As for me, I have absolutely no trouble at all handling retirement, but wish I was getting a pension plus SS, instead of just SS. That problem isn't all my fault, being that I've worked for a few companies that closed within a year of leaving them. A year after leaving my last job in Colorado, the department was closed. Since I spent a few years trying to leave, and never return, to So Calif. it just didn't work out like that. Two different times I left. Only thing that kept me "alive" for-to-say in So Calif. was attending rodeo's on weekends. My salary wasn't enough to have a "company contribution to retirement" thing, let alone I'd only stay for at most jobs for a year or so. Now, there are those mornings, when my wife has a hard time sleeping the night before, and it's time to get up for work, that she really wishes she was retired. But, other than those mornings, she likes to work. When we move, she will quit her job and try to semi-retire. Semi-retire meaning that she MIGHT try to find a part-time job during the week. Absolutely no weekend work. Retiring in an area we really want to live, would definitely make retiring much, much better..........except for the financial side of things. IOW, she won't have a pension either. Savings and SS is what we will have to live on and have some fun with. So, what about you? Happy, personally and financially, that you retired OR don't like it? There are those that are both ways.
Well I never really worked at a job, I get widows benefits and with the help of my kids I'm quite comfortable financially. I don't abuse their generosity though...just means I will never have to worry about food and shelter and what's going to happen to me when I can't take care of myself anymore.
I wish I had a retirement plan. Champion had pretty good retirement plan but they closed the plant when I had only 12 years in. Had I stayed at Texas State Texas College, there would have been a comfortable retirement package, but I was tired of doing that after six years. So I'm with you Cody. As it is, my wife and I are still working 30 hours a week each, but that could end anytime.
I simply enjoyed working at things that have little or no retirement plans included within the vocations. Unless it’s a large corporation, I have never seen a restaurant with a pension plan nor are there any plans available in the home missions field. It’s either work until you don’t, die or vie for the next Walmart greeter position. All in all it’s not bad. I can still teach if I chose to and I can still grab an executive chef’s position or hire out as a consultant but the question I ask myself is “how much time do I wish to commit”? My whole working life is based on honest commitment so grabbing a position with the knowledge that I would probably get pretty tired of it in a short period seems like a waste of someone’s time. I have often thought of opening a grab ‘n go type of food service place but again, how long I would maintain a goodly amount of interest is a coin toss.
I worked in the same plant for 43 years. I took advantage of company welding school to get a small increase in pay and then took a 4 years apprenticeship to become a tool & die maker. I wish the 401k had been available all those years but when we did get it I put in 15% of my pay and the company matched 5%. I also got a pension based on the number of years worked. It pays to stick to one job. Moving from job to job can be costly.
My brother gets a pension from the State of PA as well as his wife gets a much smaller pension from a company she worked for. Thing is, not everyone wants to stay on the same job for years upon years. My brother's wife told me that she'd done anything, including working graveyard shift, to stay with the same company to get a pension. I'm just not the type of person to stay with a company for years and put up with stuff I didn't like, in order to get a pension. Then, in order to get a pension, a person has to be with the right kind of company......IOW, a rather large and financially secure one. That definitely isn't always easy to get on with a company like that.
Company pensions plans are not always reliable, however. I live in a town where three-quarters of the male population went to work for Great Northern Paper Company on the day after they graduated from high school, and remained there until retirement. GNP promised a retirement program and health benefits. That worked out okay for a few generations, then the company sold a few times. Then it was sold as an asset sale, which meant that the new company bought the building and the equipment, but was not responsible for carrying on the retirement program. Although the company operated for a few more years, they hired only a few hundred people rather than a few thousand, and the pensions of those who had retired from GNP in previous years were cut off, along with the lifetime health plans that were part of the packages. Before the company closed for the last time, the employees who were at work learned that the company had quit paying for their healthcare plan long before, and some of them now had large medical bills. This included the part that was being deducted from their paychecks for the last few months. Yes, there were lawsuits over the pension plan, which involved the former company, and lawsuits over health benefits against the most recent company, but the company filed for bankruptcy, and it was learned that the Canadian owner had moved all of the company's financial assets into other companies that he owned. For example, GNP owned power dams and forestland, but the last owner had split its forest operations into another company and its power dams into yet another, and moved the company's financial assets to another holding company that he owned. then moved back to Canada. Employees and those who had previously retired from GNP were left without a retirement program, the town was left with millions of dollars in back taxes, and this guy still gets to sell electrical power to Canada and to cut timber, most of which also goes to Canada. The town of Millinocket had a retirement program for its employees, too. It was a very generous retirement programs that paid them almost as much as they were earning while they were working, as well as 100% of their medical expenses. When the mill closed and the town was left with a huge tax bill that it couldn't collect, and without a promise of future taxes from the mill, the town stopped its retirement program because it could no longer afford it. They not only ended the promise of a retirement package to current employees but stopped paying on the retirement program for those who were already vested, and were retired. This resulted in another lawsuit, which the town won. Bringing this back more directly on topic, I could survive on Social Security if I had to. If one of the other of us should die, it would be more difficult to survive on only one Social Security benefit but I think we could do it without having to scrounge for food in garbage cans. Things will be more difficult, however.
I can ....handle retirement pretty well. We know that personal and financial happiness depends on one's pretensions but I'd say that I'm very happy personally and can get by with the help of SS plus a small company pension. What did I do? After the wall had come down and I found myself in a completely new system, it was said that we should not to rely on getting social security benefit exclusively but also provide for our old age ourselves. I had no savings and I also knew that I would not be able to inherit anything. Who from? So I came up with my own pension plan and started implementing it immediately by saving money and investing it in stocks and bonds and by using the returns for buying real estate property so that I wouldn't have to pay a rent once I retired. It turned out that I didn't have to pay a rent a number of years before retirement. I felt motivated because I never liked going out to work anyway and, thus, knew very early that I would try to take early retirement at 63 at the latest even if that meant that I'd have to accept a life-long 10% reduction of both SS and company pension. I accepted that because I prefer an autonomous life and don't belong to those who don't seem to know what to do with themselves if they're not working. Looks as though retirement might be the best phase in my life if it weren't the last one...Still I'm trying hard to make the most out of it.
I had a friend who worked for the County of Orange in So California. She stayed with them with ever thought of getting a descent pension after 10 years of work. A very short time after she retired, the County of Orange went bankrupt. She never seen a penny of the pension she so dearly wanted.
Well, I'll have no pension and I'm single. I never worked anyplace that even did a 401k match so I didn't bother. I thought it better to save. I'm still trying to find a nice mobile in a park. I don't mind renting in some ways but I'd probably end up in senior apartments and I don't want to end up in a dumpy one or have issues with having pets. My thought is I should be OK if I find a place. Two can live cheaply. I'll have to live really cheaply but I don't mind. I know that fancy traveling etc will no be a possibility. But if I live in a nice park with a pool, I hope to take advantage of that in the summer and I like being at home with the cats. I would probably be better off if I had bought a condo when younger and prices were reasonable. I would have been able to pay it off by now. But I hated the house I bought and should have sold it much earlier. I would have got much more money in return. But I always had major anxiety and worry about buying and still do.
Once we move, we will have to rent. Wife doesn’t like yearly rent increases, but that is part of renting. She would love to buy a condo, but finances won’t allow that. Can’t even get a VA loan. Have to have a job and be on a It for so many years to get it.
We are doing okay. The wife works seasonably and enjoys it for now. I get SS plus a small pension. My lady will be getting SS starting in August. We still have a small mortgage, but it is easily covered by the pension and we get a lot of senior benefits from Alaska, but that may end soon if this governor gets re-elected. If the senior tax breaks go away, we will probably have to leave Alaska since the cost of living is so high here, but I don't know where we would go. We have children here, in Washington State, and in Nebraska. We will wait and see what happens, but we are fine for the moment on the resources we have. I have several IRAs too, but we just use those for incidental expenses and travel, not for daily living.