Yahoo Finance had an article about the comments on an article about retirement which itself drew a ton of comments. Read the comments. Always read the comments. They provide insight into what people are thinking, maybe seeing some good ideas and seeing what people don't understand.
As always, there were a lot of success stories as some sort of combination of selection bias and confirmation bias. There are a few sad stories and a few comments blaming politicians. The success stories include people retiring young as well as people retiring late or never retiring. There were also comments bagging on the people who want to keep working.
Working can contribute to having a sense of purpose. My own beliefs though are work if you want to work but hopefully, your vocation is not the only facet of your life. Having different and disparate aspects to your life makes things far more interesting in my opinion.
There was acknowledgement of the challenges of late 50s/early 60s being "forced" into retirement either due to some sort of downsizing or health issue. We've talked about this plenty and I think it is a real threat. I shared my own scare with this due to partner malfeasance at my old firm (I was never a partner) so I fully respect this issue.
I've written a couple of hundred posts about the importance of focusing on things that we might be able to control or at least things we can do to improve our resiliency in case something unexpected happens.
First is health. Life is far less expensive without chronic maladies that need to be managed with prescriptions. Cutting carbohydrate consumption is practically miraculous for how many chronic maladies can be reversed and for losing weight which prevents/solves a bunch of other problems. Although it might not work for everyone, there is no downside to eating less junk food. Lifting weights is the other big component here. Aside from building/maintaining muscle mass which it vital for successful aging, there are countless metabolic benefits.
Resiliency is also enhanced by living below your means. In the face of job loss, it is obviously much easier to cover a $5000/mo lifestyle than a $10,000/mo lifestyle.
One thing that some commenters seemed to not understand is the cost of health insurance. If you lose your job and income takes a big hit, then odds are very high that insurance through healthcare.gov will be very cheap or maybe even free. If you're in this position, there is no reason not to investigate this. Think about a $5000/mo lifestyle where $1000 goes to health insurance. Things get much easier if that premium drops to $300.
And a quick update on my Plan B of working on large fires on an incident management team (IMT). Last week I had my first, away from home, paid assignment working on the Wildcat Fire down near Phoenix on the Tonto National Forrest. This one ended up being a short assignment thanks in part to a very cloudy and humid Monday that included a 30 minute rain storm. They also dumped a lot of retardant and water on it from the air when it first started.
An ongoing idea to retirement planning here for many, many years has been monetizing a hobby to create an additional income stream should it ever be needed. I've been consistent with encouraging taking a long runway to figuring out whether a particular hobby can be monetized and then getting on a path to do so before you retire. Starting early increases the odds of success.
My job title is liaison, I'm still a trainee and it will take a while before I'm fully qualified into the position. Basically the liaison is a conduit of information in both directions between the operations of the fire and various relevant agencies and fire departments (plus a few other constituents). There are a couple meetings during the day and briefings before the operational periods start. The rest of the time I am at a desk by the computer and on the phone when necessary. In four days on the fire last year, I had to go out into the field a couple of times but not for very long. On this one, I didn't go out into the field at all.
I won't post 47 selfies of me at a desk but I will include a couple of fire truck pictures.
I've been very actively volunteering since 2003 and the chief of our department since 2012. Liaison is very high up on the org chart of IMT, the person I worked under on the last assignment equated it to be an assistant chief but of course it's a professional realm so it is a huge opportunity I've been given.
The opportunity for me to do this is the byproduct of what I talk about all the time, a very long runway to making it happen. In this case a little over 20 years. I will try to get enough assignments to get fully qualified into the position but I will not be going out all summer doing this. The end goal for me is to be able to help anytime there is a threat locally and maybe take one assignment outside the area every summer to maintain my status.
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