It is not worth it! I have seen professionals work until they died and what is the point of that? The stress will ki-l you. Take some time for yourself as you near your golden years. You will also have time to hone your investment skills and manage your investments yourself. Pursue your hobbies while you have plenty of energy and never stop learning.
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Good advice if you can swing it financially. Also good advice to keep active in a day-to-day activity (hobbies, volunteering, etc.), quite frankly hiking the Rockies and taking cruises eventually becomes repetitive. Just one caveat, wait until you're 60, you get a little bump in your pension calculation then.
Divorce after 50 will set many people back and force them to continue to work. I know of two guys who went through this. It is tough.
Left in 2019 at the top of my petrotech game. It’s simple. Learn to live on 70% of your take home. Max out your pre-tax retirement contributions. Don’t waste your money on depreciating assets with 4 wheels. Don’t marry the gold digger wife. Don’t buy the $900K house when more modest digs would be just fine. Blood pressure normal now. A1C normal now. Back when I left, people were asking why? Now they ask “how did you know”? How did I know what lied ahead? I knew the day MW took the reins where the sleigh was headed. It takes decades to build a functional culture and only a few years to destroy it all. Good luck all.
this is very subjective as it depends on each person’s situation and priorities. I don’t think one can come with a prescriptive answer that would work for everyone.
@h8 Vietnam could be a place. I heard the cost of living there is quite cheap. You have the beaches, seafood, and other local delicacies.
@OP while I understand the sentiment, I don't think it's either/or. You can still remain working while managing stress and taking time to enjoy life. Nothing outside of my own thinking can cause me stress, so I get to control the narrative inside my head, not my supervisor, the company, shareholders, et al. Also, I worked hard to get through school so I could enjoy a career in my profession, which is what I'm doing now. Maybe I'll change my mind the closer I get to retirement, but for now, I look forward to continue working as long as I want, regardless of age and regardless of what MW and others do.
Take a feather from MW, work as long as you want or need. Do not feel any pressure to step aside earlier just because you have reached x age.
At the same time understand that expectations have changed since the era of one job for life, and free wheeling on seniority in the last 5 or so years.
Let’s agree that hard work and productivity should be fairly rewarded.
The biggest expense people have post 59 is healthcare. Most people work all their lives to be crippled by health problems and the expenses that go along with health problems. If you can retire, do it when it works out for you.
@h7 insert any cheap, safe international location with coconut shells ;-)
ID: @h6+1k4ejqaxg
Have you visited Costa Rica lately, it’s not the inexpensive paradise it once was. Lots of crime and stuff is not cheap anymore.
@bm I’m curious who would downvote this.
I’ve made the right decisions in my working years if I can leisurely live in Costa Rica while making coconut shell bras for tourists. I can’t fathom why that would bore me.
Before you get close to retirement age, you need a plan on where you want to live, what you are going to do with your days and your financial situation. Don't wait until you are suddenly shoved out the door. Even if you are financially stable, it is daunting to decide where to move if you haven't given it much thought. It is easy to say, I will travel or have hobbies but that will get old without some meaningful routine work. I know others that continue to work because that is their social interaction and it gives them that routine. As long as you are happy/content and are employable then continue doing it. I know people that had forced retirement, financially stable and don't regret not working. I know others that are financially stable but decided to return as consultants which is fine as well. A consultant can do what they enjoy doing without having to do all the cr-p such as performance reviews, KPI reviews that employees have to put up with.
do what you need and is comfortable to you
What if you don’t allow work to stress you out?
You are the only one who can “stress” you out.
At that age they can fire me if they don’t like what I’m doing.
It’s water off a ducks back at this stage in my career.
The outlook expressed in the OP is common for younger people who are looking at other employees and retirees from the outside. It's completely different when you are in that position yourself. Without going into detail, the obvious first case is the person who is financially independent, has already travelled all that they want during vacations, bored with self-serving hobbies and has been retired from their career (say, took the package a year or so back) for a while and can do anything they want. Sometimes they want to give back, stay engaged with professional life and end up going back part time as a contractor or for a small company who needs experienced help. Not everyone wants to just sit around and chill out. There are others who are financially independent but simply love accumulating wealth more than anything else, for perhaps, their heirs which may include a favorite charity. The list goes on for all sorts of reasons. Only a certain percentage of experienced educated professionals just stop everything and start "doing hobbies". Some may travel full time but that gets to be exhausting.
From a mental and financial health perspective, pine box retirement is a viable option for many. What would you do with your time when you no longer work?
If one can retire financially then why not?
Most people who work post 59 need to work to pay for expenses, life would be much different if financial obligations do not exist at any age, lol
Wise advice, I turned 60 and was left standing. I have gotten several interviews with HATCH, ETHOS, and others. And it back of my mind, I have been working all my life and have enjoyed it. I have a daughter in college and I have never visited, love to fish, have not done so in years.... Perhaps you are right, not to mention the corporate world becoming down right strange.