By Gozar
One of my worst fear is realized, early retirement won’t boost your lifespan. This solves the one argument against raising the retirement age for Social Security! Raising the retirement age to 70 has caused all sorts of backlash. As somone who was born after 1960, my retirement age is already 67. Another three years is not that big of leap, especially if I’ll live longer by working till 70! Obviously, if you want to maximize your life span, you do not want to retire early.
If you don’t want to wait until 70, then plan for your retirement. Max out your Roth IRA… Look into your companies 401(k), 403(b) or any other retirement services offered. Putting $4,000 a year into a Roth IRA over 35 years earning 8% will yield you over $744,000! Might not be enough to retire on, but could make retirement a little sweeter. Starting 5 years earlier your amount goes over a million dollars.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:34 pm
I thought these articles were supposed to be funny. This one is just depressing.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice if one could assume that the longer years lived would be worth it? but in today’s world, live for the moment has new meaning. years of being too arthritic to feed yourself or too demented to have a legitimate conversation are all to common. Personally, I’m a proponent of saving early, retiring early, and dying early. You might think this a crazy perspective, and rightfully so…
October 24th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
It depends on what you want to do in retirement. If you look at the article, the people who retired at 55 lived to be 72, giving them 17 years in retirement. The ones who retired at 65 lived to be 80, which gave them only 15 years in retirement.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
Mischief, you’re right! Save early, retire early, die early. Seventeen years in retirement sounds pretty good, and you’ll probably be able to do more near the end at 72 then retiring at 65 and living to 80.
October 25th, 2005 at 8:55 am
Marge : When we got married, is this how you thought we’d be spending our Saturdays? Driving out to the boondocks to trade in a refrigerator motor?
Homer : Eh, I never thought I’d live this long.