Financial Fantasies and Realities

I took a two-session class on retirement planning at a local university in late March. I’m one of those people who heretofore didn’t want to know if I was saving enough for retirement. I have no idea if not-wanting-to-know is the public norm or not. I only know that my not-wanting-to-know was a function of the fact that even if I wasn’t saving enough, it didn’t matter – I had no more to save. It was what it was, regardless of the sufficiency factor.

The reason I decided to attend the course was two-fold. One is that I have been so stressed at work the last couple of years that for the first time in my life, I have begun to dream about just stopping. I wanted to find out if, in fact, it might be possible. The second reason evolved out of my no-shopping commitment and my determined paying off of credit cards. Put that in the category of the realigning of values.

One of the instructors at this workshop reiterated how emotionally laden the issue of money is. As I listened to other people talk about their individual circumstances, similar themes emerged. Giving. Getting. Saving. Having. Not having. Deserving. Undeserving.   Lots of feelings.

When I opened my first IRA, I had lived in New York City for only a couple of years. I was in my early 30s, and I wasn’t making enough money to get by. I had been lucky enough to get a couple of freelance jobs that paid some lump sums, but with no taxes withheld. Being naïve and grateful for the extra cash, I had no idea about the tax implications – what it meant to be self-employed. So when April 15 came around and the bookkeeper where I worked helped me with my income taxes, for the first time in my life, I owed the government money. Lots of money. Of course, ‘lots of money’ is a relative concept, but when you don’t have it, owing anything is a serious blow. The bookkeeper suggested that if I opened an IRA, it would cut down on my debt. Well, I did have $2000 which represented payment from one of those freelance jobs. I had been hoarding it for months as my first-ever safety net and NOBODY was going to take it away from me. I remember standing in the usual long line at my bank during a lunch hour, ready to open an IRA account with that money, and thinking (in almost a panic) that this was like a commitment to LIVE until at least age 59-1/2 to get my money back. Now approaching 58, almost the age I couldn’t imagine being, I laugh at the memory.

Feelings indeed. I think about my beloved mom who worried about paying her heating bill every winter and who took in college kids in order to pay the mortgage long after it was paid the first time (a long story, but totally due to my father and his financial indiscretions). She had an insufficient pension and social security check as a result of having stayed home to raise the children, after which she was abandoned for a younger model. She went to work in low-wage jobs since she was education-less and stayed long past the usual age of retirement until illness forced her to stop.  

I think about my dad who thought the orchard that surrounded my childhood home bore dollar bills instead of wormy sour apples. He was always spending money he did not have, not little bits --  big bits on new business ventures and other projects that kept my mother worried and busy juggling funds. When he passed away, he had nothing. He never planned ahead for anything.  He never really grew up.

I think about my best friend who, as a result of her childhood experience, grew up determined to have/save enough so she never ever had to ask anybody for anything. She sleeps at night knowing that she has two pensions to assist her in her old age, that is, if the pension funds supporting them remain solvent.

Another friend with a Ph.D., approaching 80 years old, went back into the classroom this year to teach after decades away because she needs the money to live. And old and dear friend, a waitress her whole life, also almost 80, recently lost her [second] husband of thirty years. She faces the possibility of having to sell their home because her husband’s lucrative pension died along with him.  Still another acquaintance in his late 60s  - a man literally still stuck in the sixties - has absolutely nothing put away for his future – and he actually makes enough that he could be doing so. He’s suffering from a combination of denial and magical thinking.

There was an article on Yahoo! News a couple of weeks back featuring a 70-year-old woman who has no savings. She once owned a fashion design business that never became as successful as she’d hoped and now sews little girls’ clothing to supplement her small social security income. She laments that she’ll have to work until she dies. The responses to that article are stunning – everything from anger at her Berkeley education, snarky comments that she should sell her property (she has some), suggestions to get some alimony out of one of her two ex-husbands, and chides that she is just a whiny old privileged white woman. Others commented that her story serves as a warning to others that entrepreneurs should never plow all their income from business ventures back into their businesses (as she did). Granted, she is not without choices, as many (if not most) are. She’s not in danger of having to eat pet food. [Introduce me to someone who is, and my check is in the mail!]   

I went back to the article because I had forgotten some of the details – what I recalled were the things that push my buttons… old & no money. The vehemence in the public’s responses to her underscore just how emotionally laden the issue of money is. I’ll come back to this subject again.  In the meantime, the bad news is that barring some unforeseen intervening variable, good or ill, an early retirement is not in my future (bleagh!). The good news is that I should be able to stop working at the age my cohort is projected to receive full social security payments --  66. That is, of course, if social security is still around. I can't even think about that!