Hi LHG.
I’m not trying to be hard on anyone trying to save for retirement. I’m all for working hard and saving as much as you can for retirement.
What I really don’t like is YouTube influencers and others that tell people that they need to save an unrealistic amount of money to be able to retire happily.
The average person in the USA who makes at least 60,000 dollars a years will never be able to save 5 million dollars for retirement, unless something Weird happens in their life.
Reason being is Because life happens.
Even if a person goes to College, these days most kids graduate College with a huge debt that will take decades to pay off.
Then there’s marriage, buying your first home with a mortgage for the next 30 years with tons of interest payments going to the lender. Then Kids come around, and according to some surveys, it now cost about $300,000 to raise ONE child in the USA. Imagine two or three or more.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/
Then there’s health insurance, car insurance for every driver, Life insurance, Home insurance, etc.
Then there’s unexpected Illness. The mother may get cancer the father may get Parkinson, the child may die, and there goes all the hope of saving 5 million dollars.
Then there’s divorce, almost 50 percent of all marriage end up in divorce. That is enough to derail all retirement planes.
Then there’s people like us who were born in a JW household.
Imagine what many on this site, who were Jehovah’s Witnesses for years and were scammed into working for free for the Watchtower all their youth. Many here and on exjwreddit woke up in their 40s 50s and 60s, and now find themselves in a very depressing situation because they not only didn’t save enough for retirement, but it’s too late to do so. These people will never be able to save 5 MILLION DOLLARS.
Imagine how they feel when someone spurts out nonsense like; “YOU Need to save at least 5 MILLION DOLLARS FOR RETIREMENT.
That can be so discouraging and depressing because most Americans will not be able to attain that amount unless something unusual happens.
Now if that’s the case for Non-Jws, how much more so for Ex-Jws who woke up later in life and are starting off late.
I know a JW couple that never regular pioneer, but both worked in full time jobs. They paid in social security from the time they married while in their teens, and saved a little over 300k in their personal bank. They raised one child, Bought a small house, keep their cars for 30 years before they buy another one. Last I saw them several years ago, they told me that they never had a 401 K but got a check for a little over 3,000 a month from SS plus Medicare.
I always admired them because they were this old couple that’s loved Jehovah, (even if he is not real,)
He never qualified for Ministerial Servant because he had a full time job that came first. They were in their late 80s when I first met them. They would hold hands and walk around the block. He would pull the chair back for her to sit down for breakfast. He would treat her like a teenager he was dating, always buying her presents, making dates with her to take her to breakfast.
I worshiped that couple, I wanted a marriage just like them. I wanted my life to turn out just like theirs. That was my goal, until my situation changed drastically and threw me into a different world.
Sadly they passed away. But they were never in need and they didn’t have 5 MILLION DOLLARS IN RETIREMENT.
I read tons of posts by exjws who were scammed by the Watchtower and now find themselves in a dire situation…….And it Just Breaks my heart to hear their experiences. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of experiences I’ve read in just the past few years. Here is just one example a few days old on reddit.
logicman12
I agree. I'm 65 and will have to work until I drop dead thanks to those conmen bastards. I will get very little social security because I was a fulltime JW for decades (beginning in my 20's) and never paid much into the system. I slaved fulltime for the cult for decades in misery. I now work very long hours work out of town (four hours from my home). I lose every Sunday night driving four hours to my work city and every Friday night driving back home - getting home about midnight. For the first three years at this job, I slept in my car during the week. For the last two or so years, my employer has let me sleep in an old warehouse at my place of employment. I have zero benefits since I work for a small business (eight employees including the owner and his wife and son). I get zero vacation days and I have no opportunity to retire, so I have nothing to look forward to. I also have no weekends because I have to work on my house all day Saturdays and Sundays to get it ready to sell because I can't afford to live in it.
and yeah, it did fuck me over... and my wife. We talk about it constantly.
That is why I get furious hearing the leaders say, as they've been doing lately, that JWs should be ready to obey instructions no matter how impractical (or something like that) those instructions may sound. Well, I and my wife did obey back in the 80's. We listened and obeyed. It seemed impractical, but we trusted the ones taking the lead. It seemed impractical for us to give up educational and job and inviestment opportunities to knock on doors fulltime unpaid, but we did it. We did what they said... we obeyed... and look what it did for us; it fucked us up. We both have to work fulltime now and hardly ever see each other since I work out of town Mon-Fri, and she has to work on Sundays. I get furious when I see nonJW friends my age who are long retired and doing whatever they whenever they want. I have one friend who has been retired eleven years as of this past October. He retired at 54 and makes more in retirement than my wife and I make together working long hours fulltime. He has a really good retirement and his wife (specialist nurse) has a good one, too. It burns me up. I hate the cult that stole our lives.
These experiences help me to be compassionate, and not say anything that might depress them more than they already are. They can’t change their situation at this point in their life. I make it a point to cry with those who cry. I try very hard to not put unrealistic hope in the minds of people.
Anyway, I’m taking a break from exjw sites for a while. I’ve committed myself to a friend to learn how to fly a helicopter. I don’t know if I will make it because I’m afraid of heights. Tried a plane but I wasn't ready for that. But we will see what happens with a helicopter. Bye!
