"Stop Saving for Retirement"

Simple living, extreme early retirement, becoming and being wealthy, wisdom, praxis, personal growth,...
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George the original one
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Post by George the original one »

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retireme ... _to_retire
"Work until you're 70 so you can have a higher income in retirement"
Bwa-ha-ha-ha... someone doesn't like early retirees!


Maus
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Post by Maus »

If her conception of "early" retirement is 62, this forum would cause her head to burst. It also rests on a fairly glib premise that full SS benefits will still be available when one reaches 70 y.o.
Frankly, I don't want to go on a cruise to alleviate my servitude. I want to chisel off my shackles NOW and sleep late, waking to the enviable prospect of doing nothing more taxing than reading, sipping iced tea, and lounging around in my boxers.


jacob
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Post by jacob »

So if I keep working until I'm dead, I don't need to save anything. (Slaps forehead) Why didn't I think of that?!


M
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Post by M »

It's only a matter of time now until you find an article with advice like:
"The best way to retire is to work until you die and spend all your money to increase the quality of those two weeks you get off every year."


HSpencer
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Post by HSpencer »

Here, we have a stereotypical catch 22:
Work until your 70, in order to enjoy your 60's.
Enjoy your 60's while your working until your 70.
So if your still working during your 60's, what exactly are you enjoying? Your burning up your remaining life energy during your 60's so you can sluff on the couch when age 70. Let's face it, after age 70, how much is there? Some of you older soldiers tell me that. So do you by 70 live off SS and lie on the sofa? Eating grapes and watching "The price is right'? or "Wheel of Fortune"? And wishing you were the person winning something? * (Or my personal favorite show, Emergency.) "51, start an IV with D5W, and transport as soon as possible".

"We're on our way Rampart"! (Bet none of you younger soldiers remember that one"?
RRRRRRRRRRR-----DOES NOT COMPUTE!!!!


SF
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Post by SF »


So if I keep working until I'm dead, I don't need to save anything.

I suppose this is the Later Retirement Extreme strategy.
I originally thought this article was tongue-in-cheek, but on a second read I'm not so sure. At least the closing paragraph includes this:

... Save like you'll be on your own tomorrow. Live each day like it could be your last.

which should provide some food for thought, when juxtaposed with retirement at 70.
As mentioned in the comments, this is a horrible "plan" and was probably intended to catch eyeballs rather than inform. I can't think of too many jobs where one can work full time through their sixties, to say nothing of illness, layoffs, or other life events.


DividendGuy
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Post by DividendGuy »

It's all part of the consumerist cycle. All players participating in the game need as many buy-in's as possible. It's really unbelievable.


Maus
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Post by Maus »

My dad died less than three weeks short of his 65th birthday. I'm fairly certain he would have wished to retire at 62 -- or earlier -- if he'd known that was coming. And I doubt he'd think that the Carribean cruise he took at 62 (25th wedding anniversary) was anywhere near an adequate substitute. I was 19 at the time and I vowed to live each day with a "seize the day" mentality. Looking back now with a thirty-year perspective, I haven't always succeeded in practicing that intention; but I have a better than average track record and I am absolutely committed to retiring well before 62, let alone 70.


dot_com_vet
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Post by dot_com_vet »

Maus, ditto on that. I regularly hear experts say that retiring at 65 is almost unnatural, people have a lot of good working years left. Well, that depends on your luck (genetics).


mikeBOS
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Post by mikeBOS »

What's funny is, this is the same argument I hear all the time, just with different numbers. "Why retire when you're 30? If you just work 10 more years until you're 40 you'll have so much more money to enjoy life with (cruises, luxury cars, a beach house) and still retire 25 years before everyone else!"
Most of the time I hear people, in reaction to ERE, try to argue that I ought to be working and saving for a longer period. It's nice to see in this article's comments section that 90% of people are now arguing the opposite, simply because the numbers have changed a bit.
It just seems strange to me though.
If it's SO important to retire before 70 and enjoy financial freedom for a few years because it improves your quality of life, wouldn't it follow then that it's all the more important to try to retire in your 30's and get that much more enjoyment out of life? If financial freedom is so wonderful, why limit it to something to be enjoyed in your 60's and 70's?


JohnnyH
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Post by JohnnyH »

Give up [the possibility] a jet set retirement full of expensive wining and dining?
I'd rather work myself to death!


Strick
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Post by Strick »

They hopefully lost everyone at "Fahlund's illustration assumes both couples hit age 60 with $450,000 in the pot." ????? So the best example they that could come up with has the live-it-uppers not even 'living it up' (not saving) until 2 years before the hard savers retire? Good grief, that makes 'living it up' (not saving) for a whole lifetime and planning to keep working forever, or retiring on just S.S. at 70, sound like an awesome plan...


firefighter
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Post by firefighter »

Hspencer-
A side note on your comment.
[(Or my personal favorite show, Emergency.) "51, start an IV with D5W, and transport as soon as possible".

"We're on our way Rampart"! (Bet none of you younger soldiers remember that one"?]
Best show on TV now (they play it on the retro TV channel here),

and possibly ever (1st generation MASH might take the cake, though) I don't know if 34 counts as a "younger soldier",

but I love Emergency.
They actually gave a 30 minute presentation on the show when

I was in paramedic school (about ten years ago) on how much the show

did foundationally for EMS. Watching the show, it really is

amazing how ahead of its time it was considering it is 40 years

old....SCBA, EKG's, Defibrillation, Cardiac Drugs....
There's still only one cool way to pop the tops off epi

and sodium bicarb!
-FF


Robert Muir
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Post by Robert Muir »

Yep, EMS was controversial back in those days. "You're going to take firefighters and pay them not to fight fires?!" "That's what ambulances are for!" etc. Emergency intelligently took that controversy, ran with it, and as you said, set a zeitgeist foundation.
Of course, sometimes we go too far the other direction. Now we have full fire trucks along with the EMS vehicle showing up at houses for asthma attacks.


HSpencer
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Post by HSpencer »

Yes sir, RETRO TV is indeed where it's at.
Trouble is here, we're into the re-runs that I just saw last fall on Emergency, but who cares? I still love Julie "cry me a river" London, and Bobby "get your kicks on route 66" Troup.

Of course I also enjoy all the others as well. Dr Brackett is cool when he handles a crappy patient. I guess one just can't seem to get enough "EMERGENCY"!! I still like "Dragnet" and "Adam 12" a lot too.
Here is what, however, flips my switch the wrong way: When you go on the net and look up Randolph Mantooth or Kevin Tighe, currently, they look so old!!!! Yikes, I am the same age!!!


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