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#81145 - 01/18/06 04:37 AM Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
Noreen Braman Offline
Member

Registered: 01/17/06
Posts: 8
Loc: New Jersey
Returning to full time work at age 42 as a single mother (I'm now 50) has been a tough road. Even though the ex paid his court ordered support, 4 of us were forced to live on (with my salary) less than half of what had previously supported 5 of us. Needless to say, with high school and college and the cost of living in New Jersey, I've remortgaged my house to the hilt and have very little in the way of retirement funds. The reality is, I'll never be able to retire in what I considered the traditional way. When I hear my ex bought a condo in Florida, and is retiring there with his new live-in in two years, it just makes me sad. So, now, I'm trying to do those things (whatever I can afford) I put off to raise the kids, while still having to work full time and carrying a whole lot of debt. boy, now I know what my father meant when he said he was worth more dead than alive - that may be the only way it gets paid off! Has anyone else suddenly realized that retirement will not be an option?

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#81146 - 01/18/06 10:29 AM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
mrs_madness Offline
Member

Registered: 09/29/05
Posts: 217
Loc: Moscow
You betcha. We're in exactly the same boat.

Lots of debt, no assets, no retirement, kids in college. We'll never be able to quit working. However my husband's company has a 5 million dollar life insurance policy on him......

That's how we ended up living overseas. A job opportunity that was: US tax exempt, free housing, no car, no electric bills, no property taxes. But now we're stuck. We'll be shuffling between foreign countries for I expect, at least the next 10 years. We absolutely CANNOT afford to return to America and start all over again--with nothing. We'll be missing our kids, our grandkids, our families; traipsing around in various countries where we don't speak the language and have only half a clue what is going on.

I worry too how my kids are going to survive in an America where it's so hard to make enough money to make ends meet, benefits are becoming fewer and fewer, and employers give you the boot because your job skills are obsolete every couple of years and so much work is being *outsourced*.

I find it all very frightening.

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#81147 - 01/18/06 01:14 PM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
meredithbead Offline
The Divine Ms M

Registered: 07/07/03
Posts: 4894
Loc: Orange County, California
No debt here, but not much income either, so there really aren't any extras. I doubt I'll ever have the funds to retire.

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#81148 - 01/18/06 07:38 PM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
starting over Offline
Member

Registered: 06/30/05
Posts: 383
Loc: Illinois
I'm so glad to hear that I am not the only one feeling this way, fearing the future. I also don't see how I will avoid working until I die. I am facing divorce after 24 years. I have worked of and on, but not as the bread winner. I have no health insurance, no company benefits, no retirement, no savings. We had just bought the house so there's no equity when we get it sold. I will be forced to rent somewhere which means money just flying out the window into someone else's pocket. I'm 49. I never went to college, and don't have the funds or time to start now. I am working 7 days a week just to squeek by. Unfortunately, I make too much to get food stamps or any other aid....I fall 'in between' everything and I don't know how I will ever recoop from this divorce. I am looking at work from home opportunities but haven't found any that are legitimate. I have a book I wrote with an agent. I am praying that writing will be an avenue of extra income for me. This certainly isn't the life I dreamed of before I got married....

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#81149 - 02/20/06 04:08 AM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
Maritza Offline
Member

Registered: 02/16/06
Posts: 53
Loc: Miami, Florida
I have been teaching for the last 21 years, now at 58, I am desperatly thinking of retirement.However, not because I do not like my job, but for fear that i will not be able to enjoy the retirement years of doing what i want, when i want it. Traveling, arts and crafts, tai chi, languages, so many places to go,people to meet, and wonderful things i do not even know...
Since June 2002,I have been fight the probeta/Guardianship circuit for the right to be my mother's legal Guardian (please read, Forced guardianship, Miami-Dade Florida), the things I have seen at the nursing homes where she has been forced to stay, and the things I know now the judges can do, under "their discretion" makes it a lawless land of the not so free. I want to move out of the United States, I am afraid that I may find in the same situation mother is in, and that I may not have someone to fight, like I am fighting for her. All I want is to provide her with some dignity, and love. Nobody should die alone, in a cold away from home institution, unless they do not have any choice. Yes, I too have looked into these wonderful retirement communities, but I now have it cleared, money does not save you from becoming a victim of the Guardianship system; instead, it makes you a target...

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#81150 - 02/20/06 05:59 AM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
flipperjo Offline
Member

Registered: 10/22/05
Posts: 254
Loc: ND
starting over, congratulations on the book writing! i hope and pray it provides you with the financial security you need.

we, too, are in a big crunch when it comes to retirement. when we sold our dairy herd 2 years ago, the loan officer at our credit union tried to put us out of business altogether. we still raise cash crops and cattle. we are still trying to recover from the damage he did. add that to the fact that the overall atmosphere in farming has become very discouraging for the average family farmer. expenses have skyrocketed while prices for what we produce continue to fall.

we also absorbed a lot of my father-in-law's expenses while trying to get him out of the farm and covered our son's debts trying to get him into farming. talk about the sandwich generation!

my inlaws refused to do any forward planning in regards to the farm so now we have to deal with sister-in-law, too. we had to take out expensive life insurance on my inlaws to enable us to keep the farm in the family for our sons to continue to work. all of this could have been avoided if they had done the planning they should have done 20 years ago.

it is so frustrating to have worked very hard for so many years and now we feel like we're starting over. i am starting a web based business, dh is selling bull semen and we are constantly searching for another way to make a buck.

i know we are not alone, that these problems are found everywhere but that doesn't take away the frustration of it all.

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#81151 - 02/20/06 07:49 PM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
Searcher Offline
Member

Registered: 10/11/05
Posts: 645
Loc: boise
I'm right there with you, ladies,

Staying at home with NIchole, I neither had nor have medical insurance for myself, no life ins, retirement nor savings. I, too will work til I drop. But hey, what else would I be doing? I don't golf~~~~! My father retired early from a teaching career at age 55, sold their house, and built a nicer, bigger one on Kentucky Lake, where they spent their retirement...('course he always worked building houses and such during summers), but here I am, at nearly 59 and haven't even gotten started on my career!!! Oh well, lots of people started blooming at 60 or later!!!!!!

Maritza, that's a hard place to be in. There is no type of intstitutional setting that can replace home. If you are thinking of early retirement, is there any way through social services, that you could bring your parents home, then have people to come in and help? My friend did this with her son, and the state provided the in-home care expenses rather than pay the exhorbitant intstitutional prices. You have to dig a little, because they don't want the general public knowing they provide this service, I believe because of the trouble they have monitoring the service provided and also, it puts other people outof a job. Good luck to you!

How are you friend, Flipper? Sounds like you're having your fair share of trouble - as if you already haven't! What web business are you getting into? Bull semen, now that sounds like a fun job!!! Good grief! Those must be some good-lookin' bulls! Say - how 'bout getting them into show biz - the cheese industry in Cal. must be making a fortune on their commercials !!!@#@!

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#81152 - 02/20/06 07:53 PM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
Searcher Offline
Member

Registered: 10/11/05
Posts: 645
Loc: boise
Oh yeah....you could have casting calls for bulls in the greater Minot area and become bull-agents for the all the movies they make! [Eek!]

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#81153 - 02/20/06 11:29 PM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
smilinize Offline
Member

Registered: 11/08/03
Posts: 3512
Loc: outer space
Searcher,
Does cheese comes from bulls? Hmmm. Maybe the cheese commercial folks need some sex ed.

smile

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#81154 - 02/20/06 11:46 PM Re: Anyone Else Realize that Retirement Will never be an Option?
Searcher Offline
Member

Registered: 10/11/05
Posts: 645
Loc: boise
LOL Smile,

Well, in the commercials, the bulls are talking to the lady cows about marriage and such over the fence. They're really funny. In some, these cows live in Mn. and talk like Minnesotans - when one cow decides to walk to California....Then in another, bulls in California are talking to the cows about playing on their football team....if you catch one of these , you'll laugh. The whole thing is about Happy Cows making good cheese because they live in a better climate!

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