Some of us were, some of us were saving 15% since they were in their 20's; however some things you cannot plan for. I did not plan to have 3 of my employers fail, 2 to ship my job overseas, or to be laid off several time and have to pay my mortgage out of retirement, relocate and sell my house at $30,000 loss (3x!). To blame the 'victim' is often, is akin to blaming a victim of a building fire. How about blaming the person who set the building afire? Or blaming the person who neglected to install and maintain proctective measures?
5 years ago, I had $300k in retirement and a nice home; now, through no fault of my own; I'm forced to start from zero. I'm not alone - we planned, we did what seemed to be the logical and smart thing to do; we expected our employers to do the same.
Wow. You have my sympathy. Good luck and God Bless.
I feel for you. I have been far luckier than you, though I was forced to sell my house due to health reasons - I couldn't deal with the stairs, and I haven't had to start back at zero. But I was on-track to have saved well over $1,000,000 by the time I was ready to retire, and now I'm at about 1/10th that amount in retirement savings. The 2008 "dip" pretty much wiped me out, and I hadn't even quite gotten back even when the last "dip" took me back down again.
I doubt that I'll ever be able to retire, even though I played the game by the rules. I guess I'm just a sucker. I am so glad that I have no children, but I do feel terribly sad for my nieces and nephews. The future looks pretty bleak.
Mark
Those who have never been through a layoff (and I've been laid off from the top "too expensive"--wasn't even offered the option of a pay reduction, and the bottom--new hire, price collapsed) have no idea.
Good luck this time around.
Ditto. We find ourselves in similar circumstances.