I object to the comment about ‘only working 180 +/- days with great benefits’
Teaching in many/most cases requires a great deal of s/k/a - the kind of personality to do well despite school politics/management and a range of children/parents to work with, enjoy the work, and the retirement – it depends. One can have another career before or after having retirement ‘in’ for a particular school system/state. Some states/school system, one is blocked from gaining SS.
People that are not in nursing may think it is different than what it is too - and again, it depends where one is on how well one is treated (often based on supply/demand and monopolistic hospital situation). Many nursing jobs involve weekends and night hours or long shifts with 24/7 staffing.
There are certain careers/jobs where one is ‘used up’ in many ways.
DH and I lasted to 65 with careers (DH to 64 1/2) - due to a lot of reasons, and having gained skills and/or extra degrees to keep a good professional presence in employment while not getting ‘used up’.
I heard an interesting fact today - at the height of Catholic education, there were 5 millions pupils, and right now it is over 1.5 million and rising due to some of the various things going on (Catholic schools with caution stayed open and have thrived over this period of Covid) – however pay and benefits for Catholic educators lag (although many find it a better work situation). I had a relative that teaches in public HS and his DD goes to parochial elementary school (and that is a common thing to happen) - they pay for tuition out of their public school salary.
Note the difference between “80-100% of your pre-retirement income” and “80-100% of your pre-retirement spending”.
Spending (of the type that will continue in retirement) as a percentage of income can vary a lot from one person to another. Some people spend pretty much all of their income, so they will need to replace their entire income in retirement (although they are least likely to be able to do so). Some people spend much less than their income, so they need to replace a much smaller percentage of their income (although they probably saved prodigiously and may have no problems with their savings and investments producing more investment gains than their retirement spending).
Getting a handle on spending would mean finding out what spending you have now, and estimating changes in retirement. Examples of the latter:
No longer spending on work or income related costs (commuting, work equipment, income and payroll taxes associated with work income*).
If you live in a house that will be paid off, mortgage expenses will go away. However, if you rent housing or move into assisted living, there could be more costs that will be added. If you relocate to a more or less expensive area, that can affect housing costs.
Increased spending on items subsidized by work (medical and other insurance).
Increased spending on activities that one will do more of in retirement.
Increased spending on medical care is generally expected as one gets older. Increased spending on other services that may be needed as one gets older also has a significant chance of happening.
*Perhaps it is best to think of income as net of any associated income or payroll taxes.
Because I was reading the responses in this thread about teachers, how much they make, whether they are overpaid or underpaid, and how difficult the job tends to be.
Pretty much. Like I said in my post, at this point, I’m probably getting the better deal now in terms of my compensation relative to my work input. But when you factor in what I was making as an associate in big law relative to what was taken out of me, I’m really not so sure that the teachers, albeit with the work behind the scenes they describe, didn’t have a better deal in terms of pay for work done.
I have heard a lot of people complain about teachers hours/days off/breaks but when I ask them why they didn’t become a teacher themselves, they clam up.
FWIW - I’m not a teacher. I did some subbing when I was a SAHM and it was tough work! I was exhausted every day and I didn’t have to do lesson plan/grading/meetings etc.
Yes. Very important point. I see with my in-laws how important this is. My FIL has Alzheimer’s and his decline over the last two years has been nothing short of astounding. Sometimes I wonder if getting the diagnosis and thus having a label for the constellation of what was then subtle behavior changes has somehow sped up time.
In any event, we didn’t realize it at the time, but we took our very last vacation as an extended family summer before last. We had no idea at the time it would be the last time. There is no more of that, and I believe his is very near having to go to a facility.
There is indeed a challenge in planning like you’re going to be here for X number of years and living like you’re not going to last that long.
To answer your direct question - because I didn’t want to teach, although I have found myself now serving as an adjunct, so I guess I wound up doing it in anyway. But it wasn’t my original interest to do so.
I don’t think the context or content of my post should be read as me complaining. It certainly was not my intent. I’m sure teaching is not easy.
It’s just that in your post with the topic of retirement you choose to target teachers - there are plenty of other lower paying occupations (many non profit jobs for example) that require college degrees but result in lower pay - which is part of the reason teachers was singled out earlier in the thread.
I know teachers with good benefits (not wildly good but decent) and I know teacher with poor benefits - outside of salary.
ALSO I’ll say while it’s been noted that teachers “work 180 days a year” (when that is actually classroom time NOT actual work time - go visit any school two weeks before school
Starts for instance) , a standard year around job is about 260 days a year , subtracting weekends AND often comes with many more vacation perks (often multiple weeks of vacation) at (often) a higher rate of pay. In our public school system teachers get sick time and 2 personal days a year - that’s it.
Back to retirement Of all the workforce - from lowly to the high and mighty….
With Alzheimer’s it depends if they are calm, go along kind of person in the midst of their disease, or combative/confused/difficult. My mom was the former and did very well - had a very sudden medical decline, short hospital stay on IV antibiotics for a suspected gall bladder infection, home to hospital bed and hospice on Thursday and dead by Monday.
I see several friends with elderly relative - a mom that just turned 100 but is cooperative, can stand getting in and out of wheelchair/transfer – has respite days at local rehab facility, family managing. Another fellow has is mobile and cooperative - clearly following wife’s directions in church.
Anyone that watches “This is Us” - last season - the mom (played by Mandy Moore) with Alzheimer’s - she is doing a great job in the role.
I have two people close to me that are struggling with dementia. One with early onset Alzheimer’s and one with Lewy body. Both are barely 70!
Their symptoms were apparent a few years before the actual diagnosis. It’s heartbreaking to go through this so young.
I looked at the pictures of our last big vacation and realized it was in 2015! My husband had a stressful job where it was hard to get consistent time off. So we had to think about retirement. And now there’s a pandemic.
But it’s so difficult to predict the future. And while we are prepared for retirement, there aren’t unlimited funds.
My mom was dx with ALZ when she was 68 but was showing mild symptoms a few years prior. She died at age 78. She needed caregiving her at home for 2 years and then was in a memory care facility for a year + before she died. It was very costly.
I think caregiving costs are the biggest unknown when retirement planning.
My mom died at 70, and she had pretty bad dementia when she died. That played into me retiring fairly early (59).
If my mom were still alive, I would still be working, because I am an only child and always figured I’d have to support my mom as she got older, possibly including having her live with me.
Now I feel guilty bc I retired at 59, just a couple of years after she died. You just never know how things are going to turn out.
H and I have agreed to take matters into our own hands. I just hope it’s possible when the time comes. I don’t wish to go through what my dad endured and I also don’t want our kids to have to deal with our prolonged deaths.
Also very true. My FIL was a big personality and could be a difficult person. He was never easy going and my MIL has had to be a patient person.
He is now like a child in her care and looks to her for everything. If she’s out of the room for 5 minutes he goes looking for her or asks where she is. He has some weird night issues … getting up at 3:00 am looking for weird things or freaking out about this or that. There have been a few 911s. That’s the the part I don’t think my MIL will be able to deal with indefinitely. She’s 87 and there’s only so much of that you can deal with. We shall see. We were worried he’d be the combative type, because he is by nature a combative man. But it has made him more fragile and confused and dependent. We’ll take the latter.
Re your feelings of guilt, just remember it’s like anything: we make the best decisions we can make with the information we have at the time. Don’t beat yourself up. I’ve done that on a few things in life and it’s a road to nowhere.
You may end up needing to get a sitter in to keep everyone safe. Our aunt’s family rotated among the 4 children and paid overnight sitters. They worked it out, but all 4 siblings lived in the area and all were use to being so closely bonded with their mom. She was a real sweetheart. Their dad was alcoholic and was out of their lives during growing up years so the family was also tight due to all of that.
On retiring to enjoy life while one can still do it, I’m a fan of trying to enjoy life while working. That involves enjoying the work and having some flexibility, but not everyone has that luxury.
@thumper1, the transition from saver to spender seems scary to me. I’m not planning to retire and instead just slow down, but the idea of not covering all my costs of living and then some savings is scary.
@cquin85, in terms of QoL, when I worked for a wealthy family’s family office, I would call the partner of a major NY law firm and say, "We need this by 8 AM tomorrow. He’d say, “Absolutely.” No doubt he’d call the team, assign tasks and go home. In the kind of M&A work I was doing, the lawyers always seemed to be the tail wagged by the dog and I much preferred being the dog. ShawSon loved competing in Moot Court in HS and thought he’d like to study constitutional law and become a lawyer. He is brilliant and severely dyslexic so I thought being a lawyer would be a bad choice for him. Interestingly, two of our friends both of whom had worked at Skadden independently tried to dissuade him from a legal career. One was a litigator who moved into philanthropy and the other is my lawyer at a smaller firm.
