- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmygrad.ml
I spoke the other day about rich people whingeing that they don’t have enough to retire in luxury. In today’s news there is a 67 year old man who hates his job and wants to retire. However the poor thing only has $700K saved up. This only gives him $28K a year in interest. 
Poor old dear still hasn’t paid off his mortgage so how will he manage on that?
How the other half live.
He is financially secure enough, he just doesn’t want to have to downsize and budget - ie live like a normal person. That’s the point of the post, someone who is wealthy enough to retire is whingeing that he can’t afford to retire when the truth is he absolutely can afford to retire if he’s satisfied with living comfortably rather than luxuriously. Most people nowadays will never own their own home, work multiple jobs and go without heating and meals, barely surviving, while this man complains he can’t both retire right now and keep living an above-average lifestyle.
65% of Americans are homeowners. It’s really not that luxurious, especially with a mortgage.
And what is he to downsize to? Renting? He should just subjugate himself to the whims of landlords while on a fixed income if he wants to retire? In a lot of places $28k a year is barely enough for a one bedroom and a car. I lived in a cockroach infested studio with no car when I made that much. It wasn’t even in a major metro area and I’m young and can walk everywhere.
You’re getting mad at a guy that almost managed to play the game right and scrape by instead of the game that fucks most of us over.
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That he can afford this year. He’ll be stuck on 28k/yr until the day he dies. Consider how much rent has gone up since 2020. How long do you think he’d be able to afford living if rent keeps going up at the rate it has lately? Much less other bills like groceries.
And you might be thinking “Oh, well he can just go to one of those rent controlled 55+ places”, but even those go up eventually, and quite frankly I’m not sure if there are enough of them for all the elderly baby boomers in this country.
I think this might be a classic case of hating the player instead of the game.
Assuming he’s owned his current house for more than 5 years, it’s likely the cheapest housing option available to him. Housing prices have exploded in the past ten years and rent has gone up correspondingly. If he sold his house, he might well be trading $1500/month for $2500/month.
We have literally 3 pieces of information on this person:
That is nowhere near enough to determine that they’re financially secure. We don’t even know where they live! ~45k a year is not luxurious living anywhere in the US, and their standard of living will only get worse as inflation continues.
Again, just because some people have it worse than this person doesn’t mean this person is in a “good” situation.
could you link to the news story?the numbers we have are painting a pretty different picture. i.e. someone who added very little to their retirement savings and now has enough to retire to just above the US poverty line. I wouldn’t call that comfortable, especially with the medical expenses of being at retirement age. like from the picture you’re painting of this person is of one less well off than the standard of living working people deserve and that our society is capable of providing them.EDIT: realized it wasn’t a text post.
The link to the story is in the post, I think. All we know is “I’m 67 and desperate to retire. My boss is an absolute tyrant and I hate it every day. I have $700K saved but still have a hefty mortgage.”