Barring any global events probably. I am quite fortunate.
To start with me and my wife are both sw engineers.
I earn some nice big company stock, from when I started to 5 years later it’s 10x’d. I was a few years late to really hit jackpot but I still made a lot and will hopefully continue to gain. My company also matches the first 6% of my rrsp (a 401k for canadains) and I contribute 8%. I also have a maxed tfsa.
I am a pretty aggressive budgeter so I make sure we spend below our means and build uo other savings as well.
There’s a bit of a “problem” at my company where many of the senior staff basically have blank cheques because only they understand the overall architecture. I hope to also end up in this position. I knew a guy that worked 2 half days a week for at least 2x my salary with vacation time to boot. All he did was answer questions for a few hours then go home.
I bought a house during a panic price drop in 2020 got a really cheap price and then sold it for a huge profit and bought a run down duplex that is a bad investment property but a good place to live for my polycule (in a super walkable neighborhood to boot!). I plan to die in This house. I got what will probably be an all time low interest rate of 1.7% and have been paying it off faster than necessary. When it renews next year at 4-5% I will hopefully keep the same monthly. If my monthly doesn’t grow above that then I’ll be pretty on track to have it paid off before I turn 45, giving me more money to save and also lowering the amount I need a month.
If interest rates go down or me/wife gets some nice promotions or my company stock does another big climb then kids might even be on the table.
No, my people dont live long. My wife will though. It makes me happy knowing that between both our labor she will be able to eek out a living in old age
sorry to intrude, i’d like to know who your people are
My family tree. I’ll be a miracle if I make it out of my sixties. Whereas my wife’s grand parents all made it to their mid-nineties.
She could likely live 30 years past the point of my death.
No.
Existence had grown exponentially more expensive in my lifetime, well outpacing what a 401k or pension will realistically ever be able to achieve. At best, it might buy me 5-10 years after I am physically unable to work; if I mentally decline too soon due to age (quite likely in my family), I will die in poverty.
That isn’t even touching on the possibility of a habitable climate or war, and assumes the survival of the current economic system.
Yep. I just always put money in my 401k, I don’t know what a paycheck without 15% going to retirement looks like. I’ve still got at least 30 years to go.
My wife and I have pensions plans. We won’t retire for another 35 or 40 years but that’s the plan.
That’s awesome, it seems really far away, but trust me, it goes by quick. I’m 55 and I retire in a few months. And I remember thinking it seemed so far away. And fuck, now I’m here. Crazy.
Wow, how are you retiring at 55??? I’m 56, and have spent this year re-vamping my IRA accounts with the hope of retiring in 10-12 years without any reliance on the social security that will be gone.
[Edit] I see below you mentioned having a pension. Must be nice!
As long as Trump doesn’t decide to suddenly end pension plans! I mean, i don’t really think that will happen, but he’s so batshit crazy, who knows. So I figure I should take the jump now and maybe any law changes that would happen would go towards people who aren’t collecting the pension yet.
My pension plan is for state workers. So we can retire at 55 if we have at least 20 years service in. I turned 55 this year, and hit my 20th year this year.
Of course, the longer I keep working, the bigger my pension would be. I took my current job with the plan to work for 3 more years, then retire.
And I like my current job enough, but every single morning after I turned 55, when I wake up, I think to myself, “Shit if I were retired, I wouldn’t have to go anywhere.”
My job is a 10-minute walk away. So I really have no right to bitch about it at all. But just “having” to be somewhere, gets on my nerves so much now! lol
So since I don’t owe anybody shit, and I can live off of potatoes and beans, I’ll get by just fine. I don’t give a shit what people think of me, so no keeping up appearances. That right there, makes my lifestyle sustainable on low income.
I have four more years to pay off my house. I just have to survive the Trump administration without losing everything.
You’ll be fine. You got this, brother!
Barring societal collapse I believe I will be able to retire, but that’s only because I’ve gotten extraordinarily lucky in life.
Retirement sounds great till you try it. The expression is “even your garage can’t get any cleaner”. This refers to the boredom retirement can be for some. The solution that I found was a part time job, not for the money, but doing something I enjoyed. You no longer have the pressure of a “real” job. The best job that you will ever have is the job that you really don’t need.
Doing stuff is important. But I have enough hobbies that I think I could stop working and not get bored.
Honestly, it scares me a bit. I’ve known men who retired and just… stopped. Sat in their chair, or maybe went for a little shuffling walk. Dead within a few years.
I could probably retire now, finances wise, but I enjoy my job and don’t know what I’d do all day without some structure.
I saw my retired parents waste away in front of the TV every day. As mentioned before … the best job is the one that you don’t need. So besides enjoying my part time “get out of the house” job there are other benefits. I save money and stay healthy by only drinking on Friday and Saturday. These of course are not my work days. I also don’t go out for meals during the week. I have retired neighbors that seem to spend 5 or 6 days a week out for lunch or dinner and boozing everyday. That would never work for me
I saw my retired grandparents buy property in the country and spend all day working on their garden and continuously making improvements to their home and doing other projects that interested them. In the summer they traveled the country and camped. If you spend your retirement wasting away in front of the TV that’s on you for not finding some hobbies.
Dude, I’m retired for 3 decades and still would need more time and had to prioritise hobbies. I work voluntarily with abused people, but not because I’m bored but because someone needs to. Besides that i love gaming, coding, traveling, cars, boats, going on daily tours with wifey, reading, music, watching star trek…
But I’ve seen people retire and getting bored to death a week later. I always found that sooo tragically sad, like they were born to be worker-ants and without work there’s nothing left worth living in their lifes.
But yes, the best job is one you actually want to do and are not forced to do.
No. My mother has unretired twice and my grandmother has come out of retirement four times. They don’t have the knack for it and I doubt I will either.
Yep! I retire in 5 months. 55 years old. With full pension.
My house is paid off and I have no debt. Since I have no bills, my pension will cover my needs just fine. It’s not a huge pension or anything, but I’ve worked for my state for most of my adult life, and whittled down my bills to almost nothing. So I’ll get by just fine.
I plan to just spend my time in retirement doing exactly what I want. I’ve recently started a local branch of my favorite socialist party, so I’ll devote more time to that.
Plus, I’ll do a lot of writing, a lot of Lemmy posting, garden more so I can grow most of my meals, and doing DIY solar projects so that I can cut back on my bills even farther. Because fuck the capitalist power infrastructure in my state. My state’s BS laws won’t let me go completely off-grid while here in the city, but I plan on reducing how much I have to pay as far down as I can go
No, and crying
Nope, never. My retirement plan is a ditch with a nice view of the Rockies in Colorado and a bottle of gin on a cold winter night. Everything I’ve saved into (SS, TSP, retirement accounts) will inevitably disappear before I can access them/hit the age requirements. I don’t trust the system at all (I didn’t trust it before the election outcome either). I’m fucked. We’re all fucked. Might as well live it up now while I still can.
I don’t think think I’ll ever “retire” in the traditional sense.
My thought was to always have a severe mental breakdown around 50 and run off to the woods to build a log cabin and grow my own food. My wife knows of this plan but I’m pretty sure she thinks it’s a joke. It’s not.
You should def practice the “grow your own food” thing first. I have a huge backyard, and I have been trying grow my own food, so far I suck at it. I’ll keep trying tho! But it is def not as easy as I thought it would be.
Incurable cancer, chemo brain means I can’t concentrate and often have trouble thinking straight. Involuntarily “retired” on medical insurance. Not working wasn’t what I expected it to be.
Yes.
By Planning.
I didn’t think it would work for the first 10 years. I just wanted to eat better cat food in retirement.
Pursuing higher paid jobs when I can. Changing jobs periodically. Pursuing higher pay until the pay asked for my soul. Then stepped back, changed jobs, and make way more for less.
Paying down debt when possible. Building up to a constant dollar figure of debit and investment per month. Growing that when I can. I now save 40%+ of my income.
Keeping my spending low by prioritizing my time on free things. Prioritizing the money I spend on high pact purchases.
Planning with 4% rule. Works out to needing 300 times your monthly spend in savings. Driving that number down. A $15 a month expense requires $4,500 invested to support.
A great market runup.
I am glad I did too. My friends are dying. One’s 40’s are rough.
No. Retirement age is already higher than the age I’ll probably reach, considering hereditary bad stuff. Aside from that, I have no skills and keep getting fired. Not to mention our planet will be on fire by then anyway.
