Should I retire in a recession?
Recent losses in the stock and housing markets, predictions of a prolonged recession, and a dramatic rise in food, health and fuel costs, have caused many Americans to push back their retirements. Dashing hopes of an early retirement, and resigning themselves to waiting until they are eligible to receive Social Security, before they can retire.
If we are entering a long downturn in the economy, a recession that could last a few years, as economists are warning. Then retiring now, could actually leave you better off financially, than if you continue working and increase your savings.
Bob and Ed’s Semi-Excellent Retirement Adventure!
Let’s take Bob and Ed, and compare what happens to their retirement portfolios, if Bob decides to retire and Ed delays retirement and continues working. Both Bob and Ed, have taken recent losses because of the recession, and their net worth’s are $300,000 each.
Bob says “I’m done! I’m taking my losses. Investing what’s left of my money in crappy government bonds. When the recession ends, I’ll move some of my money back into stocks and housing, but I’m not delaying my retirement because of a stupid recession!
Bob takes out a safe 4% of his savings every year in retirement. The recession ends in three years. What happened to Bob? At the end of the recession, Bob’s net worth has declined to $281,403, a loss of 6 percent.
After the recession has ended, and the stock market finally begins rising again, Bob re-allocates his assets into a standard retirement asset allocation model. He earns 9% a year on his investments. The expansion cycle lasts 5 years. Eight years after retiring, Bob has a net worth of $364,000 a 21% increase, even after taking out $1,000 every month.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the cubicle wall….
Ed is freaking out! “I can’t retire now, not after my losses in the stock and housing markets, I have to keep working and increase my savings.” Ed had been saving $1,000 a month, towards his retirement, and increases it to $1,250. He reads personal finance magazines, watches financial t.v. shows, listens to financial radio shows, subscribes to newsletters, chases high return stocks, mutual funds, global hedge funds, considers trading in options. And none of it works.
It’s a recession, a world-wide slow down in growth, foreign stock markets get hit even harder than the U.S. markets. And Ed, no matter how hard he tries, still loses 15% a year during the recession. Starting with $300,000 and adding $1,250 per month, at the end of 3 years, Ed has a net worth of $226,709. Ed has lost 25% of his net worth.
Ed is more than stung, he is despondent, finally weary and bleary eyed from reading stock symbols in the Wall Street Journal. Ed pulls his retirement savings out of stocks, and puts his money and $1250 a months savings into a CD paying 3%, and enters the commute lane for yet another day. Five years later…
Eight years after Bob retired, Ed finally gets back his original $300,000, and decides to retire. Bob has been laying in a hammock for eight years, happily retired, and now has $364,000.
Retire Now!
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Tess Wells // Jan 8, 2009 at 11:57 am
Although my husband and I are already in retirement, something very similar to the above story actually recently happened to us.
We did what most financial advisors and so-called experts all seem to warn against, and pulled out of the marketplace totally when we were no longer willing to tolerate the worry of sustaining even greater losses.
We then chose the highest interest bearing, FDIC insured c.d.’s of varying time lengths and money market accounts that we could find at the time (mid Oct., 2008), and invested the money we had left in them.
I don’t know if things will turn out quite as well for us as the above story did for “Bob”, but at least now we have some hope for that happening.
You see, we’ve both been thinking that perhaps we’d made an irreparable mistake in choosing to just walk away from such substantial losses. So, we’ve been endlessly beating ourselves up emotionally for pulling out, rather than “toughing it out” in the market place.
Frankly, until we read this article, we had virtually no hope that we would ever do much better than simply tread water with these current low rates for the rest of our lives, let alone ever be able to return our investments to their previous levels or even higher.
I think we both will now be able to feel more assured that we have made the right decisions about what to do with our savings for at least the duration of this recession.
Your story has restored our faith in our own ability to reason well, and has now put things in a totally different light for us. And for that, my husband and I both send a great big Texas, “THANK YOU VERY MUCH”!
2 Green Retirement // Jan 9, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Tess:
Thank you. I’m glad the article had such a positive impact. What is worse than losing 20% of your life savings? Losing 40% of your life savings.
The best thing you can do, until the recession ends, is to conserve your financial resources.
Take a look at Green Retirement http://www.iplanretirement.com - Their is a free retirement calculator on the website, that will tell you how much you can safely spend each month. As long as you stick to that amount, and adjust it every year for inflation, you will be fine and worry free.
Ramsay
3 Frank // Mar 5, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Continuing to work and save during a recession is a fool’s game if you are near retirement age. Start tapping the social security immediately while you can. Take the minimum you can from your other resources to supplement it and relax. Those who delay retirement and stay on the treadmill continue to pay taxes on their income and feed into retirement portfolios when there is little time for the contributions to grow before they die. If they reach 701/2 and are FORCED to take minimum distributions from those portfolios, their Social Security will then be taxed to the hilt, negating much of the gain by delaying retirement. If there was a guarantee that all of us would live longer than a 100 years, then maybe I am wrong. But the odds are that we won’t. And if we do, the nursing home will probably take what is left. Never plan your retirement years on promises made by the government or financial advisors for better benefits in the future if you delay retirement. We have already done that with 401ks that have have tanked and the government increasing the age to collect full social security retirement benefits. When you are old, money in hand is better than a promise that never arrives before you check out!
4 Green Retirement Planning // Mar 6, 2009 at 7:51 am
Frank:
Thanks for the comment. Two months after this article was published the stock market dropped 30% or more. People should seriously consider retiring right now. Go to the Green Retirement Website http://www.iplanretirement.com and find out how much you really need to retire.
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