May 1, 2012 at 8:55 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Work to Live
May 2, 2012 at 6:23 am
Pensions are a frightening thing - 5 years delay can wipe a few grand a year off your return so save, save, save!
I know people only just starting to put money away in their forties and they have to put in 30% of their income to even come close to getting a decent amount when they retire. The earlier you can start the better, even if it's just a small amount because of the compound interest effect.
You can't rely on a state pension being there (particularly in my case as I've got almost 50 years to go at present) and even if you do get it, do you really want to live on pittance a week?
I use this to estimate what my pension will work out like and so far I'm not putting in enough and I probably need to at least double my contribution over the next 5 years, but I expect to do that more through salary increases than percentage put in.
May 2, 2012 at 7:01 am
Steve,
I cannot agree more with your editorial. A hard lesson I learned many years ago (unfortunately not soon enough) was that we work to live -- not live to work. This sage advice is especially important when you have children at home. When I had my own business I kept telling myself that the long hours I put in were for my kids. While that's true in a way, I also missed out on some very special times of their lives that cannot be recovered. Money lost can always be recovered, time cannot.
Aaron
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May 2, 2012 at 7:34 am
I have seen a lot of people on their deathbeds throughout the years and I never heard one of them say "You know, I wish I spent more time at the office." You have to keep life and work in the proper perspective.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
May 2, 2012 at 8:48 am
I agree with your post, but have trouble reconciling it with the Modern Resume, which suggests blogging, tweeting, and speaking about your professional life, in addition to the work you do for your employer. I say "in addition" because I think most employers budget for and expect 40 hours of your time to be spent on the work they want done, and probably don't want to pay you on 10 hours a month or so to work on your personal brand, so this work bleeds into the home life. I certainly am all for a good work/life balance, and I am also for the Modern Resume idea, I just worry that it contributes to an improper work/life balance. I'm really struggling with this these days. I'm trying to get some blog posts going, but it's just not happening very quickly (there's that lawn to cut, the birthday party to plan, the drain to fix...). Achieving a balanced life, while being ambitious, has probably never been easy, but I wonder if our increasingly connected world, and our desire to leverage that, is making this even harder?
Save early and often is very, very good advice, btw, advice I got and wish I had followed, because there's no making that up now.
May 2, 2012 at 8:56 am
I used to be a strong believer in regular funding of my retirement account, but now I'm less likely to do so. The finances for the USA are in horrific shape, and it is not beyond the pale to believe that an individual's "personal" retirement funds will be confiscated by the government at some point in the future. There have actually been discussions in congress about this already. The feeling is that we were "allowed" to accumulate these funds tax free and so some percentage of them can be considered as government property. Most people should plan on working as long as they can as I believe retirement will very soon be a thing of the past. If you look at the history of the world, mass retirement is a fairly recent phenomenon (1950s) and one that is probably unattainable for the majority of people born in 1960 or later.
May 2, 2012 at 9:02 am
I think it depends on how you look at it.
Sure, nobody has the final regret "I wish I'd spent more time at the office". (Well, it's not usual. Given the right [wrong] family life, maybe more time in the office would have been good for a few people.)
But plenty of people can rightfully take pride in "I worked hard and provided the best service I knew how to my co-workers/customers/clients/whatever" at the end of the workday or the end of their career.
There's definitely a sense of positive self-worth that comes from knowing that what you do professionally is top-quality.
Service to others is often our most important legacy. That includes family, but it can also include working for an employer you can be proud of and doing work you can be certain is the best you are capable of. If, at the end of the day, your only thought about work is "Thank God it's 5PM and I can finally go home! I wish it were Friday!", and it's never "Wow! I got a lot done today! It was a good day!", then seriously look for a better job. Might not be an option, but keep some hope if at all possible and keep looking. (Sure, even in the best jobs at the best companies, there are days that just can't end soon enough. It's a question of which end-of-day/end-of-week is most common. If ten days of work contain 6 "It was a good day"s and 4 "Today sucked"s, you're probably on the right track, but might need to work on improving the ratio.)
Just something to keep in mind.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 2, 2012 at 9:14 am
zintp (5/2/2012)
I agree with your post, but have trouble reconciling it with the Modern Resume, which suggests blogging, tweeting, and speaking about your professional life, in addition to the work you do for your employer.
Either I have done a poor job communicating, or you misunderstoond. The Modern Resume isn't about this and that and the other. It's about ORs. You do the thing(s) that work for you, and fir within your life.
I say "in addition" because I think most employers budget for and expect 40 hours of your time to be spent on the work they want done, and probably don't want to pay you on 10 hours a month or so to work on your personal brand, so this work bleeds into the home life.
True, but working on your career is your job. Lots of employers are willing to give some time, but I think most would balk at anything beyond 4 hours (10%). You have to ask for something, and work with your employer, and work on things relevant to them.
However you don't need 10 hours a month. You can do that, but you need to decide what works. I'd say you could blog in 15-20 minutes a week. You might not get a post done, but maybe you'd get 1/2 of one. And your skills will improve. You could spend 15 minutes a day somewhere, which is 10 hours a month. If you can't spare 15 minutes a day, then try for 15 every other day, or twice a week. You ought to do something, but make it work within your life and accept the trades. If you can't spend much time this year, try for next year. Or next quarter.
I certainly am all for a good work/life balance, and I am also for the Modern Resume idea, I just worry that it contributes to an improper work/life balance.
I hope not. Maybe I need to stress that at the beginning. The whole idea is that you want to raise your brand and the awareness of your skills, but it shouldn't infringe on the rest of your life much.
Doctors, CPAs, Lawyers, all have continuing education and make investments in their career regularly. Some do it with a class on weekends, some get work to pay, some read at night. I know I could find 10 minutes a day to work on something new, but not sure I could get an hour right now. I'd need to let something else go in my life, and I don't want to do that. I value the time with my kids and wife, and career comes after that. That's my choice, not yours. Follow the path that works for you.
The key is finding a way to fit things in, sacrificing a little of your time, not a lot. Then you need to accept that you will only improve your career by the amount of time you can spend on it. That's OK. Learn to work within the limitations, and the balance, that works for you and your family.
May 2, 2012 at 9:19 am
I'll be working pretty much until I die. :w00t: Forget social [in]security, the government has already spent every penny you paid in and when that ran out they borrowed and printed 1000 times more than that.
The good thing is that if you have been consistently working on the leading edge in your field (i.e. Database-Software design & dev) and have continually built upon your skills over the years and are up on latest tools and languages you will always be in demand (somewhere).
I've been saving, but not as much as I should have ... considering how much money has been being printed and how massive government spending is. The course has been laid in and the "Titanic" is well on it way to its final destiny.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
May 2, 2012 at 9:24 am
MdApache (5/2/2012)
I used to be a strong believer in regular funding of my retirement account, but now I'm less likely to do so. The finances for the USA are in horrific shape, and it is not beyond the pale to believe that an individual's "personal" retirement funds will be confiscated by the government at some point in the future. There have actually been discussions in congress about this already. The feeling is that we were "allowed" to accumulate these funds tax free and so some percentage of them can be considered as government property. Most people should plan on working as long as they can as I believe retirement will very soon be a thing of the past. If you look at the history of the world, mass retirement is a fairly recent phenomenon (1950s) and one that is probably unattainable for the majority of people born in 1960 or later.
Agreed. The current " spread the wealth and punish achievement " mentality will probably eventually result in this happening. Those that have worked hard and have been responsibly investing will be demonized as evil, or perhaps that they "stole" it from other people. Sad, but that where we are headed.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
May 2, 2012 at 9:31 am
MdApache (5/2/2012)
I used to be a strong believer in regular funding of my retirement account, but now I'm less likely to do so. The finances for the USA are in horrific shape, and it is not beyond the pale to believe that an individual's "personal" retirement funds will be confiscated by the government at some point in the future. There have actually been discussions in congress about this already. The feeling is that we were "allowed" to accumulate these funds tax free and so some percentage of them can be considered as government property. Most people should plan on working as long as they can as I believe retirement will very soon be a thing of the past. If you look at the history of the world, mass retirement is a fairly recent phenomenon (1950s) and one that is probably unattainable for the majority of people born in 1960 or later.
I fund mine on the basis that, if it works out, wonderful. If the government has to steal from it and wipes it out, then we're looking at a collapse so thorough that money probably will be the least of my concerns at that point anyway.
It'll go one of two ways, the way I see it. Either we'll muddle through despite the government and my 401(k) will be a good thing, or civilization will collapse, we'll have riots and looting and probably revert to city-states (the most common form of goverment in human history) and the lost money won't matter in the slightest. So I either gain by funding it, or I don't lose anything that matters in the long run by funding it, so I fund it on a "why not" basis.
Trusting the goverment is just a form of Helsinki Syndrome, in my opinion.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
May 2, 2012 at 9:37 am
GSquared (5/2/2012)
Trusting the goverment is just a form of Helsinki Syndrome, in my opinion.
Excellent analogy.
I happen to think people that believe government has their best interests at heart lack critical thinking skills, and may even be brain impaired.;-)
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.
May 2, 2012 at 9:46 am
So I either gain by funding it, or I don't lose anything that matters in the long run by funding it, so I fund it on a "why not" basis.
I concur that the gamblers argument (very similar to Pascals argument for believing in God) is quite sound in this respect 😀
May 2, 2012 at 9:51 am
I used to be a strong believer in regular funding of my retirement account, but now I'm less likely to do so. The finances for the USA are in horrific shape, and it is not beyond the pale to believe that an individual's "personal" retirement funds will be confiscated by the government at some point in the future. There have actually been discussions in congress about this already. The feeling is that we were "allowed" to accumulate these funds tax free and so some percentage of them can be considered as government property. Most people should plan on working as long as they can as I believe retirement will very soon be a thing of the past. If you look at the history of the world, mass retirement is a fairly recent phenomenon (1950s) and one that is probably unattainable for the majority of people born in 1960 or later.
I used to think that public sector employees that got a pension for life had it better than us in the private sector but now I'm not so sure. We have to self fund much of our retirement but at least that money is safe. Sure, it can lose value. Even when Lehman Brothers collapsed 4 years ago the customer $ was still intact.
Ken
May 2, 2012 at 10:06 am
ken.trock (5/2/2012)
I used to be a strong believer in regular funding of my retirement account, but now I'm less likely to do so. The finances for the USA are in horrific shape, and it is not beyond the pale to believe that an individual's "personal" retirement funds will be confiscated by the government at some point in the future. There have actually been discussions in congress about this already. The feeling is that we were "allowed" to accumulate these funds tax free and so some percentage of them can be considered as government property. Most people should plan on working as long as they can as I believe retirement will very soon be a thing of the past. If you look at the history of the world, mass retirement is a fairly recent phenomenon (1950s) and one that is probably unattainable for the majority of people born in 1960 or later.
I used to think that public sector employees that got a pension for life had it better than us in the private sector but now I'm not so sure. We have to self fund much of our retirement but at least that money is safe. Sure, it can lose value. Even when Lehman Brothers collapsed 4 years ago the customer $ was still intact.
Ken
That was not, however, true for the collpse of MF Global. Bankruptcy judge ruled that segregated customers' accounts could be used to pay of creditors, and they were. Ask Gerald Celente.
Re $ still intact, according to the official numbers dollar is today worth 73 cents of what it was on the day when Obama was sworn in. That is not an incentive to save and invest.
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