Retirement might not be in the cards for everyone
Retirement might not be in the cards for everyone
“My Economy” tells the story of the new economic normal through the eyes of people trying to make it, because we know the only numbers that really matter are the ones in your economy.
When it comes to retirement, the barrier for entry is only getting higher. Retirement age is going up around the world, and investors are now advising workers to put away as much as $3 million to fund the rest of their non-working lives.
For those who aren’t planning on retiring in the first place, though, the calculus for saving and spending is different.
“I have never had an expectation that a good day would come when I could just quit working and money would just be there for me to live off of,” said Shelley Rivers, 62, a substitute teacher in Iowa City, Iowa.
Instead, her priorities are less about saving for a future where she’s not working anymore, and more about shoring up enough to continue getting by comfortably.
“My dream would really just be to be able to see my sister now and again, to be able to go visit my brother, and to be able to make things easier for my kids,” Rivers said. “One daughter had to take her cat to the vet, and she just cried when I told her that I could cover the vet bill because she didn’t know how she was going to do it. That I can stop that at least once is a good feeling.”
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