Just had an interesting chat with someone at work. Being quite young, they thought it would be a fun thing to frighten me with (in a joking way).
So, they were talking about retiring, the various pension schemes in this country (UK) and saving up a private pension, all that stuff. I thought I'd share the numbers they threw out. I've no idea where they came from, but this is where it went.
So, you retire at 65 currently, right? *Snickers* Anyway, life expectancy is now 95, so you have 30 years of retirement.
You need £20,000 per year to live off of in retirement, apparently (again, I have no source for this). So, they grabbed a calculator, and after a brief pause pulled out the retirement figure of £600,000 (~$763,600~).
They then did some more calculations, assuming a 45 year career, and said that this means you'll need to save £15,000 per year in order to retire when you hit 65. It was as though A) this figure is impossible to attain and B) you've better things to spend your money on anyway.
I mean, sure, the maths works out. If you save in cash. So I thought I'd play the Devil's Advocate a little and suggested "well, that's assuming you keep the money in your bank account" (i.e. cash), then they remarked that that was generally how you'd do it, to which I responded "what about keeping it somewhere where it at least keeps up with inflation?" They paused before throwing that aside too, assuming I was just making the inflation obfuscation argument.
After this came a few horror stories about partners and other people having had their savings taken off them for this that and the other, not actually making it to the age of 65, etc. etc.
I, a young person in a newly started career, was then advised by them to "just spend your money. Fuck it, just enjoy it." Honestly, the most sensible thing they said was that they're keeping their savings in premium bonds. Thought it might be worth sharing for a laugh, anyway!