Are you "lucky"if you have a secure retirement?

[oosik]

I think anybody in your financial situation is there because they DO think of future needs and position themselves to take advantage of all situations leading to that end.

My parents - by example - showed me how important it is to save and be thrifty. My wife ensured financial success in our retirement by continuous saving. We were very fortunate when we sold our property in Alaska and moved here. We've been secure since I quit work & retired in 1987 at the age of 45.

You do not get to the position you are now enjoying - JD - solely by accident or luck. It takes planning and determination to meet a goal.

 

[doxford jim]

I would think that retirement success is a combination of planning , luck and choices. You can plan all you want but make one bad choice and it can make the planning a waste of time. So, yes all three components count towards a secure future retirement.

 

[Parkanzky]

I would think that retirement success is a combination of planning , luck and choices. You can plan all you want but make one bad choice and it can make the planning a waste of time. So, yes all three components count towards a secure future retirement.

Unless you're especially unlucky, most people can make a couple of bad choices and everything will still work out OK. Habitually making poor decisions will use up your luck no matter how much you have!

 

[RSKY]

I have preached to my daughters, nieces, nephews, and their friends constantly about saving for an emergency and for retirement.

I have friends my age, 60, who worked the same job I did who have nothing to show for forty years work and have no retirement except Social Security.

People just spend their money differently and have differing priorities. The problem is that the rest of us will end up supporting them.

 

[Beltzington]

"Fortunate" would be a better word, the best laid financial plans can be ruined by health issues.

 

[3930dave]

Financial education and practical knowledge (what older generations here considered common sense), combined with consistent discipline matter. Various good examples above.

Too many eggs in one basket is one area where some people get clobbered. Private sector pensions that were gutted at the corporate level did wonders for beachfront property values in Belize, but left workers that had paid into them for decades with nothing. Those folks worked hard, put money away in something previous generations did well with, then got ripped off.

I am very much for individuals taking full responsibility (for their life in general), but do feel that private sector pensions were not adequately legislated. (Very) rarely do I ever say that I want to see more govt legislation. Yes, I have a pretty good idea why those protections were not in place.

One of the consequences of this landscape is that many/most of the fiscally aware young people that I come across today only want to work in the public sector.

Rgds, D.

 

[tcreeley]

People vary. Not all of us are in the top percentiles for smarts, savings, planning, work ethic, substance abuse, health, circumstances.
When we moved- we bought our 19 acres through owner financing and fifty dollars down. It is paid off. I built our house - no mortgage. We have paid for our kid's college. We are retired from teaching - state pension plan similar to SS. We are careful with expenses.
-A good deal of that was due to luck- luck of opportunity. Our work ethic made it pan out. Our willingness to take chances helped.

Not everyone has the ability to work in business, or as a competent trades person, or as a teacher.
How many people who worked all of their life for the city of Detroit, lost a portion of their retirement? How many people lost retirement savings to Madoff, Enron, the mortgage derivative financial crash?

I see life as being similar to a marathon. Some finish with accolades. Some finish with puking. Some don't finish and drop out. Some cut in along the way to finish well. Some never partake.

But we all love a winner. I feel bad for the losers.

 

[texasjohn]

Great thread.

I myself have a good retirement and attribute it to a combination of reasonable choices, including wife, some genetic luck with intellectual capacity (I'v met some people who just don't have it), parents emphasized and funded college education along with financial help over the years, and last but not least the rising tide from 1960 to now including involvement in the IT boom. My uncle used to ask me out loud..."are you smart or lucky"....I think it's some of both.

I know people in all the stages/situations as described by others in the thread.

I, too, have a childhood friend, basically my age, who is now in terrible health, living in a shack in squalor without toilet or running water in shed. Result of some bad choices, bad marriage, bad real estate deals and caught in the home real estate bust some years ago. Ravaged by depression (my diagnosis) and immobilized by no funds, no energy. Hurts, bad, to visit him. He held several very respectable jobs and worked all his life until age/health/economics forced his "retirement".

Other side of the coin, his sister, never worked a day, no college, married early, used her charms to benefit, divorced with good benefits, married again, twice, much older men, getting benefits when each passed away naturally from age. She makes, IMHO, poor choices re spending money and men, but she has lived well and large and continues to do so.

So, there is more than one path to a good or poor situation in the retirement years, as witnessed by various comments in this thread.

Reminds me of the refrain from a folk song... "there, but for fortune, go you or I"

It's not all luck, or great decisions, or being in the right place at the right time, or inheritance, or intelligence, or "living righteously" or political belief or whatever formula you might espouse....nevertheless, I do believe one is doomed if no luck, poor decisions, poor timing, no inheritance, low intelligence and bad parenting all come your way.

 

[bcp]

Reminds me of the refrain from a folk song... "there, but for fortune, go you or I"

 

[mjarrels]

Retired at age 52, nice VA disability, Navy Chief Petty Officer retirement pay. Only scarey part is that both are controled by the Federal Government and can go away with a stroke of a pen! Dang property taxes and insurance nickle and dime me to death. All it takes is one accident or serious health issue and you can become desitude over night.

mark