Everybody has different goals in life. There was a guy where I worked who retired at least 3 times but he just couldn’t stay away. I found it odd that he had such little interest in anything else. Whatever we do as a job is such a tiny fraction of what other potential experiences are out there that I don’t completely understand those people who are so limited in their outlook on life to not try other things.
I’m all for obsessions, that’s what keeps us going, what we live for. However, there are ways to expand that obsession, so one can still be involved in what they love as they get older (particularly if it isn’t physical). Thinking it’s all over when that one job is done is thinking awfully small, and predetermining a bad outcome, which is completely unnecessary.
The progressive living arrangements (apt-assisted living-nursing home) settings have been around a long time in some parts of the country (I had a nursing rotation in one in Milwaukee in 1977-1978 time frame).
I have noticed a big pick up of home health care - seems there is going to be a trend to trying to save all with more home care options.
From what I am seeing, it is better to put extra money away than trying to buy a LTC ins policy because the cost/benefit aspects of the insurance are not favorable to the purchaser (we are paying our policies that are old and very strong benefits for the costs - unlimited years of coverage).
If you have very good physicians managing your care - that is so important. Our PCP retired but had a hand in recruiting the physician that hired in (and is part of a 4 MD and 1 NP practice), and she is wonderful (and young!) - H and I both like her, and H listens to her and me (as a RN, I keep drilling into his head that it is in my best interest to keep him healthy! His two bachelor uncles died way too young, of undiagnosed/untested prostate cancer - one was with it eventually getting to his lungs; the other with spread to kidney by the time it was diagnosed, and then beyond). Finally found out from H that he wasn’t taking aspirin regularly, and now he is taking 81mg ASA a day…he didn’t want to have the cardiac ultrasound but he did it; good info for $199.
I made the mistake in 2009 of listening to my (quickly fired) OB/GYN who didn’t rule out my medical situations and at age 52/53 almost killed me from breast cancer spreading from stage I to stage IIIa in 10 weeks (wouldn’t move up my mammogram, and insisted that his ultrasound exam of the marble sized tumor that I found was a harmless cyst) - you have to discern who to trust and who not to trust. I argued with the GYN, but instead of calling my PCP I thought ‘whew, no cancer’ but having a bad feeling in my gut (was also distracted with a mother dying of dementia). One can never be too careful on serious medical concerns. I went from 100% ‘cure’ opportunity at stage I to 50/50 long term survival due to that doc who was strong on OB but very lacking on GYN, in addition to ego shadowing good medical judgement. I had very aggressive cancer, that thankfully responded to very aggressive treatment that I was able to tolerate. However I had to have treatments that could compromise me medically in the future - don’t know how that will play out, but had to do what we had to do in the thick of it. At the mammogram appt, they immediately moved me into a room with digitally ultrasound, and I thought ‘holy S***’, confirmed next day when the GYN called me and said I needed to see a surgeon for biopsy. The tumor was so big the surgeon did 4 core biopsies, and the tumor was 100% cancer. The radiation oncologist, on seeing the CT scan said he had never seen medial lymph nodes so brightly lit.
Many like to live near children/grandchildren. It depends. Our DDs are only 20 and 22, and H and I both turn 60 this year. We do want to fix up and downsize from this house, but probably get something in our same school zone that is a fixer-upper. However don’t know how circumstances will change our decisions.
One can sometimes make decisions to prevent some down the road health care costs, other times not. Some chronic conditions get worse, and navigating the changing health insurance and health coverage paradigm is an ongoing challenge.
Sometimes really need luck on one’s side too!
“you have to discern who to trust and who not to trust.”
So glad you caught your cancer and advocated for yourself, @SOSConcern. It’s definitely not an easy thing to do sometimes, especially when feeling poorly, but from my experiences as well is very important to do and for one’s spouse/family to help out and know the specifics to help in the advocating. I think as people age, it becomes more important but even harder for them to do.
Believe me, I am in a very good medical community, and all the docs here are so embarrassed at what happened to me. Part of this is for me to tell the story. I am in a cancer support group that is amazing and have helped with other support groups and been a volunteer in health fairs, etc.
I think many on this thread are thinking very carefully about family, money, retirement, etc. Just want to remind people to also think about their health (and of course many on this thread are also caring for parents or seeing their parents’ health issues). My brother was very successful in his engineering business, and is now retired, but ruined his lungs with smoking (which he finally has quit smoking - and having a dad and uncle dying from small cell lung cancer many years ago, was really risking his future every day he smoked - and I am sure he kicks himself every day for beginning smoking as a 12/13 year old, a few years after he lectured my dad about smoking and the health risks).
shawbridge, “s there a way to volunteer work remotely? Like the equivalent of Code for America? Can you bid yourself out on one of the online sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk? Could you develop a software product?”
- This is my plan to continue working for my employer, but I believe that this plan will fail. I can work from any place on earth that has an internet connection, which is in fact we are doing now anyway as our computer / servers are in Germany. my H. has no objections if I work from the beach or the pool side. This is my only hope…I will be no good at any other job.
“This is my plan to continue working for my employer, but I believe that this plan will fail. I can work from any place on earth that has an internet connection, which is in fact we are doing now anyway as our computer / servers are in Germany. my H. has no objections if I work from the beach or the pool side. This is my only hope…I will be no good at any other job”
So your only hope is to continue working for your same employer, remotely. Because there is no other employer that could possibly hire you to work remotely at the hottest job in the US. No organization that would let you work for them remotely on a volunteer or contract basis. None. Your employer is the only employer in the world for this job. With all those years of experience, it would be impossible to get another position in this field. A field where experienced people are highly sought after (of any age, legally they can’t even ask your age, I don’t believe). Hundreds of thousands of jobs out there within your profession that you could work at remotely, but staying at your job is your only hope. There is only one job on the planet you can do, for one company, and when it is gone, it’s all over.
I know I enjoy repeatedly banging my head against the wall. 
I will say in the tech arena it is extremely hard to get hired past the age of 60 or even younger, unless you have some really unique skill set or have friends in high places at that company.
I suppose you could work on open source projects, if there are any that match your skills, but that has its own level of pain.
Yeah, not such much. And it’s pretty trivial to figure out someone’s approximate age without asking outright.
I think you can do all sorts of work, where you never even meet your employer. Contracting, temp work, they send you a project and you accomplish it. My neighbor just retired, two weeks after he turned 80.
And if you’re willing to do it for low wages, or work for a volunteer agency for free? Is age discrimination actually a problem in tech if you are volunteering your services?
Hiring managers in their 30’s are markedly unwilling to offer jobs to experienced tech folks in their late 50’s and early 60’s. Our tech-heavy town just had a story about that in the paper a few weeks ago. (These are not old COBOL programmers.)
The job I retired from a month ago was cutting edge technology and at 65 I felt like a dinosaur surrounded by children… The attitude of the managers was to “push aside the 9 - 5 ers” which all of the older folks were. The youngsters were willing to work every weekend, nights and even during their vacations that they were charging to vacation time. You also had to jump through hoops to get anything done. Procedures for documentation and travel expenses were changing every few months and for me and others of my generation, it was difficult to keep up with.
I doubt there are too many non-profits doing software development, but what do I know, I never looked at that area.
Every remote tech person I’ve been involved with hiring now goes through skype interviews. The only people we’ve ever hired without an onsite interview worked for firms in eastern Europe or India.
There are sites like rentacoder where you can hire yourself out but you are competing with people who are willing to work for pennies.
Not saying it’s impossible, just that it’s not that easy.
I’m not talking about the highly paid, in location jobs that are sought after. There are small companies, startups that don’t offer competitive salaries. And volunteer organizations that are begging for help.
My son’s friend had his own company in college. He designed websites for people. Didn’t meet a single employer, and don’t think he met a single client. Made a lot of money, too.
“I doubt there are too many non-profits doing software development, but what do I know, I never looked at that area.”
Maybe not, but don’t you think there are many, many non-profits needing help with their websites, or other general tech services?
And if someone is doing this for their own amusement, why think in such a linear fashion that one must work for a company? Or even a non-profit? Why not just solve programming problems on your own, if you enjoy it? Buy some college books, do some online challenges. If you’re not doing it for money, why can’t you just do work on your own, for the fun of it? Jeez, you should see my dad. Stacks of engineering and math books, solving problems constantly (though not so much this year), and he’s 86. Why is that so difficult?
People should be aware that they might spend many years of retirement in ill health. My in-laws both turn 90 this year. MIL has had Alzheimer’s disease for at least 8 years. She is confined to a wheelchair. FIL retired at age 65 or so. He has been obese for many decades. He had bladder cancer 15 years ago and has had an ostomy and a bag for his urine ever since. He has arthritis, heart disease, and diabetes. He is miserable.
Well that’s perfectly awful, rosered! I hope they have something that they enjoy doing. You make me want to go exercise.
My MIL can’t do anything. She still speaks but nothing makes sense. But according to my husband (their caregiver), she is still usually cheerful, as she has been most of her life. FIL enjoys very few things these days. In contrast to MIL, he has been bitter and a bully for much of his life. He enjoyed his job, a lot, but he had few things to fill his time after retirement, and taking care of MIL and his own health problems became obstacles too soon.
You know how they say whatever your personality characteristics are, you are even more so as you age. Seems very worthwhile to find some serious hobbies and obsessions before you retire, not after. And if you marry a jerk, don’t think it will get better after time, just worse!
@busdriver11, if that’s true, then I look forward to an even funnier, even smarter, even more steadfast wife than I am blessed with today. 
“ind some serious hobbies and obsessions before you retire,” - I found these to be great blessing for empty nesters to fill the time after work. They will not fill my time when I retire though, just not enough. I took classes for one and studying another on my own. Very rewarding for now. I have been with the professional guild for several years.