I expect to retire ...

Yup, although it's being phased out. Traditionally it was 60 for women, 65 for men, but it's being changed to 68 for both. As I won't be able to get a state pension until I'm 68, I've voted for the "75" option - the 65 one being irrelevant as I'll still have 3 years to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]

I always put the maximum I could into a 401k, but most of the low-end jobs I had early on didn't offer one, and later on I was chronically underemployed. I only buy economy cars and keep them at least 10 years. I've never taken a vacation, buy no luxury items (Ex; jewelry, high end gadgets, etc.) I've gone through two recessions/depressions, and now I'm at the age where career prospects only go downward if you haven't made it to C level.

So... yes, you can blame my poor prospects for retirement entirely on my inability to earn lots of money, but not on managing my money. It's not magical: if you don't earn enough money you aren't going to be able to retire.

I retired about a month before my 62nd birthday. I delayed taking Social Security until my wife retired 2.5 years later; she delayed to a month after I started. Instead, we lived on our investments and her meager wages. She had to continue working so that we would have group health insurance through her employer. Then, we paid for continuing her health insurance via COBRA (about 6 months for me and 18 months for her). This was all per a set of spreadsheets that I developed to determine the optimum time to retire and how to finance it.

We are now in our early 70s. Our retirement investments continue to grow faster than we spend them. Until this year, we did not even spend all the dividends and interest. I expect that, by the end of this year, we will again have underspent our dividends and interest.

I manage our investments myself, relying on mutual funds. Of course, this means I am really relying on the managers of those mutual funds. However, the choice of which funds and how much to allocate to each is my own choice. For anyone interested in my investment philosophy, see my http://www.rossde.com/invest2r... [rossde.com].

We have a very comfortable retirement. No, I was not a corporate executive, entertainer, professional athlete, or hedge fund operator. For my entire career, I either created or tested software, primarily for use by the U.S. military to operate its earth-orbiting space satellites. No, I did not work for the government; I worked for defense contractors. (See my http://www.rossde.com/retired.... [rossde.com] for a brief history of my career.) Our retirement is successful because I understand investing and choose to be somewhat conservative (despite my liberal politics) in how I handle money that might have to last another 30 years (being from a family that is very long lived).

How much do you expect to spend per year in retirement? Take that number and multiply by 20 (assuming you think a 4% safe withdrawal rate is OK; or multiply by 33 for a 3% rate, etc.). Note that the safe withdrawal rate also depends strongly on your asset allocation.

See also: http://www.firecalc.com/ [firecalc.com], http://earlyretirementextreme.com/ [earlyretir...xtreme.com], and (my favorite) http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ [mrmoneymustache.com].

Small employers have ripped me off a few times now. Whenever they want to pay you as a contractor (handled by the 1099 form in the US) instead of as an employee (the W2 form in the US), watch out. Mind, though, the W2 isn't proof against employer cheating either, it's only a little more protection than the 1099.

Startups will share the risks without properly informing their workers and getting consent to do so, and at the same time arrange not to share the rewards, should they be successful. The first official word you may get that the company is failing is that they can't make payroll, and this of course occurs when they owe you a month of pay. They knew money was running out and that if sales didn't pick up or more like start, they would be unable to pay everyone, but they refuse to talk or think about that because that's defeatism. Just before the end, they will likely crank up the stress levels, try to drive everyone to work extra extra hard. They're deluding themselves that mere hard work can get through the crisis, when the problem is that their idea was actually not much good. When it doesn't work, the crying and wailing comes out of the closet. How can you whine about the month of pay they owe you, when their precious business failed? Can't you see they're hurting more than you? Oh, and they'll beg you to keep working for free. Surely the business will succeed with just a little more time and effort.

Only way I've found to avoid getting screwed by a failing startup is to read between the lines. If it's not going well, get out before the money runs out. If they're lying to themselves, they sure aren't giving it to the workers straight. The government can't help you. Yeah, you can sue the employer, and win, but if the business really is broke you will get nothing. Compared to collecting, suing and winning is easy.

Life isn't fair that way. Hard work often isn't rewarded. The Protestant Work Ethic sometimes is a cruel delusion. All those conservatives who think "get a job" is the magic that separates a good citizen from a lazy mooching bum ought to experience failure after failure.