What is Your Plan for the 2nd Half of Life [Survey]

What is Your Plan?

Do you have a plan for the 2nd half of life?

According to a study on retirement confidence by the Employee Benefit Research Institute published last week, most of us are not prepared and probably have no plan for the 2nd half of life.

According to an article by Yahoo Finance, When retiring isn’t an option: ‘I couldn’t retire if I wanted to’,

The author wrote:

Last month the New York Federal Reserve released a report that found that people over 50 are carrying more debt than they had in the past. It found that the debt held by younger borrowers dropped slightly from 2003 to 2015, whereas debt held by people between ages 50 and 80 spiked by 60% over the same period.

What types of borrowing play the largest role in the observed surge in debt at older ages? 

The average 65-year-old had $27,259 in mortgage debt (including a home equity line of credit, or HELOC) in 2003. By 2015, that figure climbed 47% to $40,000, according to NY Fed data. The same age group carried $2,973 in auto loan debt in 2003, and $3,830 in 2015 – a 29% increase. Credit card debt levels remained around the same for 60- and 65-year-olds – and even dropped moderately – between 2003 and 2015. Student loan debt increased among 65-year-olds over the same period.

I have written before on this blog that going back for a college degree after 50 years of age makes no monetary sense most of the time. It does make sense if you just want to learn but do not take on any new debt. Well…

Have You Run a Retirement Calculator

Even if you are like me and have no intention of ever retiring, have you run a retirement calculator?

In late 2010, when I was put in a highly unethical position at work, I went to my financial advisor and had him run a retirement calculator. His calculator ran a Monte Carlo simulation—and the result was that there was a 95% probability that, if both my wife and I lived to 95 years of age, we would not run out of money.

Remember I said I have no intention of retiring. But doing this gave me reassurance that it was okay to take a risk and start Career Pivot.

If you are not sure what to do next, I highly recommend you listen to the Retirement Answer Man Podcast. I have been interviewed by Roger Whitney, Mr. Retirement Answer Man, multiple times. It is a great podcast.

Your Plan Will Differ from Your Parents’

As I get ready to turn 60 years old this year, I have reflected back on how different I am from my father at the same age. My father was an economist for the New York Stock Exchange for over 25 years when he was forced into early retirement at the age of 58. I feel much younger and fitter than he was at the same age. I am in a much better mental state, too (long story there!).

My plan is very different from my parents’. I never plan to stop working. I just do not want to do what I did for 30+ years, which was being a technology guy who inhaled complicated technologies and spit them back out in a variety of formats, both online and offline in a culturally neutral way that anyone could understand. I am not doing that anymore!

I want to continue to work at something I love. I want to be able to choose to work a lot or a little. I want to work from anywhere. I want flexibility.

Do any of these “wants” sound familiar?

What is Your Plan?

Do you plan to retire? Can you retire? For most of our generation, the answer is NO.

By the way, I think retirement for most of us is a stupid idea.

You need a plan—and it will take quite awhile to execute. The idea for Career Pivot started in 2008 in the depth of the great recession. Today, I am 8 years in from the day the idea sparked in my head. Career Pivot as a brand, website, and company has been around for just over 4 years.

Start that plan today!

Survey

The survey associated with this post is closed. Check out the results in the post What is Your Plan for the 2nd Half of Life [Infographic]

Please check out the results from previous surveys.

Marc Miller  

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