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I have a few questions for you. I'm curious what people have in mind when engaged in career development. Do you follow the money/opportunity where you are or do you have a specific goal in mind and focus on that? I had one area in mind when I graduated college and have ended up somewhere else. It's the same industry, but different concentration. I don't know if I should actively try to change my trajectory towards my initial goal, develop where i am, or focus entirely on earning more money. What I'm doing is pretty interesting work, the job (career even) is pretty stable, and money is ok. So, I worry about the devil you know/don't know business. I don't want to screw up a good thing. I'm no spring chicken (mid-40s) and have responsibilities (2 young children, mortgage, etc) so I cannot take crazy risks.
Then there is retirement age career decisions. I have no plans on retiring early. I'd like to work in some capacity as long as possible. There is ageism to consider as well. Fortunately, I didn't graduate college until the mid-2000s, so people just assume i am younger than I am (probably think I just look old for what they expect), but there will come a time when I have to contend with it. There are very few old timers at my company. Typically people are pushed out in their 60s as far as I can tell, which is ridiculous, but it is what it is.
I doubt I'm the only one thinking of this. Do you have a retirement gig you're planning for? How did you come to the decisions you are making or plan to make?
I changed careers about 5 years to a somewhat related field. Without going into too many details, my initial career involved a certain amount of "x", and now my career focuses almost entirely on "x". I was able to use many years of peripheral involvement to refocus.
For retirement, I am currently working on 4 different plans. I won't be able to do all four, nor would that be any sort of real retirement, but my ultimate decisions will be based on actions that I am putting into leave now.
1. Basic retirement planning. Investments, social security, pension, paying off mortgage, etc.
2. I started a home-based small business with my wife. It isn't the type of business that will ever earn a huge amount of money, but is on track to pull in about $20k annually for about 5 hours of effort weekly. I view this as supplemental income that we could collect indefinitely.
3. We own property in a high demand tourist area. It has been a profitable B&B, but we haven't put the effort into running it. I don't know that I really want to operate a B&B.
4. Consulting jobs upon retirement. It's reasonably common for people to pick up work for a few years as consultants for special projects. It will depend on project availability when i retire, plus a bit of networking. Realistically this is good for 2-4 years of PT, well paid easy work. The work itself is easy only because of having extensive experience, it isn't the type of thing you can easily train a person to do in a short period of time.
I changed careers about 5 years to a somewhat related field. Without going into too many details, my initial career involved a certain amount of "x", and now my career focuses almost entirely on "x". I was able to use many years of peripheral involvement to refocus.
For retirement, I am currently working on 4 different plans. I won't be able to do all four, nor would that be any sort of real retirement, but my ultimate decisions will be based on actions that I am putting into leave now.
1. Basic retirement planning. Investments, social security, pension, paying off mortgage, etc.
2. I started a home-based small business with my wife. It isn't the type of business that will ever earn a huge amount of money, but is on track to pull in about $20k annually for about 5 hours of effort weekly. I view this as supplemental income that we could collect indefinitely.
3. We own property in a high demand tourist area. It has been a profitable B&B, but we haven't put the effort into running it. I don't know that I really want to operate a B&B.
4. Consulting jobs upon retirement. It's reasonably common for people to pick up work for a few years as consultants for special projects. It will depend on project availability when i retire, plus a bit of networking. Realistically this is good for 2-4 years of PT, well paid easy work. The work itself is easy only because of having extensive experience, it isn't the type of thing you can easily train a person to do in a short period of time.
Great response. Thank you. I love that you have started your at home business already. How did you decide to go into it?
3. I've thought of similar. My husband really wants to buy land up north for a vacation property. I think it would be good to make it in a tourist area that we could rent or something. How did you get into that?
4. I've thought about that as well. At my current job I know one consultant and have picked his brain a bit. He told me that networking is very important and on-going. That sounds a bit daunting to me. He also says that it's best to work on site (for networking), which is too bad because it would be great to work at home.
Great response. Thank you. I love that you have started your at home business already. How did you decide to go into it?
Mostly my wife's idea. It was one of those things that we spend a few dollars on periodically, saw a need, and we decided to fill that need. I have started a number of small businesses before, so the business plan and setup was trivial.
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3. I've thought of similar. My husband really wants to buy land up north for a vacation property. I think it would be good to make it in a tourist area that we could rent or something. How did you get into that?
By accident. It was an inheritance. We rent it out to cover costs. We may retire there one day, but that would interfere with plans 3 and 4.
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4. I've thought about that as well. At my current job I know one consultant and have picked his brain a bit. He told me that networking is very important and on-going. That sounds a bit daunting to me. He also says that it's best to work on site (for networking), which is too bad because it would be great to work at home.
I have done consulting in the past, for career 1. It was nice pocket money, and I did get a number of jobs because of industry connections. I never focused on it as a business venture though. In my current career I haven't done any, although I have hired one and worked with a couple. One scenario is interim position postings. I work in higher ed, and when senior positions open unexpectedly, interim postings are common. Somebody with a rare skillset is needed asap, but colleges/universities like to fill positions cautiously and deliberately. An interim posting fills that need, where a skilled person can be a caretaker for 6-8 months while a permanent person is hired. The job is relatively easy, because as a short timer you aren't expected to begin major new initiatives.
There are other options as well. Special project stuff mainly.
Personally, I'm going to work for someone else until I retire. I have no desire to own my own business. I wish I did have the entrepreneurial spirit. Just don't want to work that hard...and you never work has hard in your life or have as much pressure and responsibility as starting your own business. All the reward, that's true. But all the responsibility also. For some it's a fuel for them. Me, uh, no.
Me: I want to go in. Get paid (well paid). Have great benefits. And leave the job at the end of the day (or shift).
I'll work until I retire, and then that's it. No more work -- PERIOD. No part time. No seasonal. Nada. I'm already done in my head. Just have to put in a few more years.
There is a good chance that the lean years will come to many people in their 50s. The very least, they won't be at the same place they peaked their income and career at.
I remember in 20s and 30s, I've watched good men and women getting thrown out of their jobs in their 50s. Some where low level employees, others were regional managers, district managers, managers, and asst. managers. It had nothing to do with their lack of skills. Many of them where still at the top of their games, their operation(s) where either meeting their quotas or exceeding it. So why did they got fired? It was cheaper to get new and younger replacement than to keep the old around.
Some of them ended up working for smaller company with smaller pay, some went to get other jobs below their fired positions, others couldn't find job and ended moving in with their children. Others, just never heard from them again. For the majority of them, they were never able to enjoy the same lifestyle, same income again after being let go in their 50s.
Recently, my brother went back to a company we both once worked at. Many of the people he used to supervised when he used to be their asst. manager are now managers. His bosses and many of the managers he used to know, majority of them were let go or moved on to other companies, replaced by the young ones.
For those of you who are smart, start planing now. My cousin was a district sales manager for a nationwide home merchandising company and sees what I see, so she quit her job high paying job two years ago to persue business ownership along with her sister in law, who also quit her pharmacist job.
I'm planning on my day job to build my retirement piece and pay bills while I write a business plan for my post-career job. I need multiple income sources...and to do as much as I can to avoid outliving them. Above all else, stay out of nursing homes...elderly vulnerability is no joke.
I've been paying into my main retirement account for 16 1/2 years. Also, I started putting money into a secondary retirement account. I want to take my tax refund and put it in a Roth IRA. It has worked to do that yet.
I can retire at 55, if I want. However, if I work a few more years I can collet more. My plan to collect 85% of my wage as a retirement payment. That is done without factoring in social security.
There's almost no way to save for retirement as much as a job with a vested pension will give you. If you are looking for a job and can find one with pension benefits consider it carefully because that will make an enormous difference in retirement.
The best job is one you really enjoy doing and can continue to learn as you master all aspects of it. If you love your job you will become very good at it and basically become your own boss as the bosses will leave you alone. Especially if you are providing a technical service that most people don't understand or want to know the details of you should have job security and a decent living and be exempt from age discrimination.
For my first 20 years after college (liberal arts major, Political Science and English Lit.) I did whatever job I could get that paid the bills and allowed me to raise a family with my wife. At 43 I got my dream job and I retired with a pension at 59 after 16 years as a unix sys admin and dba. Got bored after a year of retirement and applied online for a contracting job in the field. Was hired at 60 with no age discrimination. They wanted someone who was a hard worker who could do the job, period. They gave me the 7PM to 7AM shift which I gladly accepted. After 6 months the contract ended and I got a second contracting job for 18 months working 45 hours a week from home. The contract ended when I got my first SS check at 62. Haven't had to or wanted to work since, and it's been 10 years. No bosses, no commute, no alarm clocks, no money worries.
In terms of goals, they can wind up as just fantasies. From about the age of 11, after seeing Perry Mason on TV, I wanted to be a lawyer. At the age of 23, after completing my first year of law school I realized this wasn't how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.
I always was a science fiction fan, fond of robots and a computer hobbyist as soon as the first Timex Sinclair computer was released. At the age of 43 I got my chance to do my dream computer job, with no computer education other than a few courses in basic and a self taught database program on a PC I had introduced at work to track departmental goals and results, with daily updates uploaded every morning to the Division VP's PC. I also had a sideline after work for a few years earning a few dollars working part time for a few non profit organizations the company was involved with, installing computerized accounting systems and in one case publishing a book of members using desktop publishing software for one of the organizations.
As a result of having this experience and positive results with the non-profits, I got the opportunity to become a unix sys admin and dba, when a new computerized drafting system was being installed at my job and no one was interested in the position. So in my case I knew what I wanted to do (work with computer servers and databases) but didn't have the qualifications or education. But I was known to be into computers and I got a shot. You never know what life brings but lean towards what you love as long as it can pay the bills.
Last edited by bobspez; 01-16-2019 at 03:35 PM..
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