by wannaexit 11 Replies latest jw friends
years ago there was a thread about rumors that society was paying into a retirement fund for circuit overseers. Could any recent ex-bethelite confirm or deny. Here is the old thread:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/106333/circuit-overseer-pensions-implications?size=20&page=1
You want facts or fiction?
Active COs have their expenses paid through the Kingdom Hall plus their car and health insurance comes the "Kingdom Hall Circuit Overseer Car and Health Insurance Fund" including car maintence and purchase of new cars.
I was shocked when one of the former COs showed me his monthly stipend after 37 years of being on the road, it was $561 plus the Organization paid their health insurance. He was lucky, he had worldly brothers and sisters who left him a fortune so he never had to worry about money. Most COs come off the work very poor, they end up going back and living with their family and in some extreme cases, they must live with kids who left the truth.
Health Insurance is paid for Retirees through a separate fund, not like the local funds collected in your circuit for your active CO. If you need any more info I can help, I use to help a few plan their finances and try to make the numbers work.
That's bs Hoser. He fooled you, I had money before missionary-service, they didn't even ask what I had.
Don Wallace ( DO & CO for over 40 years), retired in our area 8 years ago and I took him out to lunch recently.
He told me that "He was one of the smart ones". "While many of our fellow Overseers were telling us of all these exotic places they have been too, Arlene and just kept our life simple and saved for retirement. When we came off the road, we paid for a house in cash and bought 2 cars in cash. The Society sends us a little over $500 a month, I am able to draw SSI because I did work secularly for 10 years. We are better off now than those who come off the road!"
I said: "You are about the only smart ex CO that I know". He added: "Jim Crosley in Sanford Florida also made sure he was set for retirement.
jehoober will provide! lol
just saying!
eyeuse2badub
James Jack, I am familiar with Don Wallace, and I believe what you say. I just don't understand why these guys (Wallace & Crosley), if they believed what the org said, could have even remotely thought about retirement all those years they were on the road. This system wasn't supposed to be hear now.
I believed what the org said and didn't even give remote thought to saving for retirement; I thought the end was coming in the nineties. How could these guys have gone around preaching the imminence of the end and telling young people to get menial jobs with no retirement prospects when they themselves were thinking decades down the road and saving for retirement?
Magnum
I feel the say way. How could those CO tell you young ones to not worry that the end was so close yad, yad, yad.
If I had been allowed to follow my heart instead of pioneering, going to Bethel, living on nothing for years and years. I would have gotten a decent job and I would be retired now myself. Instead I listened to them and now it looks like I will have to work until I am 72 at the earliest to retire.
I just do not understand how they can sleep well at night knowing what they did.
LITS
Dang, I just realized I spelled "here" as "hear" in my post above. Too late to edit.
life is to short: If I had been allowed to follow my heart instead of pioneering, going to Bethel, living on nothing for years and years. I would have gotten a decent job and I would be retired now myself. Instead I listened to them and now it looks like I will have to work until I am 72 at the earliest to retire.
Very coincidental that you posted that. Just three minutes ago I was talking about that with my wife. I have a friend who retired in the last year or two from a federal govt job. He was only 54 or 55 when he retired. He is making more in retirement than my wife and I make together both working full-time. We have no prospects for retirement. I will probably literally have to work until I drop dead.
I lived with this friend for a year or so when we were in our early twenties. We were both in school at the time. I was not a baptized JW then, but heading in that direction. I told my wife that I wish I could rewind the clock and do it all over. I remember this friend telling me "you could do anything you want". He was referring to my academic ability.
He worked for thirty years. Yeah, maybe his job was hard and stressful times. But at least HE WAS GETTING PAID to do it. He had afternoons, evenings, and weekends off. He got paid vacations, health benefits, etc. I slaved in misery and under stress for thirty years and I PAID TO DO IT. The organization I was slaving for asked me for payment (donations, Kingdom Hall upkeep, CO funds, etc.). I worked afternoons, evenings, weekends and still felt I wasn't doing enough, and I always felt behind - as if I could never catch up. My friend got a great retirement with full benefits. What did I get for my 30 years? Well, you know.
