What about only retiring at the age of 80?!

[janvanvurpa]

Maybe you also have a good advice for the people who has the bad luck to live in a place where that percentage is about 90%....

I try to turn my head to avoid sheeeet but what shall I do if it's everywhere?

Do what you can.
Right thoughts, right words, right actions.

[race aficionado]

Do what you can.
Right thoughts, right words, right actions.

And let's avoid jumping out of windows.
It's too messy.

[donKey jote]

Put simply I go to sleep at 01:00 Am and get up around 6:30 (7 at latest if very tired). In between it's called work

Are you self-employed, or have the Austrians not heard of the europäische Arbeitszeitgesetz yet ?

[Malbec]

Put simply I go to sleep at 01:00 Am and get up around 6:30 (7 at latest if very tired). In between it's called work and I can not imagine having time for kids sadly. Add to this being away on business trips for 50% of the time.
I can squeeze in 4 hours of biking during week ends and that's about it for having fun.

Anyway I am glad you can enjoy life, it's just that we have obviously different lives.

In which case ioan maybe you should look at making your current life more enjoyable and getting a better work/life balance NOW while you're fit enough to enjoy it rather than just looking forward to some future retirement in the dim and distant future.

A few years ago I realised that my work life balance was poor and would only worsen (I don't fancy working 24 hour shifts at the age of 60) so I switched specialities to a less taxing one. I don't regret it one bit, especially now with one child (and hopefully more in the future) where I have enough time to enjoy watching him grow up and can be an important part of his life.

Oh yeah move to another country, you're paying way too much tax!

[janvanvurpa]

Are you self-employed, or have the Austrians not heard of the europäische Arbeitszeitgesetz yet ?

Yeah that's my excuse. Self-employed, 2 kids under 8, and living in Fortress America™ where there's a War on.
So I can say truthfully "It's not so bad, on Christmas I only work 1/2 day: 12 hours"

But we're a country of Evangelical Puritans and know that idle hands are the Devil's playthings so we have to work insane hours just to be poor....

Wait, that sounds like a cue for

FOR!!!!!

"The Four Yorkshireman"

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son"
.FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, 'e was
.FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

aye you sound lucky I tell ya.

[ioan]

Guys, thanks for your compassion, however do not worry for me as I am not unhappy with my job, au contraire. I work a lot with people, from different places and cultures, and I like it.
As I am not single, and hopefully this won't change, I am trying to keep my life free of work as much as possible especially during week ends, most of the time it is doable.
Even when I am not working for my job I do something productive at home as that is what relaxes me most! So even if I want to retire early I am not planning to move to a sunny place and enjoy the sea and the sun, no way, I will have more time for my hobbies and hopefully my family!

[FormerFF]

My mother is 81 and is still working three days a week. My inlaws, however, at 80 were both in assisted living.

No question that the retirement age of 65 is unreasonably low these days, by 80 is rather too high. 70 seems more realistic.

Keep in mind that some will arrive in their late 50's or early 60's needing to retire because of health problems. That needs to be dealt with as well.

[FormerFF]

How about retiring when you want to?

Oh Wait. he is talking about the productive funding those who failed to plan financially for their retirement.

As far as I know the majority of people here live in Democracies so to complain so much about how the Government handles your pension is pretty disingenuous. You have for years voted in people who believe they know better how to handle your finances than you do. In other words.......YOU GOT LAZY.

In the USA I pay into Social Security because I have to not because I am under any illusion it will take care of me financially if and when I retire. I have also backed any politician who calls for the privatization of S.S.

The whole basis of being able to save for retirement is that your savings will grow at a a rate that outpaces inflation. That's not been the case this whole century. That's the principal reason that state pension funds are underfunded. If inflation outpaces earnings, precious few of us can possibly save enough to retire.

[gadjo_dilo]

And let's avoid jumping out of windows.
It's too messy.

No. I'm determined to do this. When I'll do it I'll do it in style. And I hope I'll land on the head of the right person.

[gadjo_dilo]

Put simply I go to sleep at 01:00 Am and get up around 6:30 (7 at latest if very tired). In between it's called work and I can not imagine having time for kids sadly. Add to this being away on business trips for 50% of the time.
I can squeeze in 4 hours of biking during week ends and that's about it for having fun.

Anyway I am glad you can enjoy life, it's just that we have obviously different lives.

My father had a busier schedule than you but managed to have 2 kids. The secret was keeping his wife at home ( that also explains my "refined" education:laugh . Quite often he took me and my brother in his trips ( it was easy, he was a driver ). Travelling with him was a real odyssey.....

Except for his daily morning swearing " F.. m....in.....c.... de comunisti" he never complained.