Retirement Planning - Lessons Learned

[California]

Re people leaving jobs for better ones: I see Google News has a sub-section on this at the moment:

Full Coverage - Google News

See the latest updates, context, and perspectives about this story.

news.google.com

Articles linked from there all ask for a subscription after the first paragraph. So here's a thread of Tweets cited, that summarizes them: [click this]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1447935812537102336

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Added - 'Read more replies' below that tweet thread has some zingers!

in Dallas, Amazon is advertising $22/hr with a $3,000 sign on bonus. He said this kind of competition is making it hard for suppliers to add new shifts, fill existing positions, & ramp up production

Maybe that's where the kids went instead of the $14/hour intermittent they were offered, and refused, in their hometown.

 

[ultrarunner]

When we started our first in day care back in 1992, it was $100 per week. They said it would go down to $90 when the kid turned 1 year old.

Kid turns 1 year old, price goes down to $90, then 10% rate increase, so back up to $99. This went on for 10 years between our 2 children.

The number that sticks in my head is two-nineteen-ten. That's how much we were paying per week for 2 kids (infant and 5 year old). $219.10.

Today, you'd be lucky to get 1 kid in daycare for that cost.

20 years ago $100 a day was going rate here...

Several docs just hired live in or in home when multiple kids needed care...

 

[MossRoad]

20 years ago $100 a day was going rate here...

Several docs just hired live in or in home when multiple kids needed care...

We know a few couples where one or the other spouse quit their job and home schooled because they had so many kids, it didn't make economic sense to pay for day care or private school.

My wife and I were fortunate, in that her company offered cafeteria-style benefits. At that time, I was allowed to cover her with my health insurance, so she could put her X benefit dollars towards dental, eye, child care, etc... so we pretty much got free child care for the first one.

Later on, the laws changed and if she had health insurance available from her employer, she could not take my health insurance, so that ate up some of that benefit money pretty quick.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Employers don't have piles of money at least when it comes to small businesses.

I can cite several examples of coffee shop owners netting less than wait staff or my friend that had an office machine business repairing printers where he netted less that his two employees who also had vacation which the owner never did...

Welcome to dairy farming. I know dairy farmers who have not had a vacation in 20 years.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

It's already 15 or higher pre pandemic in some west coast districts...

A young mother I know works cleaning offices and her child is in daycare... she was so excited when the minimum wage in the city went up until she found the daycare raised it's price citing increased payroll cost due to wage increase.

Affordable day care does not exist in the US. If going to the office means paying for day care and giving away over half her pay, why would a parent sit still for that? Better to stay home and part time for a few bucks. And they wonder why people aren't having kids. We have a child hostile society.

 

[ultrarunner]

This is the conclusion of every one of my German speaking visitors ages 18 to 24.

They would not have traded their time working or traveling here for anything but said starting a family is too hard compared to home... Austria, Germany and Switzerland...

Just so many advantages such as two years off with pay, employer had to hold your job, cash incentives for well baby and infant medical visits, Sunday in Austria and many holidays everything is closed including trucking except for perishables... fee exceptions are hospitality and essential like hospitals and transportation...

None of my coworkers worried about being taxed out of home and some in family over 500 years...

Not saying perfect... just different.

No tax returns for regular workers either... sales VAT tax very high so purchases factored that...

 

[MossRoad]

Affordable day care does not exist in the US. If going to the office means paying for day care and giving away over half her pay, why would a parent sit still for that? Better to stay home and part time for a few bucks. And they wonder why people aren't having kids. We have a child hostile society.

The reason you stay working for those 5 years while your kid is pre-K is you maintain your benefits, raises, career, future with the company, etc...

If your child is at day care from 7:30am until 5:30pm, that's 10 hours a day. 5 days a week is 50 hours. $200 per week is about $4 an hour for child care. If you're making $20 an hour, after you take out taxes, it's about 1/3 of your pay. If 2 of you are working, it's 1/6 of your pay.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

The reason you stay working for those 5 years while your kid is pre-K is you maintain your benefits, raises, career, future with the company, etc...

If your child is at day care from 7:30am until 5:30pm, that's 10 hours a day. 5 days a week is 50 hours. $200 per week is about $4 an hour for child care. If you're making $20 an hour, after you take out taxes, it's about 1/3 of your pay. If 2 of you are working, it's 1/6 of your pay.

Maybe. At $40/day, assuming $2k/month would cover facilities and insurance, that's 50 child-days just to turn on the lights. Assuming you can get a minimum wage dumb kid to help for another $2k/month (remember, comp, FICA, payroll) that's another 50 child-days, plus another 75 child-days to pay the owner, you're up to 175 child-days in a 28 day month. You have to average 6.25 kids/day to make it worth your while. Since not all the kids will show up every day, some days you will have 8+ kids, which is a lot for two adults to handle, assuming your helper shows up every day.

Preschool child care averages over $300/week. The cheapest after-school care is a sitter with a TV set, averaging about $240/week. That's if you can find care at all, which is mostly luck.

This is how much child care costs in 2025

Learn about the financial battle faced by parents due to high child care costs. Understand the sacrifices made and the importance of finding a solution.

www.care.com

 

[MoKelly]

It's already 15 or higher pre pandemic in some west coast districts...

A young mother I know works cleaning offices and her child is in daycare... she was so excited when the minimum wage in the city went up until she found the daycare raised it's price citing increased payroll cost due to wage increase.

Yes. No person is an island. Every decision causes a reaction somewhere else. Better to learn this early in life.

MoKelly

 

[goeduck]

A young mother I know works cleaning offices and her child is in daycare... she was so excited when the minimum wage in the city went up until she found the daycare raised it's price citing increased payroll cost due to wage increase.

Yep, not sure what the point was on increasing it.... many are in this situation.

 

[Torvy]

Yep, not sure what the point was on increasing it.... many are in this situation.

This is and has always been a boondoggle. Ultimately, changing the minimum just shifts the numbers upward across the board. It does not help purchasing power. It is an easy sell, though, because it can be hard to explain Economics to people.

 

[Frankenkubota]

A few impressions of the Reddit post from a grouchy old man:

Putting 35,000 lbs of boxes onto a conveyer doesn't seem like that big a deal to me. I've certainly done a lot harder jobs in my life.

I keep hearing that we have so many unfilled jobs because they are bad jobs and people deserve better jobs. It used to be that if you were unemployed, you took whatever job was available and kept looking for a better one. I guess it doesn't work that way anymore.

deserve.............nobody deserves anything until they earn it...period!

2 things motivated me to educate myself.

1. vietnam.....i was the last entering class to get a 2S student deferment........anybody want to debate that decision?

2. I had so many chitty jobs in my life most of you can not imagine. some can.

you work for enough a holes, scraping 6 month old grease from the wall of a kitchen, shovel sand at a foundry or.....hold the stop sign on a road crew (worst). i could go on and on.

best motivator is let them feel a little pain, it's good for you!

 

[Frankenkubota]

Employers don't have piles of money at least when it comes to small businesses.

I can cite several examples of coffee shop owners netting less than wait staff or my friend that had an office machine business repairing printers where he netted less that his two employees who also had vacation which the owner never did...

i owned a coffee shop and paid dearly for the privilege

 

[Frankenkubota]

This is the conclusion of every one of my German speaking visitors ages 18 to 24.

They would not have traded their time working or traveling here for anything but said starting a family is too hard compared to home... Austria, Germany and Switzerland...

Just so many advantages such as two years off with pay, employer had to hold your job, cash incentives for well baby and infant medical visits, Sunday in Austria and many holidays everything is closed including trucking except for perishables... fee exceptions are hospitality and essential like hospitals and transportation...

None of my coworkers worried about being taxed out of home and some in family over 500 years...

Not saying perfect... just different.

No tax returns for regular workers either... sales VAT tax very high so purchases factored that...

funny...i was just thinking the other day how we are becoming more and more like western Europe and personally, i don't like it.

i've worked in europe and have a number of close friends there, mostly italy.

what i see here is more and more nanny govt which, imho, leads to more and more what i call euro dependence.

in most of europe the 2 things you don't worry about are retirement and medical insurance. that takes a lot of pressure off, which ain't necessarily healthy. you also wait 6 months for MRI scan.

the book watership down warns of big govt and dependence, as do many others.

 

[check]

When we started our first in day care back in 1992, it was $100 per week. They said it would go down to $90 when the kid turned 1 year old.

Kid turns 1 year old, price goes down to $90, then 10% rate increase, so back up to $99. This went on for 10 years between our 2 children.

The number that sticks in my head is two-nineteen-ten. That's how much we were paying per week for 2 kids (infant and 5 year old). $219.10.

Today, you'd be lucky to get 1 kid in daycare for that cost.

Quebec has had $5 per day daycare for quite some time, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who just won the election) has promised $10 a day daycare all across Canada.

Good moves, and long-overdue.

 

[ultrarunner]

funny...i was just thinking the other day how we are becoming more and more like western Europe and personally, i don't like it.

i've worked in europe and have a number of close friends there, mostly italy.

what i see here is more and more nanny govt which, imho, leads to more and more what i call euro dependence.

in most of europe the 2 things you don't worry about are retirement and medical insurance. that takes a lot of pressure off, which ain't necessarily healthy. you also wait 6 months for MRI scan.

the book watership down warns of big govt and dependence, as do many others.

Life does seem to have less stress and maybe expectations overall are lower...

In addition to no worries over medical or retirement don't forget abundant vacation time each year. I think the lowly apprentice gets 42 holidays the first year.

Pay is over 14 months... an extra month pay August for vacation and extra month December for Christmas...

Im sure things are changing but a lot of friends are nurses with a few doctors there.

They were amazed at procedures medicare covers at advanced age and even little things like handicapped parking at the time common here..

The regulation is heavy... don't think you can open a flower shop unless you completed study in such.

It was hard for me to adjust building a home there because labor would not be available so often due to holidays and suppliers closed... no evening run to home Depot or even the grocery store..

 

[ericm979]

Techies can work remotely, and if you can work remotely, why would you live there?

A lot of people like cities and like the SF bay area. Yea the cities here are too crowded for me (like all cities), but most folks aren't like me.

Many tech companies discourage remote work. Google for example has a history of not allowing remote work though individual managers could allow it for some employees. They do it now because of the pandemic but they keep setting dates for it to end. That will keep many of their employees from moving. (I'm dreading Google going back to the office as it will make the commute to my company's office near Google HQ even worse. Thankfully I don't go in often).

There are downsides to working remote. Being present in person and having random interactions with co workers is worth a lot more than people think. It's easy to forget about remote employees and leave them out of discussions they should be in. All this makes remote workers less effective in their jobs. You can do it, but it's harder. I've been semi retired and mostly remote for a few years now. If I was still working my way up it'd be harder to be remote.

If you go remote, even if you have a supportive employer now, it will restrict your ability to change jobs. Faced with multiple candidates many employers will take a local one vs someone remote for whom accomodations will need to be made. Many folks in tech change jobs every 3-5 years.

Move to a lower cost area of the country and you may see your pay go down. More likely you'll keep your bay area pay but you won't get a raise ever again. And your next job will likely have a lower cost adjusted pay.

I did see a spike in prices in the rural parts of the Sierras last year, and places closed fast. I took that to be tech and other high paid people moving to the country. Same thing happened in our area. That's died down so I think many of the people who could move out did it already.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... Restrictions on working remote as must work within California or continental US so I guess Alaska ok and Hawaii not?

Friend was working remote at Tahoe Nevada side and was told he could no longer... maybe CA employment laws different than Nevada.

For some it melds nicely especially nearing end of career... for others it is not so good being away in terms of networking... synergy

My company was encouraging work at home but not applicable to patient care and facilities...

I volunteered when heard our numbers too low and that got a laugh.

Some in supply chain and HR etc did work remote and a year later layoffs followed...

 

[KennyG]

Quebec has had $5 per day daycare for quite some time, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who just won the election) has promised $10 a day daycare all across Canada.

Good moves, and long-overdue.

Maybe.

You have to look at the overall effect. Taking some peoples money to subsidize daycare encourages some people to work at low paying jobs. Otherwise they would stay home with the kids. So these policies actually have the effect of keeping pay low and reducing the time parents spend with their kids.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

This is and has always been a boondoggle. Ultimately, changing the minimum just shifts the numbers upward across the board. It does not help purchasing power. It is an easy sell, though, because it can be hard to explain Economics to people.

A minimum wage not indexed to inflation just pushes low earners further into poverty.