By the time you read this I will be most of the way to 62 years old, which is the broadly accepted age at which you can retire (not me); that is mostly because it is the age wherein you can start receiving Social Security checks in return for the fortune you have been paying in Social Security taxes throughout your entire working life. I can't honestly say if I will be getting my money's worth. I have personally paid a little shy of 200k in SS taxes (not counting what my employers matched) going back to my first legit employment back in 1979. (That would have been a summer job working in a residence hall at University of Michigan. Yeesh.) Depending on when I retire, if I live until 90 -- roughly when both my parents died -- I will get a payout of anywhere between 700k and 1M over the course of my retirement. Those seem like big numbers, but it actually amounts to anywhere from 25k to 50k per year -- a low income salary at best. The best return I would get is not retiring until 70, or at least not applying for SS until then.
From a strict rate-of-return point of view, it would take a good deal of calculation to determine if I would have been better off having that money to invest on my own. It's possible I could have turned that 200k into something more if I could have invested it as a young man with the wisdom of an old man, which I probably couldn't have, at least until 401ks came along. Of course we all know that it wasn't like the Gummint was saving that money for me. They were using it to pay the oldsters that came before me, like you kids will be paying mine.
The best way to maximize total payout is to live a long time. But a long life is only good if you can keep the quality high. That is the great equalizer. I can feel good about my financial situation, but if I have a stroke or dementia takes over, that really won't matter much. On my Mother's side I have good health. She lived to 90 and while she was not really capable of an active life after 80 or so, my hope is that that was the result of not living a particularly active life -- at least not physically, she was very active socially and stayed employed well into her 70s. My Father's health profile is not so encouraging. He was having heart attacks in his early fifties. I suspect he was clinically depressed, although he was never diagnosed, in a way that manifested in hostility and anxiety. In old age he suffered Transient Ischemic Attacks which led to vascular dementia. His final decade of life was hellish.
I have chosen to believe that with the proper behaviors I can avoid the worst of my parents' fate. (I phrased that sentence very carefully.) I believe my near 30 year dedication to physical fitness will pay off in me being able to engage actively with the world for as long as I live. I believe it has, and will continue to, help me dodge the harmful afflictions of my parents. Obviously there is no preventative, but I am confident it shifts the probabilities in my favor. It is a true blessing that I enjoy it also, I don't think of it as only a duty or necessity.
Add into that some truly miraculous chemicals, like statins and HGH, and I could be in the game for a long long time. I will not hesitate to avail myself of any new wonder drugs or technology that will keep my quality of life high. I keep hearing about athletes going to Germany for special injury recovery treatments. Sign me up. I've participated in two AstraZeneca clinical trials and would happily guinea-pig for any new chemicals, especially those that work against cancer or dementia, not that I have either -- yet.
All of the above is just me giving myself encouragement. If that is not the case, if I suffer debilitation, where does that leave me? What if my quality of life is not great. What if I have a stroke and need caretaking? Or what if I have a mishap and end up with limited mobility? Then what? My desire for a high quality life is not to say anything short of that is not worth living. Plenty of people live what I would describe as reduced quality of life, but find them meaningful and rewarding. I know more than one person who has lived a fulfilling life from a wheelchair. Would I be able to find the strength or serenity to adapt? Back to the topic of my father, by the end he was completely detached from reality, yet I don't think he was unhappy. He had no idea he had completely lost his mind.
So as l look ahead, I am optimistic for a healthy, robust old age and hopeful that if that is not my fate, I can still find meaning. And if I live to 100, I can take comfort in the knowledge that I am soaking the Millenials and GenZ for a small fortune.
