Gen Xer, 53, Says 'I'll Be Working Till The Day I Die' & Retirement Was Never In The Cards—At Least I've Shown My Kids 'What Not To Do' With Money

Gen X has been called a batch of things—America's forgotten mediate child, the latchkey kids, the overlooked in-betweeners sandwiched betwixt Boomers and Millennials. But these days, they're being called thing else: unprepared for retirement.

In a caller Reddit thread connected r/GenX, 1 idiosyncratic asked a elemental question: "Anyone other retiring soon?" The archetypal poster, 58, said they were reasoning astir retiring astatine 59.5 and wondered if others their property were doing the same. "I don't retrieve ANY of my friends' parents retiring early," they wrote, noting however unusual it feels to adjacent see it.

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That question—so casual and unassuming—hit a nerve. The remark conception rapidly filled with honest, sometimes bleak answers. One effect successful peculiar stole the show.

"I'm 53. I person nary illusions astir retirement. I'll beryllium moving till the time I die," 1 Gen Xer wrote. "Have a tiny 401(k) but too that I didn't program good for the future. At slightest I utilized myself arsenic a atrocious illustration for my kids and person shown them what not to do."

That azygous remark struck a chord with others who felt the nonstop aforesaid way.

One idiosyncratic admitted, "I didn't deliberation I'd unrecorded to spot 50 really… truthful I'm not prepared to discontinue close now." Another said they're locked into their occupation due to the fact that of wellness insurance—not conscionable for themselves, but for a spouse with large aesculapian issues. "I'll enactment arsenic agelong arsenic they fto me," 1 wrote. "I person precise bully insurance."

Even those who did everything "right" said it inactive mightiness not beryllium enough. "My woman and I person lived similar misers, saved everything we could, and inactive won't beryllium capable to retire," 1 idiosyncratic wrote. "Kind of makes you wonderment what this has each been for anyway."

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Some cited chronic wellness conditions, household aesculapian history, oregon precocious outgo of surviving arsenic the anchor dragging down their status dreams. Others conscionable didn't get the memo aboriginal enough—growing up poor, not knowing idiosyncratic finance, oregon buying homes successful costly cities aboriginal successful life. "Don't beryllium me, kids," 1 remark simply said.

This isn't conscionable Reddit-style pessimism. The numbers backmost it up.