Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Life In Retirement

The pole that I took was extremely telling. Only about 1/3 to 1/2 as many people voted as usually do despite the usual amount of traffic. The question was, "How long do you plan to live after you retire?"

75% - 20+ years
25% - 10-20 years

Wow! Really? Okay, this says a lot.
  1. Do people hate their job so much that they want to spend 20+ years of their life doing something else? More specifically, doing nothing to speak of?
  2. Consider that living on a "fixed income" really means living on a declining income because inflation will eat away at your yearly income every year. So if you want to maintain a certain high standard of living well into retirement, you need a lot of money to start retirement.
  3. It is quite possible that many people plan to have a retirement job. Something that does not take 40 hours a week. Perhaps managing a used book store or working at a coffee shop part time or tutoring/mentoring/coaching kids. A second career, this seems reasonable to consider during a long term retirement.
  4. As a generation in the United States, generation Y is not nearly as healthy as our ancestors. Our life expectancy is not what our grandparents is. Cancers, inactivity, and pollution are not helping us all live longer. 
  5. Retirement is a relatively new phenomena
I know, statistically, my survey was insignificant because of a sample size of four (I never vote on my own surveys). Regardless, the answers were informative.

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