Long-time readers (man, you all are so patient with the minutiae of my life) may recall some of my concerns about my colleagues/friends. Most of my university teaching friends have doctorates, some masters' degrees, but our pay is not so great. Everyone I know picks up extra work wherever we can--adjunct jobs, freelance editing, you name it. And the salary issue is worse for those whose spouse is also teaching for us. I won't go into my political rant, but we've had issues all over our state university system. The issue is, of course, compounded by the fact that many financed grad school with student loans.
I have a core group of about six women who I'm close to, and of those six of us, four of them struggle mightily with money. They are all married, each have two kids, and work very hard, picking up extra work where and when they can. But during a lunch on Friday, three said that apart from the mandatory state pension withdrawals, they had NO retirement savings, nothing in IRAs or the 403b the university offers. That made me feel really sick. I'm the oldest of all of them, but the rest are about to turn 50 soon. So, here's my question. Do I just completely butt out? We agreed years ago that if we sub for one another on an adjunct job, we pay the sub. One of them owes me $200 for a sub job, and I would so love to walk her through signing up for a 403b and depositing say $100 of the $200 she owes me in that account. They've had so many medical issues, a child with leukemia, broke parents, you name it. It's a head/heart issue. I want them to be ok. But it's too interfering, is or isn't it?
How Much to Say?
July 8th, 2018 at 02:50 pm
July 8th, 2018 at 04:17 pm 1531066654
Your friend with the medical issues may not be able to see beyond paying for absolute necessities in the very near future. She may feel that retirement is a lost cause. If she is not even paying a friend what she owes, I assume her situation is pretty dire. I guess what I would do is just be open to conversation about finance, and see where it goes.
July 8th, 2018 at 05:20 pm 1531070430
It is one of the things that drives me crazy when I see others struggling (not only by a lower income but it is WHAT a person does with it). It is incredibly hard but in my opinion very FEW will follow through even if you did all the sign ups/ first deposit or even research on options. I have gotten two responses one was agreeing with every thing i suggested but doing NONE then the other took advice for a couple of months and expected miracles and was mad at me because they did not have it complete in 6 weeks.
good luck hope you can help but do not expect great reception.
July 8th, 2018 at 05:21 pm 1531070463
July 8th, 2018 at 05:52 pm 1531072379
July 9th, 2018 at 02:30 pm 1531146638
July 9th, 2018 at 05:44 pm 1531158246
July 10th, 2018 at 12:58 am 1531184335
No harm in gently feeling her out on the subject and see if she's receptive to listening.
July 11th, 2018 at 03:19 pm 1531322345