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I often read on HD and elsewhere about retirement and plans to retire in the early 60s and quite often in the 50s even a rare 40s. What happened?
We live longer, we are able to sustain our health and stamina longer in most cases, many jobs have become less physically demanding than in the past and yet age 55 seems to be the new 65 for retirement – or has it?
One would think with the above changes and the generally poor nature of retirement financial planning, we would be moving the retirement age up.
Why do people think they can retire in their 50s and financially sustain themselves for thirty plus years? I wonder if there is sufficient experience out there to answer that question?
My perception may not be reality though. I don’t think anyone knows the accurate average retirement age. I searched and found both 64-67 and age 62. One site said retirement age is actually increasing.
Perhaps we are more exposed to the early retirement success stories which are increasingly not average. Maybe my retiring at 67 was not as abnormal as I thought.
I retired the first time at age 47. It was wonderful…until it wasn’t. I played every day doing anything I wanted. But, all my friends were still working so there was no playing with them and playing by myself quickly grew stagnant. After 8 months I compensated by finding two FT work situations and maintained those until I completely retired at age 61.
I was fortunate that I hadn’t burned any bridges, could return to my vocation and that age was not a barrier.
Early retirement ain’t for sissies.
I think this is largely spot on. What you may be “missing” could be that with our advancing technology and access to the internet more people are reaching and reaching out for the “self-actualization” phase of life. We don’t want to grind it out until we’re 65 or whatever.
The people are really talking about FIRE and the like are saving like crazy in order to finance their long retirements. I know, as I’m one of them. We’re at over 35% savings rate, which is considered low in some FIRE circles.
But I think that you’re right. Somewhat paradoxically, the actual retirement age is increasing. This is likely due to two factors: (1) there are still many people who simply don’t want to ever quit working, so they charge on; and (2) the masses who are not like me are not saving enough to retire at almost any age, so they have to keep working.
I mostly lurk on this forum but was motivated to reply to represent early retirees like me. I retired in my 50s because I had saved more than enough in both tax deferred and brokerage and was thoroughly fed up of work. I realize that this forum skews towards people retiring at a conventional retirement age but there are other forums like Mr Money Mustache where you can see many example of people retiring early and enjoying their retirement
I’ve visited that site and others similar and found the definition of retired is stretched quite a bit. Generally, not actual retirement but more like working on their terms. Heck even MMM makes money blogging. That’s working.