<p>I'm 48 and work as an engineer. I've worked very hard all my life and have a good salary (100k+) to show for it. My goal is to retire in a year and a half, when I turn 50. I will be financially ready to retire by then: I have adequate savings and the house is paid off (and my wife has decided to continue working for a few years after I retire as she enjoys her job as a software developer). </p>
<p>My daughter is beginning a master's program this fall, and she has calculated that her total student loan debt will be approximately 70k by the time she graduates in two years. She has asked me to help her with some of her school expenses, but this would mean I would have to put off my retirement by one year and retire at 51. Is it worth it?</p>
<p>Did you pay for her undergraduate education? What was your understanding with her about graduate school expenses? That said, I can’t imagine retiring at 50 and I don’t think it would be a big sacrifice for you to work another few years. (I’m still working and about to turn 60).</p>
<p>I thought when I read the title of this thread you were going to say something like you have to postpone retirement for 10 plus years or something extensive like that. </p>
<p>Listen, I don’t judge anyone. But if I were in this situation it would be 100% a no brainer for me. I am blessed to co-own 2 businesses with my husband. We have funded college for 4 children and have 2 in college this year. We will still have 2 more to go through. I am only 5 years younger than you and my husband 5 years older. We would never even consider any type of retirement until all of our kids have fullfilled their educational potential. But that is us. We are not nose to the grindstone. We travel 5 weeks each year, more than half of that time by ourselves. So reward ourselves with our hard work. With your wife working, it is not like the two of you are going to travel the world together at this point. Maybe you can continue to work, but take full advantage of your vacation time to make the time go by easier?</p>
<p>I guess it comes down to this? Is working 260 work days worth it to you to give your daughter the gift of education she desires and seems to have worked hard toward? It is a gift. The gift of starting her new life debt free and being able to make choices in her life based on what she loves instead of what she owes. Only you can make that choice.</p>
<p>No one here can tell you what you “should” do, but that said 70K in student loan debt is a pretty crushing burden for a young person just starting out. If you can help her avoid some of that debt, that would be a truly wonderful gift for you to give her.</p>
<p>Another option if your employer supports it would be a phased retirement where you would work part-time for a couple of years after turning 50, rather than full-time for 1 more year. You might find that part-time really agrees with you. :)</p>
<p>Collegeshopping, I admire you. Wish there are more people like you - successful and have lots of kids. Our future generations need people like you - my favorite pet peeve at work when I run into the zeroes and onesies families.</p>
<p>OP, you don’t have any obligations, but if I were in your position, I’d work the extra year and get a huge weight off a new graduate’s neck. Good for you too - I’m over ten years older than you, and have no immediate thoughts of retirement or winding down, more out of necessity than desire. Great that you are able to pull this off at your age. Enjoy, and advise the rest of us on your secrets of how you are this close to pulling it off.</p>
<p>I think it’s definitely worth it to work a little longer and help your daughter, unless you have health problems or another serious issue that makes working a torture to you. Especially if she has a defined educational plan and you know there is an end to it. </p>
<p>You are still really young and have a long time to enjoy retirement (again, provided there are no health issues etc.).</p>
<p>I also cannot imagine retiring now, and I am about your age. I would worry greatly about my money running out, never mind paying for children’s tuition. Returns on investments are not what they once were.</p>
<p>I am thinking that working that extra year might be a good investment for you. What would happen if the market should deeply tank again, or you run into unexpected heavy expenses after you are retired, and not in a position to return to work? What if your assets ran out long before you planned that they would? It happened to my grandmother.</p>
<p>If you can help your daughter now, without making a huge sacrifice, she will be in a much better position to help you later, should you ever need it. She won’t have the $70 k in debt still on her shoulders. She also won’t have the resentment that she could have had things a whole lot easier if you had helped her out.</p>
<p>Remember–she will most likely being the one to pick your nursing home.</p>
<p>I also am someone who thought they were going to retire at 50. I realized that the extra income I’ll be earning if I delay my retirement will make a big difference in what we have for retirement and what I can leave to my kids. Now I am planning to retire when I am 60.</p>
<p>" She has asked me to help out with some of her expenses…</p>
<p>Helping out with expenses = $70k?</p>
<p>The OP would probably feel good about helping out his daughter. However, I don’t know about paying for a master’s degree. I kind of think that one is on the kids. We, of course, be much older than the OP when our kids get to the point of thinking about a master’s.</p>
<p>Really? Delay your retirement by one year or help your child? Really? Unless you have a very limited time left on this earth or there are other mitigating circumstances I can not fathom wrestling with that question. For a third time, Really?</p>
<p>How do you feel about your job? Some jobs are soul-sucking and every minute is painful. If that’s your situation, I wouldn’t urge you to continue. If you enjoy it or are at least reasonably happy, then it’s entirely up to you as to whether you want to give this gift to your daughter - no value judgement attached here. </p>
<p>Husband’s childhood friend went to bed and didn’t wake up - a heart attack. He was 51. Make sure whatever you are doing, it’s what you want to do rather than because you are feeling pressured to do it. </p>
<p>If your daughter has $70k of debt after her masters, that’s her choice. My S will have $200k of debt when he finishes medical school. He went in knowing it. Those are decisions that mature adults make.</p>
<p>Not selfish at all. One of my daughters told us to retire, if she needs to pay for graduate school, she will go into debt. My kids don’t want to mooch off me forever.</p>
<p>Alternate view here. We told our kids we would pay for four years of undergrad school and that was IT! The “bank of mom and dad” did not agree to fund any college costs beyond four years. </p>
<p>We DID help our first kiddo with some living expenses while in grad school, and will do the same for the second kiddo. However, we can easily do that with the incomes (one of us is retired) that we have.</p>
<p>To the OP…perhaps if your retirement income is not sufficient to do all of the things you want to do (and that might include helping your kiddo with grad school), you should consider working longer. If you only agreed to help with undergrad school as we did, I’d say you can retire without guilt.</p>
<p>I can only comment on what seems to be normal, as this is all a matter of personal preference and discretion. It seems to be normal for people to have to work until their mid-60s or later. It seems to be normal to help one’s kids with good and worthwhile things, such as higher education, if one can afford to without jeopardizing one’s own financial security and personal safety in retirement. Most parents are on track to retire in their mid-to-late 60s, but they are in their 40s or 50s when they are educating their kids, so the parents are forced to rely upon projections and guesses when deciding how much they can afford to spend on education.</p>
<p>Many early retirees report that the experience is not all it’s cracked up to be.</p>
<p>We find that when young people have debt loads in the $70,000 range, it can be crippling, unless they become quickly successful in extremely lucrative fields. They can be forced to significantly postpone marriage and parenthood. They can be forced to move back in with their own parents. They can be limited in their mobility when it comes to their own job search. They can be regarded as unmarriageable. None of this is what most people covet for their kids. A young person finishing an interventional radiology fellowship can probably handle the debt load without the aforementioned problems. A young history teacher, not so much.</p>
<p>If someone is in good health, can reasonably assume a normal life expectancy, and financially ready to retire about 15 years ahead of most people, with a nice kid who works hard and only wants the money for higher ed, I think most people would consider it a privilege to facilitate that by working a bit further into one’s early 50s.</p>
<p>Another poster mentioned somebody who died without warning at age 51. People can and do die at all ages. But we make plans and decisions in life on the basis of what we reasonably expect to happen, not on the basis of freak occurrences that might happen.</p>
<p>Retirement isn’t all its cracked up to be. Certainly not a panacea!</p>
<p>I had a great professional run in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Good enough that I “retired” at 43 years old. You know who else is retired at 43? NO ONE. Maybe I didn’t plan it well, but after 6 months of knocking out every item on the “honey do” list, taking 3 trips to SE Asia, Europe and Mexico and generally living what I thought would be “the dream…” I found out, it wasn’t. Wife told me to get back to work or I was going to drive her crazy. All our friends still worked and I was bored to tears during the week.</p>
<p>It was a good lesson. I work now because I want to. It is a lot different than working because you have to, and it keeps you busy. After my taste? I don’t plan on retiring for a while.</p>
<p>Anyway, my point is; don’t romanticize retirement. It falls in the be careful what you wish for category. I feel VERY fortunate I was able to get back on the horse.</p>
<p>I agree with fieldsports. The way I see it you’ll be helping her with your salary at its peak. She’ll start repaying her loans with her salary at its minimum. Large debt will be an albatross around her neck at the time she needs to make decisions that will determine her future.</p>