Unusual Whales (very worth following) Tweeted that "51% of Gen-Xers and 40% of Boomers have said they are 'significantly behind' their retirement, per CNBC." There were plenty of comments of course with quite a few speculating that the actual numbers are probably worse, which makes intuitive sense to me. Then, just for fun, Barron's piled on with Shame On Us, Gen-X. We Aren't Saving Nearly Enough For Retirement.
Barron's pegs Gen-X' perceived need at $1.1 million but that Gen-X only expects to have $661,000 which leaves a shortfall of $439,000. I guess what they are saying is that Gen-X thinks it needs $44,000/yr (4% of $1.1 million) on top of Social Security. That makes sense and we'll just hope that the group can actually get to $661,000...or better. $600,000-$800,000 are workable numbers for long term retirement planning. That range might not equal anyone's retirement number but a couple of lifestyle tweaks or changes and I think it's a range people could adapt to. I don't think that accumulating $200,000 when you think you need $1 million is an adaptable situation, more like serious changes to whatever that person had in mind. That's harsh but better for someone to confront that sooner than later.
Barron's referred to the $439,000 shortfall as a gap. That word has been picked up as common descriptor for the situation. Although we don't necessarily use the word gap too often but we have discussed this idea. If you might have a gap to deal with what can you do about it? No one will solve the problem for you. It is up to us to figure this out for ourselves. Even if you don't have a serious gap, are you looking like you might be too close for comfort, what can you do to give yourself a bigger margin of safety?
Assuming a 4% withdrawal rate, a $439,000 gap implies the retiree is trying to find $17,560 of income. That's not nothing but you don't need a Harvard MBA either. In the earliest days of the blog, I began talking about monetizing hobbies. As one example of this, I've been talking about my "hobby" volunteer firefighting as having a path to monetization. I knew enough back then to know it was possible and have learned a lot more about it over the last few years.
The pay for this work is quite lucrative at all levels on the org chart but the days are long, requiring a good bit of stamina. I don't think I will need to do this financially but I refuse to take anything for granted. I have a genuine interest in learning more to see where it goes. I've talked before about getting approved to be a liaison officer trainee working for incident management teams. I had one short training assignment over the summer and hope to get one or two more next summer.
Over the last couple of days I took a class on how to use one of the computer systems related to wildland firefighting. The one in question is essentially a database for individual qualifications. So I am in there as a qualified firefighter and EMT and a liaison trainee. There are many other positions with various types of requirements which is the point I am making. Some positions require a lot of experience. Liaison is actually one of them and despite my never having worked at a career department, 21 years as an active volunteer with 12 as the chief of a large, even if volunteer, department gave me the opportunity to be a trainee. The more you put in to your hobby or volunteer gig, the more you will get out of it and this is a simple example.
There are other positions that require far less experience for anyone newer than me. One such position that I learned about and that interests me is status/check in recorder. Basically, this person checks in the various resources, engines and crews, when they arrive at the fire and then keep track of those resources and some other things for the duration. The position pays far less than liaison but in a way, I'd be getting paid to take pictures of fire trucks which is another hobby of mine. I've actually done this job several times at our big annual, inter-agency training, I took pictures of fire trucks and had a blast along with documenting the apparatus and then tracking and once or twice determining their division assignments. I thought I was functioning as the staging area manager, maybe I was doing both but staging is part of the operations section and status is part of the planning section.
There are some other positions that are administratively oriented where lately, the work has been done remotely during a fire. We have one person who volunteered with us for a while, she still does, but works in a post-retirement gig for the Forest Service as a Documents Unit Leader. She can function from home for an incident happening wherever. I don't know if that will last but still it's another example of a lot of opportunity that true to my blogging a long time ago, I've invested time to actually move forward personally if I need and also as the point of this post that despite having 1/3 of my life in already, I am still eager to keep learning.
The point is not me and my interest, it's not that anyone should have my interest in this at all. I think the post conveys my genuine interest in my thing. What thing do you have a similar level of interest in that you can pursue to solve your own problem if you have a gap, or prevent your own problem if you're closer to the edge than you want to be?
No comments:
Post a Comment