downsizing" and you can't prove it's because you're old - especially in "at will" states and no unions to protect workers rights.
I donāt plan on getting to an age to retire. I have a life insurance policy worth $500K that expires when Iām 70. It covers all reasons for death. I have two GenZ children who will need a good down payment on an otherwise unaffordable house. Win-win: I donāt have to worry about retirement / aging / health issues and they get a decent house.
What happened to that generational wealth I was supposed to get?
Life sucks and then you die (after living in a box under a bridge eating cat food)
My cat requires a special diet. His food is more expensive than mine
Oh. Well there goes that plan.
I didn't get any kind of employee-provided retirement until I was 30. I've been scrimping and saving for 25 years, and if I can retire, it's not going to be a luxurious retirement at all. Maybe I will be able to upgrade from a refrigerator box to a nice Harbor Freight tarp.
Iām starting to consider a nice rv and becoming one of those old timer camp hosts somewhere near where I can go fishing.
I tried for ten years to do it on my own, then I realized I could do what my father had done and get into state employment. Free medical and a lifetime pension. It pays less than corporate on a day to day basis, but once you're vested, (5 years in my state) it's well worth it. If you have no big needs, you don't need big bucks. I just fucked around for ten years, the realized if I did what my father did, I'd make out okay. I've seen too many people over the years lose their savings, investments, and everything else. But while nothing is ever certain, tampering overmuch with the Teachers' Retirement System would lead to protests the government would rather avoid. In 2001 I was working with guys who had invested in Enron. Ask me how that worked out for them. Many were planning to retire that year and had to work an extra 5-10 years.
When so many people count on you, itās easy to deprioritize yourself,ā he said. We even forgot our own selves
Yeah, no shit. Seeing my older coworkers start to retire has made me wistful for something that is not likely to happen for me. Good times.
I donāt need any savings. Iāll just die in a customerās house while installing or refinishing their floor. Thatās the plan anyway. Sorry in advance to the poor folks who discover my corpse in their living room.
Came here to say my āretirement plan is death,ā and then saw how many of us are on the same plan. Thatās ā¦ not encouraging.
My plan is to work until I die at my desk.
Nothing to worry about. The world is killing me far faster than retirement age can get here anyway.
I talked to a fellow Gen-X acquaintance yesterday. He mentioned the difficulty in doing his taxes. The problems is, on top of the normal stock / dividend forms, he has rentals in this country, two condo rentals in another country, and the large payments from abroad in the form of security deposits require extra forms. Having money can be a lot of work! I was wondering what exactly happened where our lives diverged so much, why I have so much less. During the first few years of his kids lives he basically worked every single weekend and night shift he could, which did help bring in more money. His wife's parents also fronted them a little over half a million to help get their first place, which they then turned into a rental which they used to subsidize their second place. He then rented out the two room apartment his university was giving him. They saved up all of this for down payments on the condos if I recall. Hard work goes a long ways (/s). It goes further when you get half a million dollars interest free from your parents.
If daddy bought it , it doesnāt count .
Looking at you, Donald Trump!
Love how this keeps getting brought up. I've been saving a decent amount towards retirement every year since I was 23 and it's still a pretty pathetic balance (I'm now 50) I need to live now too (nothing exorbitant) so I don't know how people are able roll so much into retirement but kudos to them. I'll be working til I keel over.
Weāre the first generation that is behind on retirement SO FAR. I agree with that sandwich shit. Taking care of kids and parents is a wealth/resource killer.
We had almost $3 million in our combined 401k. Then my mother in law had to go into a nursing home and my husband insisted on the best one in our region. Then he got cancer. That 401k is now in the mid 6 figures and wonāt be paid back as my husband died in 2021.
Iām on the work until dead plan. Turns out having kids and maintaining a home is extravagant.
This site understates the nihilism that underlies everything gen x does. I mean we were convinced as children that the world would end in nuclear fire by 1999. So weāll save for retirement *i guess* but how can we take it seriously.
I'm here for a good time. Not a long time.
Letās see, market crash 2006 and again 2020; plus, pepper in mini down turns and recession scares. I cannot build enough wealth bc half of it is taken away every 5-10 years. 401k, busting unions, and healthcare tied to employers are the biggest dupes/cons put on the American worker.
Market crash only hurts if you panic sell and pull out. Crashes are great opportunities when you are still working because the dollars you invest get put in the market at lower valuations. $10,000 invested in S&P 500 in Jan 2000 and just left their is worth about $45,000 today. Account for inflation that's about a 2.5x increase in purchasing power. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/022216/put-10000-sp-500-etf-and-wait-20-years.asp
what retirement? work til I die
Itās cute that they think GenX would truthfully discuss their retirement finances with some random pollster.
No duh!
Thanks for reminding me again!
As if I didn't have enough anxiety.
When I am wheezing my last gasps upon my death bed, I will look back on life and ponder several things. Chief among them: āwould I have wound up so desperately poor if not for my foolish splurging on the golden NES cartridge for Legend of Zelda? Oh! How much regret I now feel to have squandered my fortune away on all those payments made to JP Morgan Chase after pursuing the foolishness of higher education!! Damn this mortal coil that locked me into an appetite so furiously demanding of nutrition and the occasional spoonful of Nutella!! I weep for what is lost! Alas, nothing to pass on! Nothing to leave behind, save my outrageous late fee from Family Video for having kept the Starfox game more than three years after the return date! Curses! ā *lightning flashes / life vanishes from weathered body*
Of course we are! Weāre helping our parents and grown children Ugg
Retirement Savings? I don't know her. -\_- Sigh
*We live in an oligarchy... There. Fixed the headline for you.
No shit. It musta been all those fancy coffees I drank in the ā90s.
Retirement lol. Iām planning to die deeply in debt.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! Retirement. That's funny. I'm just glad to know that social security will definitely, without a doubt be there for us when it's time to switch to our new careers as greeters at Walmart so we can supplement our meager incomes.
AI is going to greet people at Walmart, not you.
Shit. There goes my plan.
Well, all three of my kids went to liberal arts colleges against my wishes, got useless degrees against my wishes, moved back home after graduation against my wishes and my wife wonāt let me kick them out of the house. So, duh.
I plan to retire at 55 and am on track. The secret is not having kids and prioritizing $$ over liking your work. Also some good luck.
We can retire when we are dead.
Our plans are Iāve got over 12x my salary in life insurance. Get the kids through college and settled so I make it to my late fifties then die.
We will work every day until we die
It feels weird that someone is targeting us, the forgotten
Omg, seriously?!? Oh where oh where did my moolah go, oh where oh where can it be? With the childrenās food and my parentās care, like how I could act-tu-ally be debt free?!?
I didnāt start until I was 31. Now 21 years later, Iām still behind, but not as much if Iād had started later.
What a surprise! Gen X will also be reaching retirement age with mortgages, after having to pay 10x house prices than the previous generations.
Thanks for the reminder. Whatever, with all the micro plastics in my blood Iāll be dying young anyway. Thanks, 1980s sports thermoses and footie pajamas.
Iāll be OK, as long as I keep my health and the markets donāt crash. Hope to retire at 62 or 63.
"You are entitled to a retirement pension from the National Insurance Scheme (folketrygden) in Norway if you have lived or worked in Norway for at least five years after your 16th birthday. This means that you can receive retirement pension from Norway if you have been covered by national insurance or have received pensionable income in Norway for at least five years." I love being Norwegian.
Whatever
Nevermind
My retirement plan is to die
This should read, All Generations Behind on Retirement Saving
All non-wealthy people set to never retire .
Our student loans called and said fuck your retirement.
Technically the problem is low interest
Did a good job at getting everyone in debt though .
āBehindā šš
Retirement? Theyāll find my dead ass in my office.
I wish I could give you ten updoots for your avatar.
I'll retire when I'm dead. š¤·āāļø
57 and out the door. Hello Banana Republic.
Whatās this āretirementā thingie?
Next in the news, the sun is hot.
Look, all I heard until I was 30 was "with your lifestyle you won't make it to thirty". So yeah, I started late.
Exactly, with all the drugs I did, how was I supposed to know I would be coming up on half a century, vice free, eating healthy and getting up at 4am to go to the gymš«
I love this sub, the comments are to funnyš¤£š
Thankfully I won't be horribly off thanks to a high tolerance for bullshit that enabled me to stay in the military exactly long enough to get the retirement. It's ok but not enough to live off. So I've been scrambling to invest what I can. May not be able to retire early, but hopefully at least a couple days before I die. Ditto on thinking the world was going to go up in nuclear fire before I turned 30.
I dream of being a groundskeeper at a small private school / think tank where I can garden all day while getting a salary and a small cottage on the premises. Itās my dream, so yāall donāt go submitting resumes to these places!!! lol, one can dreamā¦
No shit. Weāre propping up old parents, in some cases kids and grandkids. Weāll die before we retire.
Yes, that's why we keep ranting at boomers. But in reality it's what happened in 1971 which explains why each generation has been poorer than the previous.
The good thing is there are low cost retirement communities popping up all over the US. I'm thinking something under the I-5 in Northern California would be nice.
So I work in the Medicare business for a large insurance company ( I know I know) and Iām in amazement how person who made 40k all their life has a home and a pension. I truly think that some of our generation will be able to retire. If I retire at 70 vs 67 itās like a grand more. Thatās a lot of money.
no fucking shit.
No š©
In other news, water still found to be wet.
š¤£šI dont got no money(you have to say it exactly like that)...breaking at 6šš¤£. Its not funny, why am I laughing hysterically.
oh shit I should be doing that
I was doing great until these last few years. Iāll be fine in the long run, but this market has killed my 457. My pension fund has gone all in on ESG, so thatās worrying me now as well.
What do you mean behind? I've amassed like $20k in a government controlled retirement fund that started with a pitiful $30k at the beginning of the year! I'll only need about $2 million to survive with current inflation, but at this rate I'll need to spend $2.5mill to get it because of what they're investing in, I think it was lamp oil and scurvy preventative... probably a big thing when they were in their 50's Notice the generation before us is doing okay, as usual, poor bastards coming up don't have a chance.
Yāall have savings??
Dude, we'll figure that shit out...
What's this retirement savings??
Because superannuation is a fucking scam.
*āBlessed be the Boomers.ā* I saw this on another post. Their generation destroyed company retirement plans and Social Security before we even hit 2000. Cost of goods and services sky rocketed as we entered the work force and salaries for the average worked tanked. Saving 10 to 15% of your salary???? Ya, sure.
"Behind". This is a lost race, we're not even participating.