Let’s face it, the economy is a shambles. Unemployment is high, retail sales are low. We don’t know when things will get better.
I’ve got more questions than answers. How does a very long economic downturn affect those currently retired, those about to retire, those not too far from retirement? Should we be changing how we handle things? Has the advice changed? What remains the same? What is different?
Many of the questions are money questions. What if my savings took a hit? What if we come out of the recession with a galloping inflation? Should I be more conservative? Should I save even more? What will happen to my pension, my savings, social security?
Others questions are more personal. My husband planned to work a couple of more years. He loved his job, teaching math at a high school close enough for him to ride his bicycle. His job felt very secure. Even a couple of years ago, high school math teachers were in very short supply. He felt so confident that he took a retirement incentive from one school district and went to work at another with a shorter commute. That put him on the wrong side of the seniority line when his school district found that they had to lay off teachers. He lost his job when he wasn’t ready. He’s now facing a totally different job market for Math teachers than he saw a few years ago. Though a couple of additional years of income would have been great, the money isn’t the biggest issue here. Retirement when you aren’t ready to retire is. He doesn’t want to retire. He feels like he still has something to give in the workforce.
So, I went looking for internet articles discussing how to deal with retirement in the midst of a financial mess. Below are a few of my favorites.
The first article is by Liz Pullman Weston and addresses people in situations like my husband’s: “Can you be retired and not know it?”
From MSN Money here’s an article on “How the downturn is remaking retirement”.
Liz Pullman Weston at MSN Money has another useful article: “How to retire in bad times.”
My whole working life we’ve worried about inflation, what if we’re retiring during a time of deflation? See one perspective at The Motley Fool’s “Deflation, bring it on.”
Smart Money also addresses deflation: “Retirement, what to do if deflation strikes.”
AARP has some articles on what happens to a pension if your employer goes bankrupt:
http://www.aarp.org/work/employee-benefits/info-01-2009/money_retired_employer_bankruptcy.html
Most of this discussion is less than cheerful so I’ll finish with some more upbeat articles from the blog, “Retirement a full time job” where Syd has several posts on retiring in a recession.
What do you think? What should we have done differently? What should we change at this point?
I don’t know. Retirement is now a one-way street. Going back to the workforce at an older age is difficult now. I would not second-guess retirement decisions, just try to figure out what to do next. I certainly had no intentions of retiring for another four years. Retirement caught me unaware.
I love your blog name. Bill too is a reluctant retiree. He can work some as a sub and tutoring but we’ll have to figure out where to go with the new situation. One plan is to take a cross-country skiing vacation to Yellowstone. I’ve always wanted to do that but Bill could never take vacation during the school year. He also called his buddy to take a bicycle trip in October. He’ll enjoy both.
Thanks for commenting.
I’m sorry to hear that you, like many people are having to retire before you are ready. Tough times. My husband actually made his job change 5 years ago – before the “Great Recession”.