Work 'til You Drop: Is that such a bad idea? (Why is working as long as you live so terrible?)

You are welcome. It is human nature for people to think everyone has it like they do, until they are forced to stop and think about it.

So people here who have a soft desk job in an air-conditioned building out of the blinding sun and the freezing rain, have a tendency to forget it is a big world out there with people who do some really heavy lifting that takes its toll on your body as you age.

I certainly would not want to pick fruit and vegetables, and most certainly not at 80. There are a lot of really tedious, back breaking lousy jobs out there. People here may be self-employed or an IT manager or middle management in banking or something, and feel, “why not work until you are old”. Tell that to the 65 year old hotel chamber maid scrubbing toilets and floors on her hands and knees.

People just don’t think.

You said, “I just turned 65 this month. I started drawing SS when I turned 62 and have already collected over 20% more than whatever I put in.”

I am sure you are aware of the “time value of money”?

What is the current value of the annuity you put in over your lifetime at the average inflation rate over your lifetime?

That is what you “put in” to the system. In other words, what would a 401k savings plan in a money market account be worth if you got the rate of inflation and compounded annually. That is what you really put it.

Say you put in 5% a year for life in SS. Say the average inflation rate of the last 30 years. If you started at $20k 30 years before and finished at $100k at 62, then you would have put in 5% of your average pay or 5% of $60k for 30 years.

That is $90,000.

So you would have put in for example, $90,000.

The current worth of an annuity where you put in $3000 per year at 5% interest, you would have $210,000.

So you are owed $210,000 for the inflated value of the money you put in, not the $90,000 in raw un-inflated dollars.

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