Boy, AI people sure look happy. Don’t the settings look idyllic? And, let’s be honest, this is probably what we want retirement to feel like. These people haven’t a care in the world and everything seems pretty perfect and golden. I don’t think I’ll ever see a retirement like this. If I do retire, it’ll be because I was forced out of a job because of age, salary, or a myriad other excuses people use to get rid of the old person.
Forced retirement is the scenario that we all want to avoid, but it’s not something that we can control for the most part. The anxiety of being “pensioned off” — as the British like to say — is not something anyone relishes. Though, truth be told, if most people did have pensions, maybe retirement wouldn’t feel apocalyptic. But, for the vast majority of Americans, their inability to save enough for the years when they are too old to be employable but too young to die is not a moral failing, but rather a reality of one’s working life. Recessions, layoffs, unexpected expenses, aging parents, adult children who still need financial help, and a new car can crimp your retirement saving plan to the point that whatever you’re able to sock away is a trickle from what you ought to be saving.
There’s no shortage of financial planning specialists whose advice is probably sound, but also full of details that can be a little overwhelming. Sometimes, what one needs to kickstart a real mediation on one’s retirement is getting a rough ballpark figure.
Back in April 2024, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a piece with the title “This is the new magic number for retirement in California — and what it means for you.” It seemed a bit clickbaity, but this morning it bubbled up as I was doomscrolling the news on the Chronicle’s app. I thought, “Okay, I’m going to guess you need about a million and some change” if you plan on staying in California. And yes, staying in The Golden State means you have to mine a lot of gold before you get a nicely-worded, All Office email that few if any will read announcing that you are indeed retiring. But how much do you need to save? One financial advisor in the article said, “It’s relative to what kind of retirement lifestyle they’d like to have.” Okay, maybe sitting on a park bench with your significant other looking happily at something off in the distance while your trusted pets and a picnic basket surround you sounds good. Well, that might cost less than vacationing at some beautiful beach with summer cocktails in hand (and a book that you’ll be too drunk to read). If option two is what you want, you’ll likely need more than 4% a year of your total savings. If you want an average, “what day is it today?” kind of retirement, you could probably do alright with the 4% rule.
But, I’m not good with percentages. My 3rd Grade elementary school teacher (who died decades ago) would, if you could exhume her, reanimate her, and get her newly revived corpse to remember me, would say, “Yeah, he was pretty lousy with decimals, percentages, and fractions.” But times tables isn’t too hard. Fortunately, in the same Chronicle article, they note a quick and easy way to ballpark what you’ll need: Ariana Alisjahbana, lead adviser with North Berkeley Wealth Management, offered a “good rule of thumb” to start with that’s more personalized than a single “magic” number: 25 times your annual expenses.
Huh. Well, I did the math (with a calculator of course) and I got the total of a little over one million dollars. That’s a lot of money.
I bring all this up because of a couple of things — one of which is my own sense of “Will I ever be able to retire?” The other comes from talking to the son of one of my friends last week. He works as a fisherman. He also wants to eventually captain his own boat with the goal of retiring at fiftysomething — and he has a 25-30 year plan to accomplish that. Pretty ambitious and I think if he sticks with the plan, he’ll be able to do it. He’s part of Gen Z. If you agree with the whole notion of generational characteristics you’ll likely know that Gen Z tends to value leisure time over work. It’s not laziness. It’s making leisure a priority of living. That’s why this generation wants to retire early. Like 58-60 years old early. So, those Gen Z’ers who are working are taking steps to plan for their early retirements by being more diligent about saving money. I hope it works for them and they can be like our AI generated friends pictured above.
But, for us olds, we know this long strange trip is not a straight line. There’s a lot of contingency in the game of life, and sometimes the “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley” — or so wrote Robert Burns in 1785. Maybe Burns wanted to retire in his 50s, but poor health got him and he died at 37.
Best laid plans, indeed. Well, I’m a lot older than Burns was when his life plans went awry. I still buy green bananas. I still feel younger than my Logan’s Run lifeclock says, and I still devote a lot of time thinking what life will be like when I don’t have to work. What is that life like? Well, it involves things I already like to do. That’s heartening because it means that my life isn’t defined by how I make my living.