Saving for Retirement

Well I did. Save for retirement. And plans were good, fruitful and long term. But you know the adage of ‘best made plans go wrong’. That happened to me. First a divorce that turned everything upside down; then self employment and no disability insurance; then illness that caused underemployment, also a disability period, and finally a slow return to working. Self employment does not survive this sort of thing well. So, retirement came earlier than originally planned. Along with it came foreclosure on the house and finally full bankruptcy.

So retirement planning went out the window. Our household now lives on two individual social security benefits. And Medicare, of course. My university retirement monthly income benefit goes to my ex-wife; it does provide me low cost benefits and that’s a godsend but still comes at a cost and the benefits are not very generous. So we watch every penny. That’s the way of the world in 2015. We don’t expect that to change unless we win the lottery!

It is with exasperation that I read current news articles on the economics of retirement and the fact that Americans are evidently poor at setting aside money for their retirement years. Well, I’m here to say that I did save and invest well; it didn’t work out. I’m not the least surprised that others in current market conditions are saving little for their rainy days. It is hard enough to pay for housing, transportation, food, health care and all the rest.

Rent for us is high and will undoubtedly rise over the next several years. I can control my transportation costs mostly; the only real variables are insurance and gasoline costs. I can reduce the purchase price and loan costs of the car by going cheap or cheaper. And of course I can control the number of miles we drive. Still transportation is needed and costly. It is also our means to freedom to do and be what we want to be in this late stage of life. Involved and alive are two different things. We desire to be alive fully in participation with meaningful doings.

Health costs are horrid and getting higher. Deductibles continue to grow; premiums are still on the rise, and doctor and pharmacy costs continue their double digit annual increases. It is not inexpensive to age. Not by one whit!

Then there is food. It is expensive, especially the healthy commodities. We can save money on the amount we eat, the frequency we dine, and the unhealthy foodstuffs we ultimate consume. The latter only lead to weight gain and new health issues. So, saving money on food is not very viable.

Entertainment is cheap. We read books we bought years ago for the third time or more. We visit the library and read their materials. We get free downloaded material from the internet to read as well. So reading is cheap. The internet is not free, but it is good and budget-able. TV by cable is ridiculously costly. We reduce that as often as we can. We watch spooling downloads from Netflix as an alternative to premium stations on cable. We are experimenting with cutting out cable entirely. We will do that as soon as our current contract period has expired.

Clothing costs are downright cheap. We buy used and bruised. We buy on sale. Even family and friends donate clothes to us. So clothing is not a heavy expense other than new underwear and socks. That’s about it.

So, saving for retirement when the time has already come and gone?  Good luck is all we say. For those of you younger, better make the sacrifice and save for retirement now and forever onward! We did and used it up. Good thing we did set aside what we did. Imagine what would have happened if we had not? Yikes!

Meanwhile, if gurus of economics think we should all save more, then they need to come up with the policies that will grow the economy and make saving possible. So far the politicians are not listening to this logic. All they say is tut tut while their taxpayer paid benefits continue to grow and grow and grow…..

June 9, 2015