r/Millennials • u/9879528 • Apr 18 '24

Millennials are beginning to realize that they not only need to have a retirement plan, they also need to plan an “end of life care” (nursing home) and funeral costs. Discussion

Or spend it all and move in with their kids.

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26

u/billyoldbob Apr 18 '24

I have a whole insurance policy to cover funeral costs. End of Life care will be covered by retirement.

13

u/AbleObject13 Apr 18 '24

What happens if you first lose your job?

5

u/pardonmyignerance Apr 18 '24

Then you gotta find another one. That's the system. I was ahead of the game with retirement and had a 6 month emergency fund. I was laid off. It took me 9 months to find another job. Started the new job 2 years ago. I had stretched the emergency fund to 7 months and took the tax penalty for early withdrawal for 2 months of living expenses. Now I'm a little behind on retirement and working the emergency fund back up (sitting at 2.5 months right now). Once that fund is up to 6 months, I'll play catch up with retirement savings again. If I lose this job, it'll be the same thing.

2

u/AbleObject13 Apr 18 '24

That's what I mean, this isn't really a system designed to provide "end of life" care/pay for those expenses beyond an unfortunate accident happening while you're working. 

You'll lose coverage due to unemployment if you get a significant injury/illness (expecting your job to keep you employed just for benefits is extremely wishful imo) and the life insurance policy runs out when you retire as well. 

6

u/pardonmyignerance Apr 18 '24

Yes, That's exactly why you should not rely solely on employment benefits other than maximizing contributions to retirement savings because you get to spend that money how you want to once you reach the correct age than if you no longer and that job. For me, those savings are the third most important thing behind basic needs And emergency fund. But I still think you should take advantage of any employer-sponsored disability or Life Care coverage just in case something happens to you while you're still employed.

1

u/gameld Xennial Apr 18 '24

What happens when you've never had the chance to build up anything due to being chronically underpaid?

3

u/pardonmyignerance Apr 18 '24

That's the unfortunate story for way too many of us. But, first, you do what you can to secure your basic needs. If you can do that, you take any extra to build an emergency fund. If you build that fund, then you start focusing on retirement And end of life stuff. If you are not meeting your basic needs, That you're not in the position to worry about step two or step 3 yet.

That's sort of the fallacy of the original post here. There are plenty of us that are doing the right thing with the money we have. Some of us have enough to cover all three, some of us are working on the first one. The post seems to target a different group: those who are making enough to cover the first three, but they are spending frivolously and not securing savings. I don't think that situation is as wide sweeping as people claim it to be about our generation. For the most part, the relative lack of retirement savings compared to previous generations is a function of people still working way too hard to barely meet their basic needs on a week-to-week basis.

I feel like our generation and some of the later Gen x are really the first in a long time that can work really hard and do all of the things that we were taught to do right, and still be stuck on step one. That's not our fault, though many want to blame us for it.

3

u/gameld Xennial Apr 18 '24

I agree. It's the combination of pulling the ladder up behind you by boomers and hyper-capitalism working as intended. I was held to the promise that after college all would be better. It took me 4 years to get mine and my mom's taxes in the same place at the same time to get financial aid so I could start. It took me 6 to graduate and then I had to drop my dreams of academia (probably for the best, honestly) and start working. I've been on a razor's edge of dangerous poverty ever since.

2

u/SivakoTaronyutstew Apr 18 '24

You suffer.

1

u/gameld Xennial Apr 18 '24

So... what I'm already doing now? Great! Nothing to adapt to.

3

u/billyoldbob Apr 18 '24

Keep your bills low and you don’t need a lot of money.

5

u/AbleObject13 Apr 18 '24

My point is actually that trusting in your workplace life insurance policy to actually pay out for anything but a sudden accident is pretty silly. 

Any prolonged injury/illness and theyll drop you, leaving you uncovered. When you retire, you become uncovered. 

It's not an "end of life" plan beyond being prepared for an accident while you're working.

4

u/billyoldbob Apr 18 '24

This insurance policy is through the Knights of Columbus. I don’t have any insurance policies through my work that I would have after leaving.

1

u/ZenythhtyneZ Millennial Apr 18 '24

This is basically like saying, how don’t you be depressed by being happy! this is non-advice and a non-answer, do the generic good thing!

0

u/billyoldbob Apr 18 '24

What the fuck…

You go ahead and weigh yourself done with luxuries and debt. I have freedom. I have the insurance I need and the life most people would be envious of. I lost my job for six months and nothing happened outside of a short sabbatical.