Retirement At 50 Or Early Retirement Is An Individual Thing

[TheMastersNemesis]

Early retirement is deadly if you lived to work and your entire self worth is tied up in your delusion that you are valued as an employee. Working to live on the other hand makes it possible to be free when work life is over. I feel sorry for retirees who are bored and feel worthless because they put all their self worth into their job. The brutal truth is that your employer does not give a crap about you. Anymore long term and older employees are looked at like lepers because they get too many benefits and suck off the bottom line. Thanks to the GOP and a new generation of managers loyalty is passe and seniors should be gotten rid of forthwith. The sooner they die off the better.

I retired at 54 on April Fool's Day in 1998. It is going on 14 years now and I have not been bored a single day. Let's see. I took care of my mother-in-law who lived to 104 1/2. My wife was forced out of her health insurance company after 29 years, so she retired two years later. It allowed us both to care for my mother-in-law as her health began to fade. We did 24/7 home care for the last 8 months of her life after she had broken a leg in 1998, had a pace maker put in in 2001 and had two strokes one in 2006 and one in 2008. In actuality she spent less than a year disabled or hospitalized her entire life. She was not totally disabled until the last 8 months. And she even healed from a broken leg at 97. She was still able to travel in early 2008.

For me I have played at least 1300 rounds of golf since 1998 where I have have a season pass where I play. That means that I have walked close to 9500 miles since 1998 and I do not take a cart. I have a large garden that takes many hours of hard work. And my wife, mother-in-law when she was able and myself have traveled numerous times to California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, crossing 22 states on one trip. And last year my wife and I took a cruise to Alaska.

We also have been engaged in various political campaigns for Democrats nationally and locally. And we are supporting at least four campaigns right now. And we had a kickoff campaign at our house two days ago.

Boredom, what's that? Looking back I wish I could have retired at 40.

When I worked I did what I could to help people when I was at DOL. It was so difficult to watch all the crap the Reagan and the GOP did to working people. You could see the good jobs being melted away by people like Romney. The GOP has fundamentally destroyed the social contract between employer and employee. They want retirement to be extinct for future generations.

[DCKit]

1. So many of us were "retired" at 38... without a pension or 401K.

I"m not bitching, 'cause the S.O. has a helluva job, but I'm in the minority. I'm not doing "life with kids" or anything remotely similar, so it's just us.

Without the S.O., I'd be living under a bridge somewhere.

Thanks George!

[bluedave]

2. Yes indeed

I retired at 62 with reduced SS after ruining myself with ACTUAL physical jobs,then for the last 10 yrs. scrounging to exist after my "real" job evaporated and no health insurance for the last 15.Now I'm hoping to make 65 so I can get medicare with my many work related health issues-awww wtf the rich gop says,make em work til they die.

[Nay]

3. I'm going to retire in 3 months at age 61 - I've got a couple of health issues that have

made me even more aware of my mortality than ever. (I was never unaware.) The diabetes is mild and controlled by diet and Metformin, and the breast cancer is stage 1 and the surgery and radiation give me a 95% chance of being cured, but still. . . .

I also will have no problem being retired. In fact, these last few months at work will be torture because I can actually see the end of my slave life and the beginning of some relative freedom. I never in a million years could identify with ppl whose whole lives revolved around work - whether it was the work itself that they loved, or the social aspects of work. I can sort of understand a person who truly loves what they do and gets to do it for a living (my breast cancer surgeon was just such a person), but this is obviously pretty rare. Most people can hardly wait to retire, IMHO. They may not say so straight to their boss's faces, but it's true.

[Uben]

8. Nay....

In your post, you said you have a 95% chance of being cured of breast cancer. I think you mean you have a 95% chance of living 5 yrs or longer because there is no cure for breast cancer. Chances are, it will return, and when it does, it can be nasty. I'm not saying this to scare you, but to help you realize you need to enjoy the years you have left.
As the years passed after my wife's initial diagnosis in 2002, breast cancer got shoved to the back of our minds. Of course, every time some ailment surfaced, we worried about it being cancer, but it was always something else......until it wasn't. In early October of last year, my wife came down with shingles. Not uncommon as she was 60 yrs old. But the shingles didn't go away, and in December we got the word the cancer was back. It was extensive, and her chances were slim. She only had 60 days after that.
I say this so you will be ever-vigilant about your health. We kinda put cancer in the back of our minds after some years pass.
Please get your bloodwork done yearly, scans if you can afford it. Stay on top of it.
Retirement is great! You will not regret your choice, and I hope you make it to a hundred.

[Nay]

12. Yes, that is what I meant...95% chance of living the 5 years. I didn't esp want to go thru my

whole history -- the fact that it's a very low-recurring cancer (has a low score), that my mom and aunt both had this br cancer and lived to ages 86 and 93 without dying of any type of cancer, etc. ...I just wanted to briefly talk about how none of us have forever, and how for most people work is something to be dispensed with as soon as possible to maximize individual enjoyment.

[Uben]

13. That's certainly what I did.....

"work is something to be dispensed with as soon as possible to maximize individual enjoyment."

[Uben]

4. I chose to retire early.....

I was 47, my wife had just underwent breast cancer surgery, and we had just inherited some money. We chose to spend what time we had left together. It was a good choice. She lived 10 more years and we spent all of those days together. I am so thankful we had those years. I am now in my late fifties. I have kicked around the idea of going back to work to lessen the expense of health insurance, but since I can afford to pay the high costs, I'll stay retired. I think anyone who can swing early retirement should do so.
Life is not about how much money you have, it's about how much time you have. That money stays here when you die, but the "time" ends. I think having control of your time is what everyone should be shooting for. Granted, most will never be able to do this. We were fortunate to have had the opportunity, and thank god we did!
I am now looking at beginning a new phase of my life. I am a 57 yr old widower, and soon I will be searching for someone to spend my silver and golden years with, if I am so fortunate to have them. We are not guaranteed tomorrow.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. That's A Great Story

Me, i'm still working. My wife is disabled, and i have MS, so i'm working for the insurance. I actually have enough assets to walk away, but the medicines would eat that up too fast. Hoping to hit the bricks at 62.

Glad it worked out so well for you.
GAC

[Uben]

10. We were looking forward to Medicare...

...healthcare expense eats such a big chunk of your money when you have pre-existing conditions. We were paying $25K/yr in premiums for a so-so policy, $5k deductible with $15K total out of pocket. But, when we needed it, we had it. Without it, we could have gone bankrupt. We actually thought about dropping the insurance for 6 months to be eligible for the federal high-risk pool. Why one has to be without insurance for 6 months to be eligible is ridiculous. HAd we done that, it would have had dire consequences.
I have a friend that is 84. He is still working, albeit part time! He sells light bulbs. He says it's what keeps him alive. For some, this may be what they need. But, retirement is soooo nice! No alarm clocks! That alone is worth so much.

[raccoon]

5. IMO, that's a no-brainer. I can't give you stats, but I bet the vast majority of people would

rather be retired than have to work. I know I would.

[DLevine]

7. K&R.

I am really surprised at the number of people who say they would be bored if they retired. So many things to do, so little time.

[sofa king]

9. I don't know anyone who can retire at any age.

One thing I notice from those of you who have chimed in is that you all retired during the Clinton years.

That option ended with George Bush. Since the day he got in, not one member of my family has retired with full benefits. Not one of them left with the pensions they were promised. Among the children of my parents and their siblings--over ten of them--only two have any sort of job that even pretends to set one up with a retirement option.

None of us makes enough money to care for any of our parents, so when their money runs out, it's over for them and the rest of us will be right behind them because most of us haven't had health insurance in ten years.

But I'm happy for those of you lucky enough to get a piece of the dream before it died.

[FarCenter]

11. Just be aware that at 10% inflation, your pension is reduced by half in 7 years.

It only takes a few years of late '70s early '80s inflation to do real damage.

And there is a good chance that the politician will use inflation to attempt to solve the debt problem.