A Road to Retirement

September 1, 2006, was my first day of retirement. After sixty-four and a half years I was able to retire from the working world. Over forty-five years of employment and I am able to enjoy the leisure life of not having to work. The road was long and sometimes bumpy. My road may be entirely different than the road young workers will have to take to reach the age when they can retire. This is an article about my road. My experience may help some young person avoid the pitfalls and mistakes I made on my road to retirement.

To begin with I graduated from high school in June of 1960. I thought high school was enough and elected to search for employment after graduation instead of continuing with education. This was my first mistake. Back in 1960 just a high school education was the minimum amount of education you needed. Today the minimum education is much higher. You will have many years to be able to work so get as much education as possible. Higher education opens many doors that are slammed shut with just a high school diploma.

One thing I did right was get the credit situation resolved. As soon as I started to work I applied for a credit account with a major department store and a gas company. They both awarded me a small account. This was before Visa and Master Card. To date I still have a stellar credit rating. One must remember to stay way below the allowed credit limit. Also, a monthly payment is very important. The preferred amount is the balance due, not the minimum amount allowed. Credit card interest is a gigantic black hole and too many young credit card holders fall into it and spend years climbing out. My credit rating has allowed me to purchase houses, cars, and many toys the American consumer enjoys.

I should have done more planning. It is difficult to think about retirement when you are young. I did not set money aside for retirement. I was planning on retiring with a company pension program, Social Security and a savings account. Many young people I talk to state that they have not made any retirement plans. They are concerned about paying daily bills and setting nothing aside. The forty years of working goes faster than you think. And before you know it your planning years are over and one must accept the conditions of the time.

I am sixty-eight and it will be four years in September since I retired. I have lived and worked in Denver Colorado most of my life. Many my age was under the dream that they could work for an employer and they would have a large retirement fund. Today that is usually a dream. Many companies are eliminating this benefit. My last employer froze their pension program in 2001. This means it is just a matter of time when the company can be free of all obligations from this pension program. My pension payment is very small from this company, much less than I anticipated when I was young. I must say I did not realize I was saving for retirement. I was fortunate to have real estate investment appreciate substantially. Selling this property allowed me to retire. I guess I was investing for retirement and didn't realize it.

Since my wife and I retired our budget has basically stayed the same. The biggest lifestyle change we made was paying off all of our credit obligations. We do not intend to buy anything on credit again. Credit worked fine when working, however, credit does not have a place in our retired lifestyle. All credit cards are paid in full each month.

Retirement finances haven't gone exactly as planned. When I retired I expected to enjoy income from interest, dividends and capital gains. With the recession these sources have basically dried up. Fortunately I did not have all my eggs in one basket. We didn't plan on losing a substantial amount in investments and the home value decrease. We are still able to enjoy retirement but not as much as anticipated.