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Originally Posted by |Zach|
I am pretty lucky to have a pension. Been in a new role in the past year and work life balance is what I make of it but it is a 24\7 operation so it can be tough to disconnect at times.
Pay is just "ok" but freedom and benefits are really good. Someone would have to back up the brinks truck to pull me away from this. I still think a public safety adjacent tech company might be an option but I have so many things going for me in my current spot and could retire here pretty happy.
There is a lot of fulfillment associated with a job well done in my field so times where you have to put in the extra hours it is usually tied to do something worth it and extra money is nice.
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On my recent big trip, about half the people on one of my ships were doing a six-month "world cruise", which cost about $200,000 for a couple. That's a chunk of change. Most or all were retired, since that's the only way to get six months off to travel.
I was listening to how people became affluent enough to afford such a trip, and two reasons were far and away the most common. People either worked for government or (in the past) a large company that offered defined-benefit pensions, or they owned and sold a business. Those were far and away the most common reasons. The pension people were not C-suite types who made big money, but my impression is that they felt secure with the pensions and didn't feel a need to manage risk to a retirement portfolio.
The other reason that I heard to some degree was people who merely had a high-wage job, mostly doctors. I met a couple of people who had legacy family money, and one couple who invested early and hard into crypto and made a bunch of money, but those were exceptions to the rule.
The loss of defined-benefit pensions is a major factor in people feeling less secure about retirement, in my opinion. I'm not sure there was ever a time where a majority of workers got them, but they're rare now. You pretty much have to work in government to get them.