A week or so ago I brought up the reality of what retirement might look like for the majority of us… remember? Older workers doing jobs that they would have either wanted to leave behind or certainly should have had the choice to! Nope, the prospect of getting an old age work reduction is currently on the decline and the opportunity to see this trend turn back around in our collective futures is doubtful. If necessity is the mother of all invention then it’s got to be our acknowledgement of our own reality that helps us find out what our necessities really are! With this in mind, let’s go further in our discovery of where we are now so we can get a solid footing on what we can do about it.

 

 

   As a side note… some of you have been with preppernation.com since the beginning and know me better than some of our newer readers do. Let me give my more recent readers a brief description of who I am so that it’ll be easier to see from what perspective I’m drawing some of my conclusions. I think that a lot of these conclusions are going to challenge what we’ve all been choosing to believe for a long, long time!

 

   I’m a 40 year old, self employed man. I started my regular working career when I was 13, at least that’s when I got my first legitimate job with scheduled work hours. In addition to a “regular” job, I would also mow lawns, babysit and deliver newspapers… Not necessarily all of these side jobs at the same time but I was a busy and ambitious young man. My father would probably give a more colorful picture of my past, it would also be true but we’ll leave those past experiences out for now… Shortly after high school graduation I got a “good county job” like most people only hope to get, I spent 11 years there. The county was a great employer and I had a good salary and benefits… I left the “security” of the county to go out on my own and have been self employed ever sense. On one occasion I’ve needed to go back to an employed status but 90% of the last 10 years I’ve been completely self employed. I’ve seen both sides of the employment fence and spend a great deal of my time working with people of all ages. I’ve had good years financially as well as a few not so good. It’s with all of these experiences that I’ve come to the conclusions that I’ll be sharing…

 

   Throughout the discovery process we’ll need to go through on this topic, I’ll be asking you all to do some homework of your own. I can do the majority of the research and bring it back to you here but you’ll have to see if my analysis is indeed correct. I assure you that my conclusions are accurate but it won’t be until you see these facts in your own life and the lives of those around you that you’ll be able to come to the same conclusions that I have for yourselves!

 

   We all have more in common, than the ways we’re different, at least in what the future holds for each of us. No matter what age we are now we can all look forward 20, 30 or even 40 years to see what those that have gone before us have to say about our own futures. Just look at your parents or grandparents and see what they deal with financially. Are they thriving or trying to just make ends meet? If you don’t have a relationship with your older relatives then stop by a retirement home and see for yourself what that’s all about! When you do you’ll find people from every walk of life, these are the lucky ones. They have sufficient retirement resources to keep themselves fed and a roof over their heads.

 

   Don’t misunderstand, that retirement home might very well be an option for you but I doubt it! I can think of lots of worse places to spend my later years, however at present this wouldn’t even be an option for me and Mrs. Prepper. Why not? These places are at least $3-5,000 per month, that’s why! Just a little quick math shows us that optimistically the expenses of a less expensive place will exceed 100K for just a 3 year stay… Maybe, if I squirreled away that magic 1 million in retirement funds I could run out the clock someplace like that? Remember this is an OPTIMISIC example, not the typical or taking into account the additional care that often comes with older folks!

 

   Since I’m already 40 years old and wanting to work less then I am now, where’s that cool million going to come from? If I saved $5,000 per month for the next 10 years, I could be over half way there… This is NOT encouraging or reasonable! I know for a FACT that most of you reading this don’t even make $5,000 per month before taxes… I know this because I’ve done the research! The average American makes around $40,000 per year… I hear the scoffers but I don’t want to argue about this, if you are one of the higher income earners, that’s great – be thankful! I deal with financial paperwork for a living and ask LOTS of questions! Most folks look like they make a lot more money then they actually do! Let’s agree for the time being that a traditional retirement takes A LOT of money and I’m here to say few of us will have that money!

 

   Now lets look at those older relatives again, how and where are they living? I’ll start with my own relatives – I have 2 living grandparents left and they are both living in retirement homes… I also have some older Aunts and Uncles that are living on small pensions to social security and sometimes combinations of both. Some live in their owned homes, while others are living with their children and still others are renting apartments. Everyone eats regularly and has a roof over their heads, we are a blessed family. What I don’t see in my family is anyone living the dream that we’re all promised in one fashion or the other during our working years. They’re all either broke or living wisely and watchfully on a fixed income.   

 

   I know what you’re thinking, what do we have to worry about? These folks are all doing ok and we’ll all be fine too, right! Wrong, all of these older relatives in my family – actually in every family, are from a time inAmericathat is fading fast. The time I’m referring to is the time where a guy can just put in the required number of years with a company and when they hit the right age, walk away with a pension check for the rest of his life.

 

   First, not every company even offers a pension plan anymore. Second, more and more employers are going to something like a 401K plan. This type of setup is fine and might even be a viable option for a successful retirement as long as everyone does their part, which is far from guaranteed and given a sufficient number of years… Third, budget cuts have hit nearly every level of corporate America, employee benefit plans are an easy target for the chopping block. Even 10 years ago when I was still employed with the county and compelled to participate in a trade union, compensation ground was lost across the board every time a new contract had to be negotiated. Workers always seemed to vote for keeping the pay rates higher and losing ground in the area of benefits. Let’s face it, the status qou can not be maintained, cuts will be made and the benefits will continue to erode! Fourth, every level of government has continued with their irresponsible spending and they are now faced with the very real threat of bankruptcy. When, not if that happens, many government checks will fail to be printed. What could be worse then that would be if the Federal Government chooses to continue inflating the currency as their last ditch effort to keep those checks flowing… Unfortunately, as we are already starting to see, the purchasing power of those inflated dollars continues to decrease.

 

   Next time we’ll take a further look into the areas that our current retirement system is vulnerable and how this will certainly have an impact on all of our future retirement plans!

 

 

To be continued…

 

Prepper