Retirement (page 2)

a watcher

I went right down the 'middle of the road' and arranged for a modest retirement.

peacefulpete

He provides for them, just as he does the birds.

Here in the northwoods the species that overwinter have a 1 in 3 chance of dying from starvation and exposure.

I don't know what the big deal is about all this retirement talk! Why the February 22,1961 AWAKE promised me that "...Armageddon. This war will come in the 20th century. It will come right on schedule...". page 8 paragraph 2

Oh wait! What...?!

was a new boy

Beth Sarim

HappyDad;

Good for you!!

TonusOH

"This generation will see its fulfillment."

I assume that the collected version was updated to read:

"This [overlapping] generation will see its fulfillment."

Balaamsass2

In the late '60s, I was told by Mom and all my JW relatives I would never graduate from High School, get married, or have kids because...the end was SOOOO close!

I had a free ride to college...but all the elders counseled me to Pioneer and go to Bethel instead...because the end was any day!!

In the 80s the Elders and Circuit Overseer met with me to counsel me about my quitting pioneering and taking a full-time job with a financial firm .." in the eye of Satan's economic system" because the end was SOOOO close!

In the 80s the Elders met with me again because my " IRA and 401k showed a "lack of faith" in the end being SOOOO close".

2023.... I have been retired for years, all those elders, JW relatives, and COs are dead or in ratty government-subsidized rest homes.

hoser

They are paying for their social acceptance with their lack of future earning potential.

To be accepted into the jw club and have jw friends you have to follow the social rules which means no college, no missing meetings or service for work. You have to buy the right car, go on the right trips and associate with the right people. The average joe can’t earn or save enough for the future and the borg has convinced many that there is no future in this system. Because of this false belief many jws have some serious money management issues.

Teddnzo

There are a lot of assembly items and parts in the meetings lately about living cheaply and being good with money.

We had that watchtower the other day all about keeping your eye simple and just meeting your needs. They made a big deal about the difference between wants and needs.

Basically they know that long time JWs who made sacrifices to follow direction will be struggling in retirement.

the only answer they come up with is that the congregation should look after them. But the entire congregation is also struggling.

will they change the direction and say ok it is wise to think about retirement?

FedUpJW

My father was one of those who even though a servant and then elder for all his JW life used Proverbs 6: 6-8 as his guide. When someone would claim that it was the governing body who said to trust God to provide and Jesus said not to store up treasures on earth he would reply with Acts 5: 29 and say that he chose to obey God instead of men.

As a result he saved, he invested wisely, and when he retired he and my mother lived a modest but comfortable life. He had enough so that if there were someone in genuine need he could privately offer some assistance, and not limited to just JW's

I will give an example. A young child had died and his town's local newspaper had an article about how the parents were pretty well destitute due to medical bills for the child. The funeral home was refusing to take care of final arrangements without payment in advance, and the county was going to put the child in a potters field. My parents arranged to pay for her funeral, and all the medical costs on the condition they remain totally anonymous, even though the parents released the fact that some unknown person had done that kindness for them.

Retirement