Your Retirement Savings

Respect

I got $10 set aside for some sleeping pills and a plastic bag. Retiring Heaven’s Gate style.

Respect

I got $10 set aside for some sleeping pills and a plastic bag. Retiring Heaven’s Gate style.

― papal hotwife (milo z)

damn that's bleak

that used to be my retirement plan but as i get older, that just doesn't seem practical. getting old and dying doesn't seem like a binary now, it doesn't feel like "well i can't work any more, guess i'll kill myself". in large part i guess because i... kind of can't work anymore? like i'm kind of legit "disabled" at this point. not permanently or whatever, it's just that the conditions i'm under right now make it really difficult for me to fulfill the expectations placed on me by capitalism. i'm basically faking it for the health insurance. there's a possibility that at some point somebody decides to switch me on the balance sheet from "asset" to "liability", which will make things harder in some ways but easier in others. it's not the end of my life. working isn't my life. getting paid makes my life a hell of a lot easier, but if i'm not getting paid, it doesn't mean i'm gonna kill myself.

transition increased the precarity of my financial situation by orders of magnitude. my ex-wife and i both worked, we owned a house, no kids. we were going to grow old and die together, except that i kind of wanted to skip the "growing old" part. the irony of it is that now that i've transitioned, i no longer want to kill myself, but in other respects it's made life so much more difficult for me - single income, no house, a job that's no longer suited to the person i am now. the trans people i know, lots of us are trying to survive without being able to work, and it's hard. most of us aren't killing ourselves, which is good. some of us are, and that makes me sad.

so here's bleak: my mom's in assisted living, which is good for her but sucks for me... like i hate that this is a calculation, but a lot of my being able to do the things i've done is that my dad died when i was 40 and left me a substantial inheritance. i don't know how long she's going to make it. she was and is an extremely emotionally abusive parent so we don't really talk. (so even if she dies with money, i might not get any of it lol).

No kids/heirs here either - I'm with milo on the Heaven's Gate exit. Bulldoze my stuff into a volcano when I'm gone...

Well this thread took a turn for the morbid

Retirement is as inconceivable as winning a $500mn jackpot and I just don't want to be one of those inspirational stories on the news about an 85 year old celebrating their birthday during a Wal-Mart shift. Even that fate is preferable to the old people prisons you get stuck in if Medicaid/Medicare have to foot the entire bill.

I think being a greeter is like the ideal post retirement gig. Love to say hi to strangers and to be paid to do it? Ffs

When the time comes Im going to rat out all you retirees’ hiding places to the liberators in exchange for food and shelter, gl

Fuck Walmart greeters and fuck Walmart.

Bro

lol it’s like I remember someone made a post here recently about hating self-checkout at groceries stores because they like to talk to the staff or something.. like ok

I’m finding my current age (59) a bit agonising. I can see over the next few years the strong temptation will be for me to keep working to ensure I’m as financially comfortable as possible- but this will cut into precious uncertain remaining years of good health I could be using for an active retirement.

It’s tough trying to land a retirement in a cost of living crisis.

we should form an ILE retirement center in the U.S. imo

Wal-Mart eliminated the elderly greeters IIRC, they're all spry young loss prevention associates to keep you from shoplifting baby food and diapers.

^^Yesterday I was at my old local Walmart for the first time since I moved/the pandemic, and was kinda bleak. The whole beauty department and all the Legos were in glass display cases!

Theft is reals

Target is the same way

Bought toothpaste yesterday and not only was it in a locked case, someone had to take it to the register for us

we had a BJs membership and i just ended up refusing to go there because they check your cart at the door after you have already paid. fuck that i hate them. plus it just has an apocalypse vibe in there. people stocking up for doomsday. the perfect place to take over in the event of a real doomsday though. so much food. so many socks.

Walmart is super apocalyptic, so much stuff behind bars and glass. So much unfinished concrete. So cold.

the concrete is a good call out, so many places are like this now. like they decided 'why spend money making this place look good, who cares'. apparently people don't either!

lol they just did a full remodel of ours and the polished concrete floors are a vast improvement

I need 50 pounds of romaine where can I go yeah you know

green in judgment, cold in blood

Theft is reals

citation needed

I just want to acknowledge that well-placed Shakefpeare ref

I'm somewhere in the middle here. I've put away enough that I'm not contemplating the plastic bag and sleeping pills option, but on the other hand I don't realistically have enough to retire on when I might want to. I'm guessing I'll have to sell my house and move to somewhere smaller and cheaper.

Our retirements plans are in good part not-spending: staying in an affordable town, not moving into a bigger apartment, bringing lunch to work, buying only what we need and when we can, day-to-day discipline.

We are well covered and put aside regular amounts on the equivalent of a 401k, but we have only just started. My partner took a one-way ticket here and brought 10K in savings when I had just enough left from a 10K student loan to buy a bed and couch. That was five years ago. Now we're in our late 30s, dual income, one kid. We probably both have a shot at making good salaries one day, if that's what we want.

The dream would be to make a lot, buy a house, retire early. The reality is that less and less people can do that.

I'm privileged in my bachelorhood: good job, state benefits, a Roth IRA, some savings. I often ask myself if I should be abstemious for the sake of old age because I've no illusions about who will help care for me, but then I stop and wonder, why not have fun now?

gaudeamus igitur

I will most likely work until I die, then I guess i'll wake up again the next day and go back to work again like nothing ever happened

i have a retirement date and will be comfortable after it as far as whats in my control goes, the focus is to bring that forward from here if i can

In 2020, I took an early retirement package that paid out more than if I was laid off. I was able to be in husband's health insurance for a reasonable cost and thought I might actually retire, just work part-time low stress until I could take early social security. But I got bored after 3 weeks and started consulting which was really lucrative but super high stress and basically 24/7. I bought outright an inhabitable doublewide in a 55+ park in 2021 with some of the proceeds, thinking I'd definitely get out of consulting when I hit 62. We'd get by okay on SS and my okay level of savings. I'd cashed out all my previous 401ks a dozen years before to fund a solo venture (not recommended if you have to pay penalties). Suddenly found a job I really really wanted to do, for 1/4 of what I was making consulting. It's a different kind of stress, a better kind. I got a wild hair to buy unimproved land in 2023 and cashed out another chunk of 401k for that. So now I've got low/moderate savings, a place to live I can afford that's okay, 20 acres to do something with eventually. Whatever gets thrown at us, I figure we'll adapt.

Folks at current job keep panicking all the time about when I'll retire, which earliest would be in 3 years but if I'm healthy and still enjoying it I'll be glad to continue. The healthy&happy equation is the important calculus though vs. can I afford to survive without.

I took voluntary redundancy from my office job during the pandemic and used the money to set myself up as a gardener. I don't earn very much now and my wife doesn't work due to her MS but we just about scrape by. I'm doing a job that I enjoy, i listen to music or birdsong all day long, I'm my own boss, and i spend most of the day away from a desk. i feel like i'm mostly having a positive effect on the environment (i'm steathily turning all my clients' gardens into mini nature reserves, just sneaking in little things here and there; i did get stung by bumblebees today though when i strimmed the grass too close to their nest, i tried to be their ally but they've turned against me). I don't have any real savings but as long as I can hang on to my health and don't injure myself falling off a ladder or something daft, then once I reach a certain age and our kids have moved on, I hope I'll end up just working mornings, pottering around people's gardens as a doddery old man, trying to be useful. At least it'll get me out of the house and keep me active. Things that might scupper this plan: my wife's health significantly declining so that she needs caring for; also the cost of running a crappy old van is killing me at the moment, and any surplus I currently make is used to keep that heap of shit going :(