Ask the Readers: Why Are YOU Saving for Retirement?

I think we need a new word for our goal. For me “retirement” generates images of ending a career, beginning leisure time, blue hair and winnebagos. Why not set a goal of a new phase of productivity in the arena of one’s heart’s desire, being fulfilled AND busy most days – with the financial freedom to pursue one’s passions and live fully. And why wait until “retirement age” to do this? Readers of this blog are well on the way to financial independence – why wait until an arbitrary age to start pursuing one’s passion and living one’s dream? For me, living – and working – the dream is the motivation for pursuing financial freedom.

I would like to live comfortably on the coast and close to family. Currently working towards my CFA I hope to continue investing and researching at my leisure. As well, I would like to stay active in running; while I doubt I will do anything competitive at retirement age I would like to focus on staying fit. Lastly, I would like to work on my cooking skills as it is something I really enjoy and host dinners for friends and family.

I save because my parents never had to. My dad’s spent 35+ years at one company; the same company that my grandfather spent 35+ years with. (I even spent a couple summers interning there). Although my parents have some “extra retirement” money set aside in various IRAs/401ks, it was never intended to be their bread & butter during retirement. Then came program-changes… With monthly out-of-pocket expenses skyrocketing for retirees. After 35+ years of working towards a “defined pension,” the lawyers have found a way to change all of the terms on everyone. Seeing my parents worried about retirement gives me motivation to max out my retirement savings.

I think retirement will be spending more time the way we do when we have a free day: building things, visiting family, camping, writing, traveling, taking and sharing pictures, helping people, and caring for animals.

My grandfather-in-law has been retired for over 20 years, and he volunteers 3-4 days a week, is active in his church, works out at the gym every weekday, takes several trips with his wife every year and spends time with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He has a full and happy life, which I think is contributing to how well he’s aged. That’s just the kind of retirement I want to aim for.

Come to think of it, his whole family was happy he retired because it meant they’d all get to spend more time with him. I want to build a life like that – to know people are glad I’m around.

I guess the reason I’ve started my retirement fund (this week, in fact!) is a little hazier than yours, JD. I just don’t want to end up like my parents; through a combination of bad luck and bad choices, they’re financially insecure and their relationship has suffered as a result. I think they’ll still land on their feet, but I never want my personal life to be miserable because I didn’t think ahead enough.

When I retire, I want to be able to sleep in if I want to, visit my family as much as I’d like, and travel to new places. I’d also like the time to be involved even more deeply in my community and have the financial security to give a significant chunk of my time to others without worry.

I was unemployed for 16 weeks and 20 weeks in the years 2000 and 2001. It was SO awesome. I didn’t have a lot of committed expenses (paid-for car, rent was ~600/month the first year, and $350/month the second year, no other debt), so unemployment insurance was totally enough to get by on.

I found my natural sleep rhythms, read the paper, had lunch with friends, and puttered a lot. If I were going to be not-working forever I’d have to build in some sort of structure, but the ability to just do anything I want whenever I want will be so so so so great. I still have about thirty years to go though!

Freedom pure and simple.

-Rick

I save in a retirement account because I figure it’ll eventually be useful to have the money. I don’t have any particular plans for it. I’m 28, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it, to be honest.

I’d be ok if it wasn’t that different from my life now: Live by the beach, go surfing in the mornings, ride my bike in the afternoons, write some software in between, visit a new country a couple times a year.

I’d be perfectly happy with that as a “retirement”, but I haven’t made any plans. That’s pretty much how I live my live everyday already, why wait till I’m 65?

Retirement to me is an enigma. I don’t foresee it happening in my future, ever, no matter how positive I try to be about it. I make far too little, and even though I save like crazy, I only have enough saved up for about 3 years of “retirement”, and that’s 3 years of living very frugally and very close to the poverty line.

I don’t have any family of my own (ie, no husband, no boyfriend or kids), so no help there. I see myself alone, working whatever job I can find in my older years, for as long as I physically can, until I can no longer physically do it, then using my savings to keep me out of the homeless shelter for as long as possible. I know that sounds bleak, but given my low earning potential (and the sorry state of social security), this seems to be the most likely outcome. (I’ll be going back to college next year to learn a new career to see if I can’t change that outcome a little.)

Having started saving for retirement late in the game & knowing that I’m genetically wired with a longevity gene (barring accidental death) my retirement will not be early & will in all likelihood be modest. Still, I look forward to ditching the alarm clock that currently rings even before my dogs think it’s time to get up! I look forward to long walks with the dogs, going to the gym after the mass of workers have cleared out, reading all the books I don’t have time to read nowadays, & impromptu excursions because it’s too beautiful a day to waste. I look forward to more creative time in my studio, of which the by products will also supplement my retirement. Some volunteering will be a part of my retirement. I really look forward to taking extended learning courses / field trips at a significant senior discount through my local community college seniors programs. Oh, yes – going to the grocery store on weekday mornings when it’s quiet, and taking advantage of early bird specials.

As a few other readers have expressed, I have no intentions of retiring. My life is a migrating series of interests, and right now what I do is lucrative enough that I can have a small surplus; I save this because someday what I am doing may require additional funds. Even though I intend to work until I die, savings simply means more freedom (in a sense), and so I do it.

I see myself with CHOICES. That’s why I save, that’s why I budget, and that’s why I plan.

My grandmother was widowed at 75, and she had SS and $20K in the bank. No house, no pension. She spent her last 8 years moving between her three daughters, and having no choices because she had no way to pay for anything.

My dream retirement? Two small houses, one winter, one summer. The winter house somewhere like Key West or the USVI. The summer house somewhere on a lake. We’ll read, we’ll walk, we’ll cook, we’ll barbecue, we’ll have family to visit, and we’ll travel to see friends and family. Nothing fancy, but definitely fulfulling.

I am 28 and would love to retire by 60, if not earlier. I’m able to save and invest a decent amount of my income, but I could do better. I’m not counting on the guy who’s likely to become my future husband, my parents, the govt., or the places where I work to take care of me in my old age; I really just need to rely on myself and make sure that I retire when I want to.

I see myself owning my house outright (I do not want to worry about a mortgage when I’m in my old age), traveling, spending time with family and friends, volunteering, and learning new languages when I’m retired. I would probably work part-time too if I ever felt bored.

Retirement is a silly concept really. I don’t want to do any of the things other people seem to do in retirement, especially not at the expense of enjoying life now. I’ve already changed careers twice, and I’m sure I’ll do it a few more times. I save as much as I can, in case of health problems, but I already balance work, life, volunteering, and travel as best I can to get maximum value now. When I have enough saved maybe I’ll work less, or maybe I’ll work for a non-profit I admire. But maybe I’ll be doing something I love and won’t want to slow down. I know from periods of unemployment that without a job or other commitment to pull me up and out the door, I become a useless slug and spend all my time sleeping and watching tv. That’s no way to live.

I hate to be so arrogant, but I feel I’m doing exactly what I’ll be doing in retirement. I travel when I want; I take days off when I want. The added bonus is that I make a lot of money each month via working and freelance. The only thing that will change in retirement is that I will be much older and the child will be grown.

I have always manage to get what I wanted in life thanks to planning and not living far above my income. My income has always been higher than my expenses, partly because I’m not a big fan of debt. When you have the basics: a mortgage note and utilities, your income will always be higher. Add major debt, your income will suffer. Regardless of the fluctuations with my income, I always had some type of cash cushion to manage the droughts.

My goal in retirement is to simply have more time to pursue the things I’m interested in. I’m interested in so many things that I just don’t have time to get to them all while working. I’d like to travel more with my husband, I’d like to do more with photography, learn how to do stained glass, the list goes on.

I save now so that I can get to all of these things as soon as possible.

I want to become a national sports columnist. I can spend most of my time watching sports and researching sports, which is how I spend my time anyway. The only actual “work” that I would be doing is the act of writing, which even that I enjoy for the most part.

The day I get that job is the day I’m retired in my mind. It’s a job that I can do until the day I die.

Other than that, I hope to one day have enough money earned / saved to own land in Texas to hunt and fish as I see fit. That’s the good life.

Our retirement savings have been put on hold for a bit while we build up our emergency fund, BUT our goals for it have been to protect us in the future.

While a lifestyle during retirement is something to think about – my main motivation is the story of my two grandmothers. One had sufficient retirement savings and had the money to afford the dignified care she received at the end of her life.

The other did not, and wound up in a spiral of significant debt compounded by medical problems, which sent her further into debt, that we only found out about after the fact. We had to sell everything she owned and she now lives in a Medicare facility where she is not treated with dignity and her few meager worldly possessions get stolen by facility staff.

End-of-life and nursing care is HIGHLY expensive, and we are only projected to live longer. I want to have enough money that I can be cared for with dignity and not place a financial burden on my family at the end of my life.

I save for retirement because life is too short to work all your life!

At 40 years old, I want to have the ability to walk away if I want to.

It’s all about freedom, b/c as off now, I have every I could ask for, except for the freedom to do whatever I want.

FS

Although my retirement is a long way off (I’m only 25), I’m already saving for my retirement. I would rather skimp and save now, when I’ve got youth and health on my side, than later.

I’m currently working at a job I love (healthcare worker), but I can’t imagine doing it forever. It’s just too physical. Most of my co-workers either have to take early retirement (~55) or move into management.

My dream retirement is a little 4 seasons cottage somewhere quiet. Ideally with birds to watch, fishing, and lots of trees. A bunkhouse for guests and a big kitchen so that I can host dinners for extended family and friends.

@E (#28):

“I know from periods of unemployment that without a job or other commitment to pull me up and out the door, I become a useless slug and spend all my time sleeping and watching tv. That’s no way to live.”

That’s a great point, E. Reading through these comments, I noticed all the lofty intentions so many people have. Travel the world, learn piano, grow a garden, volunteer, go to the gym, etc. Sadly, reality is much different. I’ve witnessed this first hand with my father.

When people retire, they do indeed have all those great intentions. But at the beginning, they end up just vegging. They spend their days sleeping in and watching TV, telling themselves they’ll get started on all those great things “someday.”

Then weeks turn into months, and they suddenly realize that the world is going on without them. That job that made them feel so important has been filled by someone else, and the company is trucking along just fine. They start to wonder if they were ever really that important after all. They wonder what the heck the point of any of this is, if the world doesn’t need them. They remember that they had a list of things they intended to do, just like all the commenters here have said, yet they haven’t actually done any of them. Throughout their whole life, they believed that the only reason they weren’t traveling/learning a foreign language/going to the gym regularly/etc. was because their job was sucking up all their free time, and if they retired, they’d get to do all those things. But after retiring, and being faced with the reality that they’re NOT doing those things, they’re forced to acknowledge that it wasn’t their job holding them back – it was themselves. They’re just not really that motivated. The job was a convenient scapegoat that allowed them to preserve their self-esteem. Absent the job, the only remaining explanation is their own apathy.

Understandably, this has a strong, negative psychological effect on the retiree. They can fall into depression, their marriage suffers, and they end up going back to work, if only to feel like they have a purpose again. This is EXACTLY what happened to my father, and it’s happened to countless other people. It’s not often discussed, but I think it’s an enormous issue that deserves far more attention than it gets. I’m optimistic that with the Boomer generation about to experience this for themselves, we’ll finally see a spotlight focused on it.

Maybe it’s not fair since I already reached that goal 10 years ago, but what I learned that was a eye opening relief, was that savings or assets matter very little if you don’t have cash flow. In the end, that’s what determines what you have to work with on a daily basis. I worked on my skills at earning online and now I have all the cash flow I need to visit my grandkids all over the country and take trips to nice condos just to kick back a few times a year.

I guess I agree with the thought that retirement is to final. My husband and I say “our next life” begins in 8 years when our youngest child graduates from high school. I have always loved Bed and Breakfasts and in my “next life” I plan to own one somewhere out of the city I currently reside in, preferably in the mountains somewhere. I envision us doing this for the rest of our lives, but we may discover something new that we want to do. I hope our careful planning from the tips and techniques JD shares here will afford us the opportunity to take advantage of whatever crazy things life throws us and maybe start a whole “new life” after the B&B.

JD: RE: #36, #37, and #38: An interesting topic to explore further is Long Term Care Insurance. I work for the Alzheimer’s Association and regularly talk to families who are in the situation of Kristen’s grandmother who did not have enough for her long term care. My grandparents were smart enough to get long term care insurance shortly after my grandfather retired. Even though he spent almost 5 years in a private Alzheimer’s care unit before passing away, the LTC insurance helped cover most expenses so that my grandmother is still doing well financially and is not a burden to anyone in the family.

I would like to ‘retire’ in my early 40s (~15 years). The version in my head involves a small ranch and taking in foster kids, or maybe having one of those ‘world’s strictest parents’ gigs and having people who can’t handle their kids send them to me. I want to make a difference in the world by pointing kids at a crossroads in the right direction.

I haven’t worked out any details, and the vision may change to something completely different by the time it happens.