Best of Dennis – How Can A Retiree Get Fired?
Guest Post by Dennis Miller at Miller On The Money
Best of Dennis…
Dennis is taking some much-deserved vacation time, and will be back writing soon. This article was posted originally on May 9, 2024, it is still relevant today….
Like most people, many times during my working career I put up with a lot of crap from my employer; I had bills to pay and a family to support. Grit your teeth, shut your mouth, deal with it; couldn’t afford to get fired and lose my income. The fear was real. I loved Johnny Paycheck’s song, “Take this job and shove it, I ain’t working here no more”.
I was excited when I started my own business; I’d never have to worry about being fired again. No more having to put up with someone’s crap because I needed the money. That was wrong – big time!
My “boss” became my clients – had to please them. Clients can fire you, go elsewhere and you lose the income. Either way, self-employed, or working for someone else, bills had to be paid and dependable income was a necessity. Keep ’em happy and hope they pay their bills on time.
When I retired, once again, I rejoiced. My wife and I built a nice nest egg. We invested in FDIC-insured CDs, had dependable income coming in, no worries about losing customers or putting up with someone else’s crap.
It was a great feeling of freedom – until it wasn’t!
The music stopped in 2008. The casino banks made terrible investment decisions; the Fed bailed them out with trillions in cheap money
Bank lives mattered more than citizens; particularly savers. Using the Fed’s cheap money, the banks called in all their CDs. All of our dependable income was snatched away – literally overnight. They fired their customers, taking away the income we counted on to pay the bills.
Corporate America followed suit, refinancing their bonds at much cheaper rates.
At our ROMEO (Retired Old Men Eating Out) breakfast we realized we all had the same problem. “Set for life” was an illusion! We worked hard, saved our money, invested safely and thought we could enjoy regular income throughout our golden years. One member remarked, “I’m upset, scrambling to replace my income just like the time I got fired!” Same fears, same consequences. Yes, a lot of us “Retired Old Men” got fired!
Allianz Live reports:
“A remarkable 61% of Americans say they are more afraid of running out of money than they are of death….”
While none of us were broke, we still had our nest egg – in cash. We had major concerns; our bills didn’t go away….
First was the loss of income. We were taught, “Live off the interest and never touch the principal.” We couldn’t do that anymore. CDs and investment-grade bonds paid a mere fraction of what they paid a few weeks earlier. Many had to tap into the principal to help pay the bills.
Replacing the lost income was fraught with risk. The stock market was a risky proposition for retirees. Like our parents before us, we hoped to live off the interest and leave some money to our children. The Allianz life study is real, we not only feared running out of money before we died, but also being a burden on our children.
None of us were prepared for what happened.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Dennis Miller
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