Reply #2: "They change the rules in mid game and we are supposed to "adjust?"" [View All]

[susanna]

That's about the long and short of it.

I am in my 30s and have saved seriously since my 20s because I knew I would have no pension coming. I work "temporary" jobs but am relatively skilled and make a decent wage. My husband, 45 years old, hired in with a firm that promised pension and full health insurance in retirement. So we saved with those things in mind...

That said, we were just given the news that part of his retirement benefits - health insurance - will be phased out for employees under 46 as of this year. Since he's 45, tough luck for us! So now we have to: 1) readjust our savings plan; 2) pray for no health problems or other calamity to befall us pre-retirement, so we can 3) set up a health care fund that may purchase catastrophic insurance in our retirement. (Of course we have both admitted to one another that we are probably not going to be able to actually retire.)

Luckily my husband never truly trusted the pension and has a healthy 401(k) in addition to his company-funded pension (which will probably be the next thing taken away). I know we are lucky considering all the people who have not been able to save much of anything, but when you are given a set of rules and do your best to follow it, it really scares you to realize that essentially, in this corporate, profit-driven culture, you're just plain and simple on your own.