Worried About Running Out of Money in Retirement?
Are you concerned about not having enough money to support you in retirement? If so, then check out this (tongue-in-cheek) article from The Onion, which suggests that your best option might simply be to “live less.” Here’s a snippet:
“Taking account of inflation and the rising cost of living versus the projected direction of the economy in the coming decade, I told Mr. Hutchinson that he could significantly reduce his spending by simply living less,” Dalton [a fictional financial planner] said. “After looking at his investments, I calculated that he really shouldn’t live a day over 62—or 59 if he wants a funeral.”
Obviously, this isn’t a particularly attractive path, so… Instead of following their advice, I suggest that you first get a handle on whether or not you’re saving enough for retirement. If not, kick things into gear and start saving more. And finally, you might want to consider creative solution for stretching your savings once you hit retirement age.
Filed under: Retirement, Saving & Investing
About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!
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6 Responses to “Worried About Running Out of Money in Retirement?”
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November 5th, 2008 at 4:31 am
I’m not worried yet but the closer I come to ‘retire’ I’m sure I’ll be a little more worried. Ah well, the best I can do for now is plan and save more (and maybe earn a little more too).
November 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
There are many ways to deal with retirement. People are really starting to think about this due to the recent economy. I think having a good, solid plan is probably a better way to go about it versus ’simply living less’, as darkly comic as that idea is… Getting a financial planner is a great place to start. Retirement is one area where it is important to have a strategic plan. The longer the timeframe until you need the cash, the less change you need to make to a well balanced portfolio. I find that many people panic and make changes they do not need to make.
November 5th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
That Dalton comment was classic. I think that everyone should live as if retirement were right around the corner. If you position your mind to believe that you had to stop working tomorrow, you will develop patterns that lead to a better approach for retirement.
Something to think about:
Would you rather retire with $100,000 or retire making a consistent $4,000 a month every month?
Caleb
http://www.mefinanciallyfree.blogspot.com
November 5th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Hilarious, that’s the plan for some people I know. Due to family history they don’t think they’ll live much past 60, so who cares about retirement. Imagine being sorely disappointed that you lived longer than you expected, and now you don’t have any money to live off of.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Miss M: Reminds me of an episode of House where a patient was mis-diagnosed with a fatal condition. When they figured out that he wasn’t going to die, he wanted to sue. “You didn’t save my life, you ruined my death,” was his reasoning.
January 20th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
For a minute I took the Onion article seriously. I think the best solution is start saving earlier in life and as much as possible.