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| retirement (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012) |
Financial planner Ross Levin made that statement in an interview back in early 2009, and it has stuck with me. It illustrates that even when we think we've laid the groundwork for the rest of our lives, unanticipated events have a way of upending those plans.
That was apparent in the recent Discuss forum thread in which I queried Morningstar.com readers about when they retired. Morningstar's user base consists of investors, so it probably wasn't too surprising that many readers managed to retire early, with ample resources to see them through. In contrast with the general population, where the average retirement age is 64 for men and 62 for women, the median retirement age cited by posters in the thread was 58 and the average was 59 (as of late Wednesday.) Some posters conjectured--not unreasonably--that our sample skewed toward younger retirees because people who had retired closer to the average retirement age didn't consider their stories to be notable.
But beyond the statistics, posters also shared a huge range of experiences. Some lucky souls noted that they had been in complete control every step of the way, making their money early and retiring in their early 50s and even 40s (giving most of the rest of us a bit of an inferiority complex, I might add). Others said they didn't have as much control. They were ousted due to downsizing, stepped down for health reasons, or left because their working environment had become too stressful. (This last group was pretty large.) ... Continue to read.
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