Originally Posted by
throttleweenie
Well, how about this then? I hear a lot of crap from my F/Os about how us older guys are wrecking their career advancement by staying past 60. I'm at a loss to understand why they tell me this since I was 52 when that was enacted, and thus, got just as screwed as anyone, but I'm assuming that they mean anyone older than them who stays past 60 is screwing everyone junior/younger than them.
TW, I fought age 65 tooth and nail. I bombarded Congress and the FAA with e-mails, letters, and faxes. It's done. Age 65 is the law of the land and that genie can't be put back in the bottle. I'm not going to throw stones at anyone who stays to age 65; it's their choice. Based on retirement numbers, age 65 is now the norm and no one going forward should feel badly about working to age 65.
The only thing that bothers me about the age 65 debate is the excuse that they needed 5 more years to save for retirement. My ex-wife is a spendthrift; no matter how much I tried to change her, she never saved a dime. 11 years after our divorce, she is so deep in debt that she's going to lose her house and have to declare bankruptcy. If one hasn't built up a fairly nice nest egg for retirement by the time they hit 50, chances are that they never will. Saving money for retirement/rainy day isn't fun; it's not sexy and it's a lot of deprivation. It's camping trips with the kids to the local park instead of a trip to Disneyworld. It's buying a used car instead of a new car. It's renting instead of buying that really nice house. If one decides to not save money during their working years, I don't care. But I don't want anyone to come crying to me about having to work a few more years because they don't have enough in savings to retire - if they didn't care enough to save during their peak earning years, I sure as heck don't care that they have to beg on the side of the exit ramp in their senior years.
I post too much personal information but here's another chunk of it: I'm flying out to Denver this weekend to put the final touches on my 22 YO daughter's retirement savings plan; she graduated from nursing school and recently got hired, making a tad more than $22/hr. And she's still babysitting part time for the extra money. She feels rich. She's already set up her 401K to have 3% go into it due to the hospital's 3% match. And now that she's got some money stashed for a rainy day, we're going to set up a Roth IRA for her to max out every year.
None of that's very fun; instead of saving money, she could buy new clothes and take a vacation to Vegas or Cancun. But she's had a front row seat to my ex-wife's financial train wreck and has no desire to follow in her footsteps.