Retirement age vs Lifespan

[Chris.R_WA]

Hi all,

I got sent this very interesting article from a work colleague today, as with most workplaces at the moment, ours has a high and ageing population profile.

I know that as investors, we all strive to give ourselves choices as to what to do with our time...but what are people thoughts in regards to the findings in the article?

There is some interesting stuff in there about the peak age/period of a persons creativity, but the crux of the article for me, was the Age of retirement vs Lifespan conclusions.

I can't think of anything worse than busting my gut for "the man" until I was 65, then retiring with my family only to die within 24 months. It actually makes me depressed when I realise that that is reality for some people, and even more determined to never let it happen to me or my family...

For the record, I am targeting my mid 30's as the period to transition to an investment supported life vs a PAYE life. Alexlee has described the sequence a few times before, whereby you gradually move from full-time work, to full-time investing, to part-time investing.

Thoughts?

Cheers, Chris.


EDIT: Had to convert the pdf to Word doc to get it to fit...

 

[MattR]

Maybe the older employees at Boeing had sucked in a bit more jet fuel.

I have heard before that for mathematicians especially they tend to be more creative in earlier life.

In my own anecdotal experience dealing with business owners the creative juices still seem to be firing for a lot into their 60's

 

[alexlee]

Just read through the article. As usual it's dangerous to infer any hard and fast rules about people based on this sort of thing, but:

1) The scientific discoveries thing makes sense (the older your get the more your brain cells theoretically deteriorate). It also makes sense when a lot of people might end up being in senior positions and don't do as much pure research?

2) Maybe people who DO work into their old age, especially at big corporations, are more likely to die young anyway? i.e. they are the people who get a lot of self-worth out of their jobs, and they are more likely to retire because the company kicks them out or their health fails them. In that case, boredom and lack of self-respect would affect their health. compare this to a person who retires at 50: one assumes they're not millionaires but probably have something else they want to do.

3) Japanese people retire because they get great retirement packages.

While I might agree that the most creative and innovative period is your 20s, I disagree that it necessarily means I'll produce the greatest achievements in my life. Why? I'm not a scientist. Property investing, say, doesn't necessarily require a lot of innovation: it requires discipline, planning and compounding. It's not like you need to be a genius. I would say, though, that as an investor your 20s really are the most important: save money, build up some assets and you're set for life.

I have spent my 20s fairly productively, so I will be in a position, I hope, to move from full time employment to full time investing in due course.
Alex