Pension Cuts

To battle an economic crisis when governments want to create more jobs or spend less money then one of the things they'll consider is pension cuts. The Greeks have had several pension cuts and any citizens in any other country would also have to face that in case of a financial crisis.

To avoid all that you need to have a plan on how you'll live when you retire, without the pension. That way even if pensions are cut, you'll survive the crisis.

 

There is this story I heard of this 100 year old woman who has been working since she was 15 and still works 11 hours a day. It certainly isn't something everyone should try. There's more to life than work. The desire for material possessions [which can be lost overnight] and an unwillingness to embrace a simple lifestyle is what keeps most people enslaved for more than 3/4 of their lives.

 

This is why I decided to take matters into my own hands and build a retirement portfolio of stocks and bonds. When the time comes for me to retire, I'm not expecting anything from the government. If I get something, that's a nice bonus but I'm not counting on it!

 

Our pension here is a paltry sum that wouldn't even be enough to feed the pensioner. My husband's pension is less than $100 a month. There was a motion early this year to raise it and a bill was passed in congress to increase the social security pension by 2,000 pesos or roughly $45. But it's so sad when the president vetoed that bill. Now that we are going to have a new president on July 1, pensioners are hopeful that the said bill would be revived.

I will be retiring 7 years from now and at this early, I am already thinking of what I would do with my retirement pay from our company. We have to have something that can give us revenue no matter how small since the pension will just make us hungry. Maybe we can build an apartment and rent it out to tenants for our residual income for our old age.

 

I think for the most part, everyone should not be looking at their pension or social security checks for retirement living. They should have invested over the years in small steady amounts. But like most, we don't do that because the price of living is too high. Hence the reason why million of families every year in the West is moving off grid and away from the city life where they are slaves to modern conveniences that come with heavy fees and taxes.

Look to our past for the answer. For the most part, primitive and early civilization families use to live together forever. Some would build a compound or family home and that is where the immediate family would live until they died. They all pooled their money and resources and took care of one another. Now a days in the West, the elderly is shipped off to a retirement or assisted living home where their kids rarely visit them because they have a 60 hour a week job and have to commute 4 hours everyday to and from work.

I think our past has most of the answers that we are looking for, but most will look for simple solutions so that they can keep their fancy cars and appliances. We work all of our lives to pay off our mortgage just to sell it off when we are forced into a retirement home because we still can't afford assisted living.