CNN Money has a sad but stark reality article on how 25% of Retirees have no savings. This particular topic is of great interest to me, because of the situation my father is in.
More than half, 53%, said they were not confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement.
My father is a prime example of someone who did not prepare for retirement at all. Not because he wasn’t planning to retire, but it was a procrastination of “I’ll take care of it later”. At the age of 53 he was forced into retirement due to a medical condition and has been on disability ever since. He worked in concrete for 40 years and now had no retirement, no pension, no savings, and has since been living on disability paycheck to disability paycheck.
Fortunately for him he has someone (me) to take care of him. He lives with me in my house and helps out a lot where he can, which helps me out. But what if he didn’t have any children? I’m sure one of his siblings would take him in, but they are of the same generation, so if something were to happen to them then it becomes a more volatile situation.
I feel for the older generation these days, with such an unsteady economy. Having some income on the side, even if you think you can hold out for the recession to end and for things to pick back up, would be a great way to sorta enforce your retirement plans.
The worst part about -my- generation (Generation X – in their late 20’s/early 30’s) is that many of us were born a little later so that when we are ready to go off to college or starting young families, some of us have to take care of retiring or medically handicapped parents at the same time. That puts an extra stress on us financially.
So what is the current retiring generation to do?
Related Posts
Pingback: Money Drain: Trying the “Get Rich Quick” schemes lost them everything | The Money Drain