Did you stay at one job long enough to get a nice Retirement Pension or 401(k)? My SIL was a school teach for "upteen" years and retired from that. My half-brother was with the State of PA for years and gets a nice Retirement Pension from them. We have a friend who retired from Ford Motor Company after years upon years with them. All I know is........not everyone wants to, or can, stay with one company long enough to retire from it. I had companies lay me off, close and terminate me. A few companies I outright quit for one reason or another. Heck, I pretty much just made a enough salary to live on, not save any for retirement. I got stuck in the old "low paying"/smaller company Shipping/Receiving/Warehouse/Stockroom type jobs making, on the average, $10 per hour. It wasn't until my last job, making $14 per hour, that my wife had me get into a 401(k) Plan for a couple of years. We used that money to move on. My wife is the same as me. All she will have, after she finally retires, is SS. Never stayed with a company long enough to get anything else. How about you?
I barely even worked to get my own soc security, I do get widows benefits which are probably more than I would have gotten anyway on my own.
I have a good review when it comes to retirement. My employment with the present company started in 1987 so I would be 30 years with them next year. The retirement package for those with tenure of 20 or more years is 2 months of salary for every year of service. That means I will be getting 60 months of my salary if I retire after 30 years of being in this company. However, the retirement age is 60 so I still have some 5 years and if that happens then I can have 70 months of my salary for my retirement pay. And that is supposed to be tax free. What to do with the money? Everything is fluid as of now although the main idea is to invest in real estate like an apartment or a house to be rented out.
Sort of funny, long-term retirement employment is like staying in the military for 20 plus years and retiring from it. I know a guy at a local Navy museum who is retired from the Navy and always thinks I'm retired as well. Have told him numerous times that I didn't retire, but seems like the only former Navy people he knows are retired ones. Also have to keep reminding him, and my barber, who is also Navy retired, that I can't go on any Naval Base because I didn't retire. When a person retires from one of the military services, they get an ID saying they are retired. That ID, apparently, they can get on any base of the military they retired from. My barber uses the on-base medical at our local Air Station.
My one SIL retired from a company and when I asked her how she was able to stay so long to get a Pension, this is what she told me, "I didn't care what hours or days they had me work, I'd work them. I made a huge effort to get along with co-workers. My salary wasn't the best, but this is all I could think of.........retirement and a Pension. And, that's how I stayed." For me, I couldn't put up with most of that. Plus, a person can't do a thing about when a company closes or lay-off happens.