I get one point for every year I work for my current employer. Those points are added to my age to determine if I'm eligible to retire. The total number must be 85 or higher if I want to receive a regular retirement check.
If I work for my current employer for 29 more years, I'll have 86 points, meaning I can retire at age 55.
Retiring at 55 sounds excellent, especially for those co-workers who have already passed that age. What sounds less excellent is the other number, 29. Really? Twenty-nine more years? I haven't even been alive that long - it will take another lifetime PLUS three years of work before I can retire.
Of course, there are other things that could happen. I could take a lump sum payment from work's retirement program, getting some money but not the full benefit. And there are other investments to make outside of work, IRAs and funds and such, that could further shrink the retirement age.
We've got it all wrong, though. We need some way to switch the workers and the retired. When I'm old, I won't have much to do, so why not work? I'll be up at 5 in the morning and in bed by dark anyway. Isn't there some way I could take 10 years off now? I'll take 10 years off, spend my days irresponsibly, then work an extra ten years when I'm old, when I'm desperate to get out of the house, away from the wife, etc etc etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment