<p>Why retire? I’m 52 and hope to stick around another 15 years. In my line of work (consumer electronics) we’re doing stuff today that was science fiction 5-10 years ago, and planning for stuff that you couldn’t write into a Star Trek script…</p>
<p>Infant mortality rate in US is actually not great.</p>
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[Editorial:</a> U.S. infant death ranking a shame ? USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2011-10-03/infant-mortality-ranking-US-41st/50647658/1]Editorial:”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2011-10-03/infant-mortality-ranking-US-41st/50647658/1)</p>
<p>My dad had a heart attack at age 61 one month after he retired. : /</p>
<p>My father retired at 65. When he retired, his boss said I’ll see you at your funeral a year from now (supposedly because so many former workers died fairly close to their retirement). His boss died a year later and my father collected SS and his pension for 30 years.</p>
<p>The question isn’t “what is your life expectancy when you are born”, it is “what is your life expectancy when you turn 20-ish and enter the work force and pay into SS” and “what is your life expectancy when you retire at 65 and collect SS”.</p>
<p>In 1930 for white males, at 20 you had a life expectancy of 46 years; in 2004 it was 57 years.</p>
<p>At 60 you had a life expectancy of 14.7 years in 1930, in 2004 it was 20.9 years.</p>
<p>So compared to 1930, more people will live to retirement age to collect SS, and they will collect benefits for longer.</p>
<p>[Life</a> Expectancy by Age, 1850–2004 — Infoplease.com](<a href=“Columbia Encyclopedia | Infoplease”>Life Expectancy by Age, 1850–2011)</p>
<p>I’m not a statistician though, maybe I am misinterpreting.</p>
<p>The Social Security Administration has similar numbers. More people survive to retirement age now, and they live longer:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html[/url]”>http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html</a></p>
<p>Well…between doct and mini’s offers, I prefer mini’s. :)</p>
<p>There are too many stories of men dying after retiring.</p>
<p>“I do think that we are going to get to the point where we actually increase life-expectancy; after all, 2040 is supposed to be the year of immortality.”</p>
<p>So…do I get to be 85 for eternity or are we also going to find the fountain of youth and we get to choose our age for eternity?</p>
<p>Can I be 22 one day, 50 another day and 30 the next?</p>
<p>We’re at the start of learning about analyzing DNA and using it to cure nasty diseases. The announcement this week on breast cancer discoveries are a start. Figuring out how aging works and maybe stopping it or reversing it. I imagine that this can be done with time, research and computing horsepower.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I’ll be around for this stuff but it’s pretty cool to hear about the analysis and creation of tools firsthand.</p>
<p>I agree that the anti-aging work is cool.</p>
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<p>People have to stop thinking of “STEM majors” as being uniform with respect to job and career prospects. The most popular STEM major is biology, which generally has poor job and career prospects because there are so many of them relative to the number of biology-specific jobs.</p>
<p>What is the unemployment rate for biology majors? I assume that they are worse then for engineering majors.</p>
<p>If you look at the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html</a> , you will see that biology graduates generally do rather poorly.</p>
<p>Engineering graduates vary based on the kind of engineering and the economic and industry cycle (e.g. civil has been poor for a few years, but was good before the real estate and construction crash).</p>
<p>DH has no intention of retiring. I expect that one day I’ll get a call from his office that he has been taken to the hospital… Work is his identity and reason for living. When that’s done, so is he. </p>
<p>OTOH, I already have two big medical strikes against me. Am debating whether to apply for SS disability benefits, but DH thinks I don’t have a chance. I don’t see going back to work as a viable option.</p>
<p>At least he has good benefits, a pension and 401(k). I have a 401(k) and IRA, though I wish they were bigger.</p>
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<p>I anticipated the slowdown and reduced my equity holdings at 2000, but went back into equity in January, just before 9/11. This has to be one of the biggest mistakes I made in life. What saved my bacon was that I had half my assets in cash and bond (I was 50 and retired). I used it to add to my equity holdings, to buy more years of my indexed, defined benefit plan, and for living expenses.</p>
<p>My gamble paid off. I was literally down to my last two months of cash when I officially retired and started taking my reduced pension. That was August of 2003 and I could see the market has turned. Mrs. Canuckguy do not know about this to this day </p>
<p>I suspect folks in my generation were over-spending, and tried to prepare for retirement with a higher ratio of equity in their portfolio than it is wise. I think they repeat the similar mistake with housing in 2008.</p>
<p>Finally, two important points that are seldom mentioned in retirement planning that should be front and centre one is the choice of occupation and the other is the choice of spouse. Looking back, if I had chosen a more lucrative occupation, I could have easily beaten age 45 as stated in the booklet. If I have chosen a different spouse, I could still be slaving away this very moment.</p>
<p>Such is life.</p>
<p>I go round and round with retirement issues. I am self employed and my industry has been hit hard by changes in healthcare, and after 31 years it would be fun to do something else. Just not sure what that is. </p>
<p>I think financially we would be ok on just DHs salary, but I am not sure what I want to do next…</p>
<p>Hard to know if poeple work too long and then die within a yer of retirment, or if beig idle kills them!!</p>
<p>And I can never really discern how much of a nestegg is enough for retirement. H runs retiremennt calculators and says we are fine, but I watched my dad start to outlive his $ and it was scary… Thoughts?</p>
<p>“My father died 37 yrs ago, my mother 3 yrs. I will be thrilled if I make it ten more yrs, in which case I will be almost 65.”
-Well, I am already older than my mother when she died, so my every year is a bonus, and I will continue to be thankful for the rest of my stay here. My mother died of the same desease as everybody else in her family, it was not accidental, it is genetic but preventable to some degree. Nobody in my family live into 80s, but it does not matter, my goal is still to work until I am kicked out, there is no reason for me to leave on my own.</p>
<p>Well jym626, there are unknowns. We don’t know how long we are going to live. We don’t know our income or our expenses in the future. We don’t know inflation and to a lesser extent , taxes. </p>
<p>So we guess. 
My guess is if you can generate income that is double your expenses in your late 50’s early 60’s, and you expect to live into your mid 90’s, you can outlive your money.</p>
<p>With pensions, you won’t need as much net worth to retire. If SS and medicare aren’t changed drastically, you won’t need as much. If you have the ability to cut expenses over time, you won’t need as much. If you die earlier, you won’t need as much. :)</p>
<p>If your husband thinks you have enough, you probably have enough. </p>
<p>I don’t know if my parents have enough, but they are oblivious on the issue of whether they have enough money. It really helps to be clueless about this issue. We can worry for 30 to 40 years about running out of money, or we can worry about running out of money when we run out of money. I think most people would say the latter is unacceptable, but I am not 100 percent sure. There is something about not worrying for 30 to 40 years that is appealing. :)</p>
<p>I agree wth Canuckguy that marrying the right person really helps. You marry somebody that doesn’t understand money and just spends and spends, and you can end up in pretty poor shape.</p>
<p>I don’t know how to research it, but I know I’ve read articles that tell you if you live til 60, you’ll probably make it til 80 unless you are in an accident. I think the avg life expectancy factors in young deaths and accidents.</p>
<p>We’re also waiting to see what the healthcare industry changes bring to decide if it makes sense to continue running our business. Though I don’t know what else I’d do. And imo estimation figuring out healthcare coverage is a huge part of the decision to retire before medicare.</p>
<p>Speaking of time - anyone read the new Mitch Albom book - it’s a fable about time - a fascinating and quick read.</p>
<p>Thanks, dstark. </p>
<p>We probably have enough if we stay here, but if we were to consider relocating if our kids settle in the same area and are likely to really stay put- though who knows…) it could be a much higher COL in a state that is way less friendly to retirees, tax wise.</p>
<p>DH needs to look into what his pension will be from his former employer (its a bit confusing due to mergers of different companies) but its not going to be a lot. We have IRA’s and SEPs but will want to hold off touching those for as long as possible.</p>
<p>Its so hard to figure out… So, I work…</p>
<p>I will be 60 next year…</p>
<p>DH “threatens” to retire (he is younger than I am) but he provides the healthcare, and I agree with eyeamom- that is very important! I told him I get to retire first!</p>
<p>“With pensions, you won’t need as much net worth to retire. If SS and medicare aren’t changed drastically”
-Medicare has already changed drastically by new health care law. Ton of money is taking out of it. Even before that both programs are on a brink of bankrupcy. We may not touch them, they just going to fold on their own. I do not see how China will continue landing us money forever and our rating will continue dropping, so we will be paying more and more interest. Math simply does not work and math is something that is cut in stone, cannot adjust math laws, 2 + 2 =4, it will never be eaual 40, not even 5, we may only wish for it. While wishful thinking is a plan, not sure if it will work though, we have been trying…and results are…promising?.</p>