Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - How much do you need to save for retirement?

Willravel · 03-21-2011, 12:04 PM

I had a chance to sit and visit with a family member who's retired recently and the whole thing has me rethinking the concept of retirement.

Up until recently, I figured retirement would happen around 65, and then I'd exist in a retired state for however long I lived. My life expectancy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 88, which means a solid 23 years (from birth to a college graduate) of living off money I've saved. That's how I came up with the $5 million number above.

Now, though, I'm starting to see retirement as something different. For whatever reason, I saw vacation as a decades-long vacation, where I get to travel and build a car from scratch and spend time with my family and learn to sail, but I've found a job that I truly love and that fulfills me and that I control. And I've seen what retirement is really like for a lot of people. This family member is a great person, someone who's worked very hard in life, dealt with some terrible tragedies and was in the truest sense of the world self-made. Now? Boredom. There's a lot of lounging around the house, watching TV and surfing the internet, eating a bag of chips. A vibrant life has become lethargic and aimless. This person does travel a bit, and has a few hobbies, but filling 15 hours a day every day with hobbies and traveling is, from a practical standpoint, impossible. It's not only financially taxing in a way I didn't really figure, but it's truly difficult to find that much stuff to fill your time with. I've really started taking an inventory of the lives of people I know who are retired, and the majority of all of their time is spent at home with a spouse, just sort of existing.

I'm starting to think, now, that retirement for me will happen when I am no longer mentally and physically capable of doing fulfilling work. Judging by my family's medical history and life expectancies, that's going to be something like 78-80. If i can stave off arthritis and dementia, it could be even later. I've got hobbies already, and now that I'm my own boss I can arrange for my own (within reason) vacations. There's no reason I can't go buy a classic car frame and start spending weekends with friends finding parts and putting together a car. I think if I spent 23 years not working, I'd either turn into a little gray lump of nothingness or I'd go insane.

Having said all of that, I am going to amend my number above. Living for 10ish years, maybe from 2063 until maybe 2075, will likely require maybe $500k, depending on how much the medical system has changed between now and then. $500k is a lot easier than $5m.

03-21-2011, 12:04 PM	#22 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I had a chance to sit and visit with a family member who's retired recently and the whole thing has me rethinking the concept of retirement. Up until recently, I figured retirement would happen around 65, and then I'd exist in a retired state for however long I lived. My life expectancy is somewhere in the neighborhood of 88, which means a solid 23 years (from birth to a college graduate) of living off money I've saved. That's how I came up with the $5 million number above. Now, though, I'm starting to see retirement as something different. For whatever reason, I saw vacation as a decades-long vacation, where I get to travel and build a car from scratch and spend time with my family and learn to sail, but I've found a job that I truly love and that fulfills me and that I control. And I've seen what retirement is really like for a lot of people. This family member is a great person, someone who's worked very hard in life, dealt with some terrible tragedies and was in the truest sense of the world self-made. Now? Boredom. There's a lot of lounging around the house, watching TV and surfing the internet, eating a bag of chips. A vibrant life has become lethargic and aimless. This person does travel a bit, and has a few hobbies, but filling 15 hours a day every day with hobbies and traveling is, from a practical standpoint, impossible. It's not only financially taxing in a way I didn't really figure, but it's truly difficult to find that much stuff to fill your time with. I've really started taking an inventory of the lives of people I know who are retired, and the majority of all of their time is spent at home with a spouse, just sort of existing. I'm starting to think, now, that retirement for me will happen when I am no longer mentally and physically capable of doing fulfilling work. Judging by my family's medical history and life expectancies, that's going to be something like 78-80. If i can stave off arthritis and dementia, it could be even later. I've got hobbies already, and now that I'm my own boss I can arrange for my own (within reason) vacations. There's no reason I can't go buy a classic car frame and start spending weekends with friends finding parts and putting together a car. I think if I spent 23 years not working, I'd either turn into a little gray lump of nothingness or I'd go insane. Having said all of that, I am going to amend my number above. Living for 10ish years, maybe from 2063 until maybe 2075, will likely require maybe $500k, depending on how much the medical system has changed between now and then. $500k is a lot easier than $5m.