The Yankee Plans for Retirement

For the past few years I've joked that they'll have to carry me out of wherever I'm working at the time in a body bag because I won't be able to afford to retire. I was only half kidding.

I entered the workforce as the economy began pulling itself out of the recession of the early 80s. At the time I attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin and had to drop out because I couldn't find work to support myself and didn't want to to further into debt. I swallowed my pride and called my parents. By the time my father came to get me, I had less than a dollar's worth of change in my pocket. Fortunately, the economy recovered more quickly in the Northeast, and I found work within a month. I was able to buy a used car keep up with both the student loan payments and the car payments. I met someone, and we started to make a life for ourselves.

But after a couple of years the parent company reorganized their U.S. subsidiaries, and they laid off the entire staff in my office. I found work as an office temporary, paid off the student loans and took the money that had been going to those payments and began investing it. I tried another stint of grad school, which put me in debt again. I found a new job, and the pattern repeated itself as businesses in the new economy paid stockholder dividends by cutting staff . Find a job, get laid off, temp for a while, find a new job...

Each time I ended up out of work, the debt increased, and because I never spent more than a couple of years at any one job, I never accumulated much in the way of a pension. After 11 years I also found myself single, which meant less money available to save, as I was responsible for 100% of the living expenses. Including outrageously expensive COBRA payments for insurance coverage whenever I was unemployed.

I'm not trying to tell you a sob story. We take life as it comes. I've been able to keep a roof over my head and food on my table. I've always found work eventually. And I've been able to do some great things over the years. For the last few years, however, retirement looked like something I wouldn't be able to do.

Until this past week. The company that handles the Seminary's retirement plan came to do a presentation and do some one on one meetings with staff members. I gathered my financial records and went to my appointment. It was an enlightening 30 minutes. With some adjustments to my portfolio--well, major ones--it appears I may just be able to retire when I'm eligible to receive full social security benefits.

I'll be working for a few years yet, but it looks like they won't be carrying me out in a body bag!