Lies about Retirement

This is correct. If your employer has neither defined benefit nor matching defined contribution plan, it probably takes about 20% of your gross salary being dumped into an IRA to make up for all of that.

"Big government" is the boogie-man here in the US, so there'd be outrage if there was ever talk of a mandate for employers to provide a retirement plan.
Astonishing. You’d think ‘society’ would want to care for the people that make it up and pay to keep it going. I’m under no illusion that British ‘society’ is doing this out of ethical duty. They’re doing it so they don’t have to pay for our care in older age but the at least we are cared for.
 
I am doing okay. My retirement plans are my own.
The last thing I want is the government to "help" me. It is everyone's personal responsibility to understand and do what they need to do. And have a contingency or two also at the ready.
 
My advice to my kids is, whether you think you can afford it or not, put as much as you are allowed into your 401k or TSP. Those early dollars, as meager as they may seem, will compound over your lifetime and make you a small fortune.
This cannot be overstated.
The main catalyst for any retirement account is time, which equals compounding. The earlier you start, the better. I tell my son to max out or at least match the max the company will match, and learn to live a good, fun life around that. Invest it equally and wisely and forget about it. Don't look at it daily and do not stress over the normal ebb and flow of investing.
Beyond that, it is up to him and his wife how they handle their money. If they want to be aggressive with other monies, that is their choice, but always know that nest egg is working for you.
 
Keep working everyone, until you drop.

My plan is to work until I cannot. I am 64 in a month. I will receive Social Security at age 70, if I live that long. I have some money in a 401(k), and our house will be close to paid for by then, but none of that is enough to consider acceptable to cover anything close to our expenses in retirement. My only positive thought is that given my medical issues and family history of dying young, I most likely won't have to subsist on pet food. My status as a disabled veteran means I can go to the VA for health care after my employment/private insurance ends. My wife will have to get by on Medicare.

The entire thing is too depressing to contemplate for very long. I accept responsibility for not beginning to plan early enough or put enough away for the future. Bad mistake, for which my wife and I will pay. I buy lottery tickets.

I have two good friends who are retired. One by choice, one by circumstances. Both are financially OK and in better health than I am. Both are more-or-less bored out of their minds. I honestly don't know how I would fill my days if I had no job to go to, much as I hate working.
 
This is correct. If your employer has neither defined benefit nor matching defined contribution plan, it probably takes about 20% of your gross salary being dumped into an IRA to make up for all of that.

"Big government" is the boogie-man here in the US, so there'd be outrage if there was ever talk of a mandate for employers to provide a retirement plan.
The amount one can put into an IRA is highly limited compared to a 401(k) (which is also limited, but no by as much money).

I have no retirement from my employer. I do have a matching (minimal) 401(k) which I max out, and a Roth IRA which I likewise max out, but I started in my 40's and it's not going to be even close to enough to live on.
 
I am doing okay. My retirement plans are my own.
The last thing I want is the government to "help" me. It is everyone's personal responsibility to understand and do what they need to do. And have a contingency or two also at the ready.

Alright then.

This cannot be overstated.
The main catalyst for any retirement account is time, which equals compounding. The earlier you start, the better. I tell my son to max out or at least match the max the company will match, and learn to live a good, fun life around that. Invest it equally and wisely and forget about it. Don't look at it daily and do not stress over the normal ebb and flow of investing.
Beyond that, it is up to him and his wife how they handle their money. If they want to be aggressive with other monies, that is their choice, but always know that nest egg is working for you.
It’s a good time to explain dollar cost averaging, too.
 
My plan is to work until I cannot. I am 64 in a month. I will receive Social Security at age 70, if I live that long. I have some money in a 401(k), and our house will be close to paid for by then, but none of that is enough to consider acceptable to cover anything close to our expenses in retirement. My only positive thought is that given my medical issues and family history of dying young, I most likely won't have to subsist on pet food. My status as a disabled veteran means I can go to the VA for health care after my employment/private insurance ends. My wife will have to get by on Medicare.

The entire thing is too depressing to contemplate for very long. I accept responsibility for not beginning to plan early enough or put enough away for the future. Bad mistake, for which my wife and I will pay. I buy lottery tickets.

I have two good friends who are retired. One by choice, one by circumstances. Both are financially OK and in better health than I am. Both are more-or-less bored out of their minds. I honestly don't know how I would fill my days if I had no job to go to, much as I hate working.
The earnings test for Social Security ends at your full retirement age (somewhere between 65 and 67). Meaning you could continue to work and draw your benefits without any earnings penalties. And the added benefit is that as you work and pay more into OASDI, your benefit will recalculate , too.

So if you are not sure about your longevity, might consider doing some break even calculations.

I’m not a financial planner, so take this as advice from a random stranger. But I can point you to some resources so you can do your own reading. If you like. No problem either way for me.
 
The amount one can put into an IRA is highly limited compared to a 401(k) (which is also limited, but no by as much money).

I have no retirement from my employer. I do have a matching (minimal) 401(k) which I max out, and a Roth IRA which I likewise max out, but I started in my 40's and it's not going to be even close to enough to live on.
You can do both, up to the IRS limits. and if you like, you can (I believe) roll your IRA into your 401k each year, too. Obviously not a Roth IRA into a traditional 401k. But standard, pre tax iras.
 
What was it that bloke did to supplement his income? You know, the one with the slouch hat? He had a young apprentice with a girl’s name? He was nick named after the originator of the uncertainty principle but actually shared the name with an American poet and essayist. What was it that he did to make a bit of pocket money? Anyway, we could get together and do that for our old age fund.😉
 
What was it that bloke did to supplement his income? You know, the one with the slouch hat? He had a young apprentice with a girl’s name? He was nick named after the originator of the uncertainty principle but actually shared the name with an American poet and essayist. What was it that he did to make a bit of pocket money? Anyway, we could get together and do that for our old age fund.😉
I was originally hoping to open a dojo as a retirement gig, but I'm not in any condition to do that now. I might consider what you've described, but prison doesn't serve the food I like.
 
The earnings test for Social Security ends at your full retirement age (somewhere between 65 and 67). Meaning you could continue to work and draw your benefits without any earnings penalties. And the added benefit is that as you work and pay more into OASDI, your benefit will recalculate , too.
My full retirement age is 67. I intend to not draw it until age 70 to obtain maximum benefit (8% more than the FRA amount). I do intend to keep working until I cannot.
So if you are not sure about your longevity, might consider doing some break even calculations.
It's a simple calculation. Work until I can't. Draw Social Security when I turn 70. Wife draws her benefit when she reaches her FRA, then switches to half mine (which would be more due to her relatively low earnings) when I begin to draw mine. Then die. Simple.

Oh, and my wife has a $97 dollar a month retirement from the bank she retired from after 10 years. Fancy, ain't it? I have a small VA disability, which is tiny but tax free.

I’m not a financial planner, so take this as advice from a random stranger. But I can point you to some resources so you can do your own reading. If you like. No problem either way for me.
There's not much to my planning, so nothing much to consider.
 
You can do both, up to the IRS limits. and if you like, you can (I believe) roll your IRA into your 401k each year, too. Obviously not a Roth IRA into a traditional 401k. But standard, pre tax iras.
I max out my 401(k) and Roth IRA. I literally cannot put any more money away in retirement-designated accounts, except I'm allowed to put tax-deferred money into an HRA and I max that out also. There's nothing more to be done, other than savings/investment accounts with post-tax money and pay tax on gains like any investment account - which I also do. I'm putting away a ton. It's not going to be enough, I started too late. No cure for that.
 
Keep working everyone, until you drop.


I read those... who lied... never thought much of that.... do the research..... don't believe everything you hear....
I had an age I hoped to retire at when I was younger, before I was married, but as it approached I realized, now that I was married, and had kids, that it was not a good time to retire.... but within 1 to 3 years from now, it will be time. Again, I am doing the research to see when it would be best, 1, 2, or 3 years from now.
 
Oh no….that’s awful.

I recently heard that company pensions aren’t obligatory in the USA. Is that true? In the U.K., we are strongly incentivised to take one up by the employer having to match the employee’s contribution.
They are absolutely not obligatory. The consulting company I started with had a good plan, and I put as much as I could into it.
 
Bill or anyone else whom this might help, if you haven’t created a MySSA account and requested a current Social Security Statement and reviewed your earnings record, it’s a good idea to do so. Will ensure your own pay history is accurate and also ensure no one else (e.g., an undocumented worker) is working on your number. It will also tell you how much you can expect at 62, your full retirement age, or if you opt to defer past your full retirement age.

If nothing else it will help you plan, and you can use the numbers that are based on your actual earnings to estimate how long it would take to break even if you opt to defer. It can sometimes be significant.

For example, using the case study in the SSA pamphlet (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10147.pdf) if a person is due $1400 at age 62, $2000/month at 67, or $2480 at 70, they would need to live until age 82.5 to break even if they choose not to file at 67. $2000/mo x 36 months is $72k. Divide that by the $480 additional and it would take 12.5 years for that decision to pay off. In this case, the person would be giving up $72,000 over the course of 3 years in order to increase their monthly benefit by $480. And they could, in this scenario, keep working if they want because there is no earnings test after you reach full retirement age (I.e. 67)… which would also increase their monthly SSA benefit because they would still be paying OASDI.

If you plan to keep working, waiting until FRA makes sense, but after that it’s entirely dependent on your health and your priorities.
 
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People often have many jobs throughout their lives and end up paying small amounts into pensions here and there and are then forgotten about. So we have a free facility that will find all those little pension pots and gather them together so we can benefit from them when we need them. We also have unicorns and fluffy cats wandering the streets.
 
The amount one can put into an IRA is highly limited compared to a 401(k) (which is also limited, but no by as much money).

I have no retirement from my employer. I do have a matching (minimal) 401(k) which I max out, and a Roth IRA which I likewise max out, but I started in my 40's and it's not going to be even close to enough to live on.
This is true, but you can have multiple IRA's.

Unless you only started the Roth and 401k a short time ago (<15 years) I have a hard time seeing how you are not setting okay for retirement, unless you still have a ton of debt.
No matter where you are with your retirement investments, the number one thing to work on is debt elimination. This may (likely will) mean lifestyle changes. Clunker cars and smaller housing, etc...

I also saw your lament about leaving your wife in debt. Do you have a good insurance policy (1M or more)?

I am sorry to hear about your situation and very much thank you for your service.
 
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This is true, but you can have multiple IRA's.
You are correct, but contributions are capped annually. $7k under 50 and $8k over.
Unless you only started the Roth and 401k a short time ago (<15 years) I have a hard time seeing how you are not setting okay for retirement, unless you still have a ton of debt.

Retirement savings are like trees. The best time to start saving is 30 years ago. The second best time is now. I’ve always liked that saying, though I don’t know where it’s from.
No matter where you are with your retirement investments, the number one thing to work on is debt elimination. This may (likely will) mean lifestyle changes. Clunker cars and smaller housing, etc...

I also saw your lament about leaving your wife in debt. Do you have a good insurance policy (1M or more)?

I am sorry to hear about your situation and very much thank you for your service.
 
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