New survey shows only 4% of retirees living the dream.
 

A new survey shows that only 4% of retirees are living the dream.

44% are comfortable; 34% said they are not great; but not bad; 15% said they are struggling; and 4% are living the nightmare.

I think that we are lucky to be living in the Villages.

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Can you imagine how high the “living the dream” percentage would be if they only polled Villagers?

They only polled 2000 adults, including 500 retirees. Looks to be pretty much a classic bell curve distribution. The results are based on how the pollees "feel" rather than their realities, too.

A new survey shows that only 4% of retirees are living the dream.

44% are comfortable; 34% said they are not great; but not bad; 15% said they are struggling; and 4% are living the nightmare

Seems pretty much how society is, retired or not.
If you never made it during your best years, how the heck are you going to improve retired?

Also depends on what your dream is.

Wouldn't that depend on just what the "dream" is?

My "Dream" was to hook up with Barbara Eden (Dream of Genie) but I ended up with one better for the last 50 years.:icon_wink:

Why didn’t they poll exclusively retirees? Seems to me if you want a retired person’s opinion then . . .

Well
 

One person's dream is another's not so much. Much depends on the person and their expectations. We are in the comfortable/dream scenario which is nice for us. Lucky in decision making, taking appropriate chances and working with others to aid in the journey. Not having kids did assist in the process. Being able to help family at our point in life is a blessing.

That "4% are living the nightmare" that their talking about can be determined by your living with pain through health issues.

My wife had a uncle 85 years old some years back had a lot of medical issues and begged every day that he could die.
He had issues with his back and legs and always lived in pain and no doctor could help him.

He fell walking out to his mail box and died shortly after at 86 years old..

Now there's 4% I don't want anything to do with.

Living the retiree dream takes a lot of work, saving and planning. So grateful I was able to make it happen!

I hate these types of polls they give you some general percentages of whatever the topic is without ever really going into the specifics.
Is living the dream totally based on a dollar figure and if so, what is that figure?
100K per household member or more or maybe a point where you never again have to think about money?
Is it just a lifestyle where you play golf until the sun goes down or take four cruses a year?
I truly would like the people who conducted this survey to spell out what they consider living the dream is.
At the end of the day, I think we all have our own visions of what living the dream is.

Living the dream is a matter of expectations. The only thing you can take with you when you die is who you are. The most important thing you leave behind is who you were. Those who find satisfaction in who they are can live the dream regardless of material wealth.

True. I have a close friend here who is almost 71. She’s a recent widow. She’s lived here 23 years. She holds down two part-time jobs and rents out her guest suite as an Air BnB that is occupied all winter. She lives in a 2500 sq ft home in The Villages. Her Social Security check is under $2,000 a month, but she says she needs $6,000 a month. That’s why she is working and renting. If living the dream means being able to retire, she’s not living it. If she remarried and moved in with a man who owns a courtyard villa and has room for her, they could live the dream. But she loves her space. Her master bath is the size of my master bedroom, and her closet is the size of my guest room. Downsizing isn’t easy.

These polls are like medical numbers, one out of six has this, one out of five has that. If they were all correct, we would all have about twenty medical conditions. They are baloney. Do not listen to polls, listen to betting houses, they are more accurate.

A lot of people are in the bottom tiers because they didn’t save for retirement. I know people that was making really good money while they were working but they spent everything they made and some even went into debt to compete with the Jone’s.
We are very comfortable because we saved and invested everything we could. Have any of you calculated what you make per hour while you are retired? You should. For the last 6 months, my total income from investments and social security, we made $130 an hour, 24 hours a day, while we were sleeping, playing golf, playing in the pool, etc..

This is called Passive Income, what can you make on your investments while not doing anything.