How Much Do You think You Need to Retire/What Age Will You/Spouse Retire: General Retirement Issues (Part 2)

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Some of life is tortoise/hare. I know folks who made big $$ here in MA working in high tech. Those same folks had periods of time, many months for some, of unemployment that required them to dip into retirement and savings. Next job, start building funds up all over again. Good couple of years, lose job—rinse and repeat.

I worked in education. Never made anywhere close to what these folks made in any given year. YET–I worked continuously for 40 years—was never out of work. Contributed 11% to my teachers pension, and am comfortably retired with savings as well. I’m sure some of the “hares” made out OK, but this “tortoise” is very happy.

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I had a job that required too many hours for too little pay. I did it because I didn’t really have an option. I needed a job to pay for my kids’ education (and later, save for retirement), and I was out of the workforce for almost 2 decades while raising my kids. The problem is, my employer took advantage of me … because they could. There was always someone else who would take the job. Fast forward to today, and the financial aid field is in crisis. Folks like me are retired/retiring, and the younger workers aren’t interested in being paid so little for doing too much. The world of work is changing, as I suppose it has throughout time. We only know what we’ve experienced, but younger generations question what we have accepted as the price we pay to work.

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I have a cousin who is a teacher in our local school district. Married to an engineer. To me having the hybrid approach of a non-bankruptable pension plus a 401(k) (plus presumably some other savings) is a good one. Statistically, she should outlive him so the full pension likely will be paid during each of their lifetimes.

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It’s possible that alternative “office” options - even teaching remotely as some schools may continue to have online school as an option going forward - may in fact DELAY retirement for some people - not having to commute, not having to dress up, not having to have the in person office politics, having the chance to throw a load of laundry in, having the chance to walk in the neighborhood during a lunch break instead of sitting at your office desk or dull office lunchroom - all this MAY encourage some people to NOT retire as soon as they thought. An extra year or few with remote perks and cubicle freedom may be desirable - a little “best of both worlds”.

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Yes, most definitely. My husband retired a year ahead of me, and I that was during a time (partly Covid) when I spent a lot of time in the home office. On the rare lucky day we could even go out to lunch together. Had it been a more normal job, I would not have been so desperate to retire.

Alas, it was a highly stressful job working with worldwide teams…. lots of onshift and offshift obligations (planned as well unplanned, urgent situations). The very busiest time was morning, with overlap of other time zones and back-to-back meetings (often with other real-time chats going too). When my mother used to visit our house to garden, I recall days when I could only wave from the den when she arrived and wave when she left. But… in the seasons when weather was good for a late lunchtime walk or run, it was lovely.

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This has been my experience. My husband was very tied to his job. Lots of hours, lots of weekends and it was very hard for him to prioritize time off and a good work life balance. Things happened and my working was always secondary. I was the one who had the primary child rearing duties and scheduling. My husband was an involved parent but was never ever in charge.

My hope for my daughter was that she have her own career. She does and so does my daughter in law. I think my kids saw their dad’s career and my lack of one was not their plan. And they needed to have a better work life balance. And honestly they have a lot more disposable income than we ever had, so they feel it’s important to go on those vacations.

My hope is that Americans find that work life balance that I hear Europeans have. That there is more to life than work. The kids have great savings accounts and are well positioned for retirement.

My kids will also have kids 10 years plus after we did. They don’t have pensions that we did. So they will be child rearing when we were gearing up for and contemplating retirement. And I think their balance with child rearing will be very different than mine. I know their division of home life is more equal than mine ever was.

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I am fortunate that the stressful last part of my career (with a lot of urgent, real-time obligations) was mostly after the kids were older and then later off to college / grown. I would have liked the flexibility of work-from-home when they were little (especially when they got sick), but all in all it was better for parenting when I was on long term projects… with most coworkers local or at least on US timezone.

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I can attest that what you think about work life balance that you think Europeans have - I can say the Swiss value vacations but many are very stressed during their work periods. It can be difficult in different ways - I just remember being with my relatives and things that stress us out don’t stress them, but the reverse I saw was also true. From their side, they think American work conditions are horrible with only 2 weeks vacation/year (first year there at a work place, they get 5 weeks vacation - and can build up to 8 weeks and then sometimes a work anniversary period can have a bonus extra week). They are super conscientious of productivity because they have to be. They think Americans are brutal with short period in hospital after having a baby - I do remember when HMOs were pushing for mother and baby to leave the hospital after 24 hours - which is a gross lack of responsible care IMHO (and now it is 48 hours unless a C-Section). During that time 25 years ago, a woman in Switzerland was in the hospital a week after having a baby, and two weeks with a C Section.

Purchasing a home in Switzerland is with a long mortgage - not kidding; IDK if different now, but almost like never having a mortgage paid off in Switzerland. At one time, the taxes were more favorable for renting as well - but I think that has changed.

Many men (including DH) can do some parenting, but I see more women more willing to make sacrifices for their children. We were married 15 years when we had our first (and second was 25 months later).

Western Europe is giving more incentives for families to have children due to negative population growth (immigration is where they have growth).

Different paradigm, just as in the US there is a different paradigm in VHCOL areas.

The Swiss subsidize their farmers, but only until someone is 65. 35 years ago, my cousin’s husband built a new barn and the cost was over the equivalent of $1M US dollars at that time - really super high building codes - I remember copper plumbing and tiled area in the barn…My dad (who grew up in Switzerland) was with me (he was a contractor and had a construction company) and his head was spinning on the building code/requirements.

Some of these European countries are quite small with population - and it is one thing running a smaller country the way they do.

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I love working remote. And I get more done for the very small organization I work for. And I interact with all of my 6 other colleagues regularly.

But I was thinking about my first job out of college. There were about 100 people in the company. If I had worked remotely, I would never have met 80-85 of them. There would have been friendships I would never made, people from different backgrounds, cultures, and personalities I would have never met. Management styles (good and bad) and skills I would have never learned. The company softball team I would have never joined and the happy hours I would have never enjoyed.

I am not a twenty-something now, so I am not how it all works for those that age now that are remote. But if I had just interacted with “what I know”/my current friends at the time, I don’t think my horizons would have been broadened as they were and my mind as opened as it was.

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The Washington Post seems to have a few articles on boomers and retirement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/25/great-resignation-older-workers/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/25/baby-boomer-business-owner-future/

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@RookieCollegeMom, my first job was as a professor at a business school in a field I had no degrees in. It was essential for me to meet folks and get guidance from them. I was not so good at the time at forging relationships, but the in-person interactions with my mentor and with a research group I helped create were vital as well as interaction with other senior professors and peers. It would have been very awkward to do that solo.

Also, because I had never taught before, the in person interaction was vital. Although I wasn’t very good at teaching, my students sensed that I really cared a lot about them and would make myself available for them. My students in the first couple of years loved me and many years later still have a fond affection for me. Without that interaction I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed the teaching at all or worked to improve my teaching. [Although I teach about one week a year, I’ve become pretty good at it].

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There are a lot more ways to communicate/interact with people now than there were when I started my career decades ago. And from what I can tell, young people tend to be more comfortable with more of them than us older folks are.

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@sailakeerie, there are many things that work decently via Zoom/Teams/Bluejeans and some things that actually work better. However, building personal relationships with people I have not met in person does not seem to work as well.

In this case, the teaching setup was me in an ampitheater directing an interactive conversation. As a pretty highly skilled teacher, I can do that well remotely but it is a lot harder (and we’ve reengineered how we do it in order for it to work). The ratings my firm gets for virtual training are equal to those we get from F2F training, but I never leave with the same sense of personal connection that I get from F2F sessions provide.

Given that I was a pretty bad teacher in my first year or two, it was the strength of those personal connections that really helped me (and the educational process) as all of the kids were in effect rooting for me. For better and for worse, the physical and normative setup (me in the center of the ampitheater walking around and calling on students), if done properly, causes a lot of students to cede authority and for some reason leads to very close bonds. For example, a second-year student told me that half of the young women in the class had crushes on me. I went to a Christmas party of one of my sections where people had been drinking and there was this glow of warmth coming from them to me (both males and females). Given my completely undeveloped teaching skills, the personal bonds helped me and them get through the course. It would not have worked as well virtually (though it would be unfair to say that it couldn’t have been done). I don’t have any data on this, but I doubt that kind of transference works nearly as strongly remotely. So, while I don’t doubt that there are many ways to interact remotely, some things are not yet the same (maybe with advanced AR, who knows).

Maybe someone has figured out or will figure out how to build trusting personal relationships remotely and then tell me how to do it.

It will be interesting to see whether working virtually for a couple of years will help or hurt that cohort of new employees. Does their performance track with other cohorts? Are they more or less loyal to their employers? [My guess on the latter is less].

I am thrilled at my clients’ acceptance of remote work for many things that just two years ago they (and often I) would have insisted on doing in person. Less travel is a good thing (for the environment, for my body, etc.).

Back to the theme of this thread. I love what I do and would only stop if I couldn’t do it at a high level. In the past, the reliance on air travel meant that I might have to stop because I was physically unable to maintain the traveling. With remote work, I might have to stop only when my mind is no longer with it. So, this could extend my career a few years.

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@shawbridge I am not suggesting that non-in person interactions will take the place of in person interactions. Or that they can or will work in all circumstances and/or for all people. Just that there are more communications/interaction options available now than existed when most people in this thread started out. As you noted, there are things now that you and your clients would have insisted be in person 2 years ago that today aren’t. The one constant is change. And I would expect those who grew up immersed in tech to figure it out more so than others.

For me, I have both developed and strengthened relationships without in person interactions with clients. I typically am brought it at certain levels and at certain stages of deals/matters. Sometimes the meetings are in person; other times not. In the past 2 years, in person meetings have been dramatically reduced (many clients are remote and thus meetings that happened in person are now Zoom or something similar). What that has meant in many cases is getting invited to meetings a level or two prior to when I normally would be involved. “Meeting” people I have never met before. And spending more time with people I already knew. And those whom I recently “met” continue to reach out to me with another communication channel established. Still haven’t met them in person.

Again there are multiple paths and what works in some instances/for some people won’t work in all instances/for all people.

I do expect that some people will be willing to work longer with remote/hybrid work on the table.

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Before retirement I had VERY many coworkers (the vast majority) in other locations, mostly outside the US. The video conference technologies did allow me to get to know them lots better. For those where I had on-on-one phone calls and video calls (and endless chats), I really did form personal relationships. (Same for local coworkers in their home offices). Alas, there were some training aspects that were still hard.

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I enjoyed reading the couple of articles about owners of a business (Washington Post articles) having a hard time ‘letting go’. I can understand how one’s identity and routine. I see a fair number of MDs working until they are maybe 80’s because they love what they do.

DH were ready at age 65 (or with DH close to 65). Whole different situation when one has a lot of direction/control in their career (not DH nor our situation).

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Yeah, but there are so many people I just “ran” across in the lunch room, mail room, certain depts, etc that I would never interact with remotely because I would not need to interact with them. But I might stop for a hallway conversation with them or sit next to at a company-wide meeting, etc.

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This. My dad owned a successful business and ran it until he was 75. He loved working (also had a lot of hobbies/interests/friends) and enjoyed what he did.
My own situation was different. I also loved what I did and I enjoyed the mental stimulation I got from work. But I was a woman, over 50 working in corporate culture which did not like people like me. I had planned to work until my late 60’s ,but ended up deciding to retire at 63.

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I ‘learned lessons’ in my career, and am passing tips onto DDs - they have better chances to advance; both have technical skills and more women in their fields.

On a retirement subject, since we now fall under the standard deduction on Federal Return, I am looking into a few of our larger charitable donations going with Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) where the money goes from retirement funds directly to charity. Saves us from increasing our income on our tax return, and spends down some of the funds which we are going to need to have Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) at age 72. It is charitable donation that we would do/what we have been doing. So this works after one turns 59 1/2 and you can take withdrawals from retirement funds w/o extra tax penalty.

One can plan how and when you will use taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free assets to manage your income and tax brackets efficiently.

The tax rule change about beneficiaries having 10 years on the inherited IRAs to spend them down – obviously the government is interested in gaining revenues.

People in low income brackets may be where their social security money is tax free, but most of us are at the 85% taxable rate.

How much you pay for Medicare B and Medicare D - if you are in a high enough tax bracket (will not affect us and many here) your Medicare part B can go from $170.10/month to $221.15/month. I guess with the Medicare D, once you have your drug plan (and this info goes into your government/Medicare information) they charge you the surplus fee.

If you have a ‘lifetime event’ in one year (sale of a business, or other conditions), one can file a form through which would provide a lifetime event one year exemption. Otherwise they will tag you and the government has a 2 year ‘look back’. You want to avoid this trigger, because getting it straightened out after is a mess and will take your time and energy to get it corrected by the government entities.

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QCD can be a good idea. For now we have a DAF (Donor-Advised Fund) with Schwab set up to pay monthly church donations. We created it a few years ago from proceeds of a much-appreciated investment. That gave us big donation in that one year, ie over standard deduction.

Those are good reminders about Medicare costs. It is definitely something to consider when selling investments or doing Roth conversions.

Here is the chart from https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/2022-medicare-parts-b-premiums-and-deductibles2022-medicare-part-d-income-related-monthly-adjustment
screenshot below:
Column1-Single, Column1-Joint

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