Working in your 50s can be scary and stressful: retirement is getting closer, and you may be worried you don’t have enough savings. Plus, what if things suddenly take a turn and you lose your job sooner than expected? Will another company take a chance on somebody your age?
Imagine Lauren, who is 55 and harboring exactly those fears. She’s a single mom, and her two teenage children will be applying to college soon.
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Even though she makes $90,000 a year, she lives in a city with a high cost of living, so what she takes home never seems to go very far. Between her mortgage payments ($3,000), car payments ($400), home and auto insurance ($500), the $40,000 HELOC she took out to renovate her unfinished basement and all the things her kids need, she’s living paycheck to paycheck.
She saved diligently early in her career and has $800,000 in her 401(k), But other than a modest $10,000 emergency fund, she doesn’t have any liquid cash in the bank. She’s terrified of what would happen if she were to be laid off right now.
Lauren had planned to work until age 70 so she could earn an income while waiting to be eligible for the maximum Social Security retirement benefit, but now she isn’t sure what the future holds. What can she do to put herself in the best position possible?
Should you put off retirement?
Lauren’s plan to delay Social Security until age 70 would increase her retirement benefit payment significantly. Although you can start receiving benefits as early as 62, you only get full benefits at your full retirement age (FRA), which is 67 for those born in 1960 or later. If you apply for Social Security before your FRA, your benefits will be reduced up to 30%. But if you wait to apply until after your FRA, up to age 70, 8% will be added to your monthly benefit for each additional year.
The added time working could also increase Lauren’s monthly benefit if she continues to earn a high income, since the amount you receive is calculated based on your highest 35 years of earnings.
In any case, if Lauren’s plan from the beginning was to work until age 70, a sudden job loss shouldn’t derail her motivation to continue working.
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Job market worries
Amid a job market slowdown and brewing economic uncertainty, workers who are concerned about losing their jobs can help assuage their fears with proactive planning.
For someone like Lauren, who is worried about a layoff, investigating other industries where her skills would be transferable would be a good start. As an example, Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll company ADP, told CNN that “health care has been one of the stalwarts of the labor market” and “the need for health care has grown as the population ages.” (1) There could be an opportunity for Lauren to make a move into this industry. She could also look into any training or certificate programs that might help her make this move.
While she may have trepidation about job hunting, meeting with a recruitment agency or a career counselor could help give her an idea of what opportunities might be out there, and what training she might need to switch sectors, if necessary.
Keeping on budget during stressful times can be difficult, but for Lauren it would be a good idea to make sure she’s implemented a budget that will keep her spending from spiraling out of control and ensure she stays out of debt.
Although she took out a loan on her house to refinish her basement, could the renovation be turned into a living or storage space she can rent out? The rental income she could earn may not only help pay down the loan, but also provide a cash-flow boost if she runs into tight financial times.
She can also encourage her teenage children to look for after-school jobs so that they can be responsible for their own discretionary spending and learn how to build their own budgets.
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CNN (1)
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