It's annoying to me, but I find myself thinking about money a lot lately. I think part of it is the fact that I just realized I have less than a year before I can retire (or not) from a job that I have been doing for close to two decades now. I guess along with money I have been thinking about time a lot too, but thinking about time I find a little less annoying.
Over that 25 year period that I have been working in this sector, I have been doing what I can to offset my retirement savings. My dad was lucky enough to work in a job where he had a guaranteed pension. That is becoming a less common thing now, which honestly has pluses and minuses if you ask me. I'll get to that in a second though.
Besides his pension, my parents have zero other investments. Sure, they get social security, but I always knew growing up, there might come a day when social security was gone. While it has worked out pretty well for my mom and dad, I don't think the younger generations have the same luxury. The price of housing is much higher, interest rates are crazy, inflation is out of control, and any number of other things are being thrown at us.
As I said, I knew there might come a day when I couldn't count on the system anymore, so I made the decision pretty early on (but not as early as I would have liked) to start investing on my own. I've always said, I wouldn't be mad if they gave us control of our pension money. I've been getting a pretty good return on my side investments, so I often wonder if I would have been able to do better with my pension funds than whoever is in charge of it.
That money is just kind of out there. I don't really pay too much attention to it. I know it is going to go up and down before I get to the point where I really need to count on it. I just let it ride.
However, like my cracked windshield I got the other day, I know we are just one major catastrophe away from all of that hard work going to crap. The initial impact is bad enough, but then the cracks start to form and expand and before you know it, the best laid plans are all blown to poo.
@mrsbozz and I have some friends and one of them recently went through some major medical issues. Unfortunately, due to the state of the healthcare system in the US, and a variety of other factors, they have been decimated by this. This was a person that my wife used to look up to for their financial prowess. They had their crap together and were thriving with lots of money in savings, (not very much money in investments), and a life plan that would put them in a good place come retirement age.
Now, however, it looks like they are both going to be working a lot longer than they had planned. It's heartbreaking to be honest, and you can see the way it has impacted the family. I think the hardest part is we have seen them "pull back" from us due to their circumstances. I get it, but it still doesn't make it hurt any less. It's hard when you know it is nothing you have done, and there is nothing you can do, but you still see that gap widening.
I've started to realize how important it is for @mrsbozz and I to have some kind of emergency savings. All the investments in the world aren't going to help if you need money right away. The experts say you need something like six months worth of your monthly bills in savings to have a decent emergency fund. We all know that won't put a dent in any medical bills you might incur from said emergency, which is also a terrifying thought.
I appreciate that my wife and I are pretty blessed. I can't help but think of the countless people in the world who don't have the kind of stability that we do. I also can't help but acknowledge how fragile that stability is. Like I said, as you get older, you realize that even one major medical emergency can lay to waste all the best laid plans.
For many people even achieving stability is a pipe dream. Sustaining it as the title indicates is the stuff of fairytales. I also think about how short term people's mindset is. Sometimes by choice and sometimes not. I don't know, it's just been on my mind a lot lately, and I felt like putting it down here on Hive. I'm guessing I am not the only one who has felt this way and maybe knowing that someone else worries about the same things as you makes them a little less scary...
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