My Financial Independence Journey » Retirement, Weekend one off » Weekend One Off: Illinois Pension Crisis – motivation to save massively
Weekend One Off: Illinois Pension Crisis – motivation to save massively
I have a policy of not trusting Social Security, pensions, or any IOU money. Until it’s in an account with my name on it, it doesn’t exist. Government employees in Illinois are unfortunately learning this the hard way.
Watch as the Illinois pension crisis explained with a cartoon snake.
And here’s the NPR article describing the problem. The sad reality is that thanks to total mismanagement by Illinois, this is going to be a slow motion train wreck that hurts a lot of hard working employees.
Moral: Retirement is all about how much of your NET income you save.
Readers: What’s your opinion of the upcoming crisis? Are you preparing in case a similar disaster hits you?
Written by myfijourney
Filed under: Retirement, Weekend one off · Tags: pension, retirement
6 Responses to "Weekend One Off: Illinois Pension Crisis – motivation to save massively"
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My FI,
Pensions are going bye-bye. There’s no way around that. It may be a slow motion train wreck, but it will, in the end, be wrecked.
I don’t trust anyone else with my money but me, and I don’t trust anyone else that promises me money. I’ll earn my money, save my money, grow my money and eventually live off my money. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is.
Best wishes.
Mantra,
I’m with you. State and corporate pensions are a dead man walking. Federal government pensions might be doing better.
Unless that money is in an account with my name on it, I don’t trust it. Assuming it’s still around in a few decades, I’m pretty sure I’ll be means tested out of Social Security since I saved my money instead of blowing it all on iCrap, spinning rims, luxury SUVs and a McMansion. That sounds kind of pessimistic, but I consider it leaving a lot of room to be pleasantly surprised.
Hmm, I expect a military pension to be the majority of my retirement income. I’ve done everything my country has asked me to do: be away from home & family, deploy to the Middle East, spend a year in Korea, the list goes on. The pension is one of the main reasons I plan to do 20 years of service. I really doubt it will be cut after all the wars and everything else we have been asked to do. I’m not infantry, but still, my line of work is not typical…
The other half of my retirement plan is stocks and bonds. That will always be there.
Compounding,
I hope that the military’s pension is better managed than those of the State employees. I’m not a pension expert, but my impression is that the Federal government’s benefit programs are better managed. If I come across any articles on military or federal government pensions in the future I’ll try to remember to post them or tweet them.
I really feel bad for the folks who are depending solely on their pension for their retirement. Social security is gravy if we ever see them. We are most certainly not depending on it. We never had access to pensions. In India, where I am originally from, pensions are most of the time the only way to retirement, so I am assuming if we did have one, I would trusted it more than I should. Luckily(?) now that I understand how things work (esp. the budget in CA) I am with you, I will never ever trust any IOUs until I actually see the money in my account.
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