Which Is Your Retirement Readiness Quadrant?

If you answered yes to both questions, you’ve got it made. You can retire at will. Or you can continue to work. Either way, you have enough resources that worrying about the future isn’t part of your daily schedule. How many people are in this situation? Not many, if reader mail is any indication.

The two places in-between

The second-best position is a “yes, no” answer: able to retire but not able to continue working. Think of it as a “just-in-time” retirement. Like it or not, your job disappears just as you’ve paid off the mortgage and have put in enough years for a good pension, 401(k) balance, or both. Your savings will buy a lot of cruise tickets and you can use them to make the psychological transition easier.

The third-best position is a “no, yes” answer: Not able to retire but able to continue working. Your future isn’t assured, but if you get the message and work long enough, you’ll move up to position two. Your future can be improved. Like the first two positions, your tools are time, saving, and return on investment— conventional financial planning.

If your answers put you in this third position, you should do a reality check. While it’s easy to find articles on re-imagining retirement, active retirements, etc., the sorry truth is that millions more people believe they have this option than actually have it. A recent study at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that individuals in their 50s were likely to experience one or more shocks that could dramatically reduce their retirement security.

The odds of an unpleasant shock

Worse, it was more likely that you would experience one of these shocks than not. The study found there was a 69 percent chance that between age 51 and age 61 an individual would experience at least one of these events:

• A major medical condition (41.3%),
• A health-related work limitation (33.7%),
• Severe disability (6.9%),
• Enter a nursing home (3.4%),
• Be laid off from job (18.7%),
• Be divorced (2.3%),
• Or be widowed (7.3%).

The percentages for each event, by the way, add to more than 69 percent because some individuals experienced more than one of the events. When it rains, it pours.

 Only 3 people in 10 get through their 50s unscathed.

That reality— the near inevitability of major adversity—is one of the reasons so many people in their 50s or early 60s will be in the worst position. They will give a “no, no” answer.  They aren’t able to retire, but they aren’t able to continue working. Ready or not, retirement has come for you.

How big is this group? If surveys are any indication, it’s as large as the other three groups combined.

Should this be a cause of despair? I don’t think so. At the risk of being accused of delusional optimism, I think people can do as much with how they arrange their lives— how they live— than they can do with savings and financial assets. The economics of living comes from how we live our lives, not from stocks and bonds.

On the Web:

Boston College Center for Retirement Research: “How Secure Are Retirement Nest Eggs? http://www.bc.edu/centers/crr/ib_45.shtml

L.A. Times Story, “Many Forced To Retire Early”  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-forcedout15may15,1,6236598,print.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.

Photo: Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels

(c) A. M. Universal, 2006