When did this start happening for friends, etc.

[LoneWolf]

On 1/31/2018 at 1:15 PM, Road Runner said:

Retirement isn't the holy grail that you imagine it to be.  Everyone should work if they are able to and if they find it interesting and fulfilling.

If your job sucks, don't retire, get another job.  

Personally, I find at some point that having the freedom to choose what I want to do (within reason and budget), not beholden to anyone else, to be interesting and fulfilling.

And I'm pretty sure they don't have a job that has a description like "swim with the manatees" or "read suspense novels" or "eat omelettes with home fries".

 

[BR46]

On 1/31/2018 at 7:22 AM, Longjohn said:

The insurance is what keeps the blue collar guy working till he drops.

It's the insurance that keeps me working where I'm working now. 

[Page Turner]

...why is this not in teh P+R ?  That's the only forum where I could properly take the "lazy gubb'mint public sector union boys is grabbin' all the goodies" peeps to task.

 

 

[Page Turner]

The Connection Between Retiring Early and Living Longer

Research shows a link, but it isn’t retirement itself that leads to a longer life, but what you do in retirement.

 

Quote

 

Men responding to the early retirement offer were 2.6 percentage points less likely to die over the next five years than those who did not retire early. (Too few women met the early retirement eligibility criteria to be included in the study.)

The Dutch study echoes those from other countries. An analysis in the United States found about seven years of retirement can be as good for health as reducing the chance of getting a serious disease (like diabetes or heart conditions) by 20 percent. Positive health effects of retirement have also been found by studies using data from Israel, England, Germany and other European countries.

 

[Kirby]

I'm getting to the age where my friends are just retiring, not retiring early.   

[Road Runner]

On 1/31/2018 at 1:15 PM, Road Runner said:

Retirement isn't the holy grail that you imagine it to be.  Everyone should work if they are able to and if they find it interesting and fulfilling.

If your job sucks, don't retire, get another job.  

  

Just to be clear, I posted this with a bit of tongue in cheek.  I have been retired for quite a while and one of my shticks here is to downplay the advantages of retirement.  It amuses me to be happily retired and at the same time, tell others it isn't so great and that they should keep working...

It was just a joke, folks.  Retirement, if done right, is a pretty terrific job.    

[Page Turner]

...by the time the current American political milieu resolves itself, they'll probably be drafting people in my age group.

[MickinMD ★]

If I knew when I graduated from college what I know now about teachers pensions, I might have gone directly into teaching instead making a higher salary in industry for a while first.

The average teacher in America begins working, 300 hrs MORE per year than the avg. full-time worker, for less money than the same localities starting garbage collectors make. It takes them about 15 years to make an avg. salary.  So the pension is a kind of deferred payment.  The very conservative Forbes Magazine notes that teachers are the 3rd lowest paid 4-year college grads and they are usually required to eventually get a masters or masters equiv.

So yes, teachers are required to work 30 years before getting their pension.  In many areas, those pensions have become too generous to be maintained.  In Maryland, in the 1980's, it was determined the pension couldn't be maintained - by a Dem Governor - and the GOP and the teachers unions all agreed!  The pension was reduced to 1.2% x each year of work x the avg. of the last 3 years salary. That was 2/3 to 3/4 the rate of any surrounding state - including West Virginia.  NO benefits were included: no health insurance, etc. though health insurance is covered through the unions by teachers taking a pay hit to provide great insurance for retirees: it's very popular because current teachers know they'll get cheap insurance when retired.

By the early 2000's, Maryland was having trouble recruiting teachers because of the smaller pension, despite higher than avg. salaries.  So they back-date 1.4% to 1998 and that's the rate now.

I only had 22 years as a teacher (after a previous career as chief chemist of process research for a subsidiary of Dow Chemical), took a 36% hit on my pension to retire at 56 (6% x 6 years before age 62: not applied if you have 30 years) because I was having bad Achilles tendon problems which retirement partly healed then cycling really healed.

But the remaining pension (with COLAs), the near-Cadillac health insurance the teachers union basically pays for (Maryland Teachers Pension has NO benefits), and Social Security when it kicked-in at 62 alone put my income in the top 30% of the USA's avg. retirees.

[Longjohn ★]

8 hours ago, Road Runner said:

t was just a joke, folks.  Retirement, if done right, is a pretty terrific job.    

I think it’s under rated. 

[Longjohn ★]

[maddmaxx ★]

2 hours ago, MickinMD said:

If I knew when I graduated from college what I know now about teachers pensions, I might have gone directly into teaching instead making a higher salary in industry for a while first.

The average teacher in America begins working, 300 hrs MORE per year than the avg. full-time worker, for less money than the same localities starting garbage collectors make. It takes them about 15 years to make an avg. salary.  So the pension is a kind of deferred payment.  The very conservative Forbes Magazine notes that teachers are the 3rd lowest paid 4-year college grads and they are usually required to eventually get a masters or masters equiv.

So yes, teachers are required to work 30 years before getting their pension.  In many areas, those pensions have become too generous to be maintained.  In Maryland, in the 1980's, it was determined the pension couldn't be maintained - by a Dem Governor - and the GOP and the teachers unions all agreed!  The pension was reduced to 1.2% x each year of work x the avg. of the last 3 years salary. That was 2/3 to 3/4 the rate of any surrounding state - including West Virginia.  NO benefits were included: no health insurance, etc. though health insurance is covered through the unions by teachers taking a pay hit to provide great insurance for retirees: it's very popular because current teachers know they'll get cheap insurance when retired.

By the early 2000's, Maryland was having trouble recruiting teachers because of the smaller pension, despite higher than avg. salaries.  So they back-date 1.4% to 1998 and that's the rate now.

I only had 22 years as a teacher (after a previous career as chief chemist of process research for a subsidiary of Dow Chemical), took a 36% hit on my pension to retire at 56 (6% x 6 years before age 62: not applied if you have 30 years) because I was having bad Achilles tendon problems which retirement partly healed then cycling really healed.

But the remaining pension (with COLAs), the near-Cadillac health insurance the teachers union basically pays for (Maryland Teachers Pension has NO benefits), and Social Security when it kicked-in at 62 alone put my income in the top 30% of the USA's avg. retirees.

Oh please.  Everyone knows that teachers is overpaid.  Don't you be coming here with facts to dispute that.  

[shootingstar]

I don't quite understand the shots at teaching profession. It's great to have average to excellent teachers in the system. I think we are basing some of our observations not knowing the pressures for teachers to deal with a classroom full of kids nowadays who are even harder to get them to focus.  And then some helicopter parents.

Anyway, yesterday a just retired person event at work:

I'm backfilling a guy who was off and on medical leave (probably abusing some of it over past 2 yrs.).  He dropped by to say good-bye to some of us. He was retiring and had been working for organization for..past 32 years.

We had 1 employee who retired last year and had worked for our organization for over 40 yrs.!

I've worked for 9 different employers since I was 24 yrs. old. It's hard to imagine working for 1 organization for so long these days. I was actually asked by a recruiter..who was probably a lot younger than I about my work history.