Another birthday has made it's way through my life and I am not sure how I feel about it. Every where I look, I am a senior, not a major senior, but more like a freshman senior. Apparently my nearly life long moustache gave me away.
You can't read a newspaper, check out the Internet or go to the store with out some clear reminder of your age. At work its the cashier who gives me the senior discount with asking if I am over 60. At the theatre Sally is always asking for a senior discount, even though those only exist between noon and 2 on the third Wednesday of even numbered months.
The papers, public radio and every other form of public or private communication scream out about the number of seniors who will go bankrupt this year (25%) or the amount of money you need to survive until you die. If you watch that close enough you will realize that no one really knows and they continue to recycle the same discussion with little in the way of new information.
70% of your pre retirement income will do, which works well for some, but the poor guy who is making 20K now is down to 14K and has the same bills. 750,000 was the general consensus around the table at Sean O'Caseys last Friday, but 1M would be better, I have neither.
As a boomer I hope that the trifecta of SS, Define Pension and the 401/403 plans will carrier us safely to our graves. I realize that for some period I will need to have some, hopefully small employment to help keep us in golf money.
We are betting that we will or won't outlive the money, health issues creep in and we read the Irish sports page and see people dying at 50 all the time. I have no bigger fear than some lingering disease like the big "A" or big "C",or that I might not ever get a hole in one.
So, where now to St Peter,ignore the possibilities and live in the moment? Hide in the future and expect the worse? Beats me, I think I will continue to listen to the pundits as they discuss what I will need to live until I die.
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One thing I hate when trying to determine how much you will need in retirement is that 99% of the calculators you can use make no allowance for the old fashioned defined benefit retirement some of us are still covered under. It's not like it will make us rich, or replace enough of our pre-retirement income, but we will receive a set amount each month, and it even contains a not unreasonable inflation adjustment, at least not unreasonable by last year's inflation numbers.
I guess you just never know.
But I do hope you get a hole in one eventually.
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