I feel like I'm being cheated out of all my hopes of having a nice retirement when it comes time!

[imanamerican63]

I have worked for forty years as a truck driver, mostly over the road, but a few local jobs here and there. My career has had its ups and downs, yet I work as hard as I could to make a good living and put some money away as much as could.

I’ve never married, nor have any dependents. My debt is very low, bills are credit cards (which I pay off even before the statements come), life and car insurance, my pick up payment, prescriptions and few other expenses. My pick up is higher because I only financed it for 3 years and have 2 more years left. Right now, my road expenses have gone up dramatically and I try to stock up on groceries, but there are times when I just have eat a normal meal which can break anyone’s pocket!

I’m basically living in my truck and my bosses are good with me doing so. It’s not that I can’t afford to have a house or rent somewhere? It’s because I stay busy driving and it’s senseless to spend money on rent while being on the road for several weeks at time. I work for a company that is good to me and appreciates the work I do, so it’s a win, win situation in end. I plan on doing this at least another year. I was going by a camper and park it at a trailer park, but they want an ungodly amount of money to rent a spot! Another scam if you ask me, $700.00 a month.

I make a good wage but each time I set aside more money, it keeps getting lesser and lesser each time. The cost of everything has increased significantly that I have very little left to put aside.

My 401k is below what should be there. I had to take out some of it to pay the difference off when I sold the my mother and where living in after she went into a nursing home due her breaking her hip and needed more care that my siblings could provide her with. I’m just now getting back that money slowly, but Trump is screwing around with that too!

The short of it is that we are in the same situation and face the same challenges. Nevertheless there is one common reason why we are in this mess? Trump and his greedy minions. Yes, this has getting out hand for some time now but Trump is causing most of the damage, problems and suffering in this country right now.

Interesting that he blames other people and previous administrations for the current crisis. Yet, he said out loud, he doesn’t care about the people and their finances! That alone makes him a hypocrite who thinks he’s is above everyone else!

He was born with a rusted spoon in his mouth. Now, we are paying for his demented ignorance! Lies, wars, corruption and endless manipulation madness is spiraling out of control.

Will the madness stop? Only when his name is wiped away from the face of our nation as president.Then there are the GOBer MAGAsses that also need to removed.

It’s about the now! We need to make it happen NOW! Not in a few years or decades! It is time for action NOW! Or it will be too late, if it isn’t already too late NOW!

[Johnny2X2X]

1. The only chance working people have is to support Democrats

Your situation is too common and it's a product of the GOP's plans for working people, their plans mean no retirement for all but the richest Americans.

[radical noodle]

2. This is what retired Boomers are facing right now

We're on a fixed income, and what savings we had are dwindling away. Even with everything paid off, it's just a matter of time until the HVAC fails, or we need a new roof and all bets are off. For many of us, our health doesn't allow for us to go back to work, even if we could find a job.

You ARE being cheated, as we all are.

[multigraincracker]

3. I have a dream.

I’m where you are working for. Everything is paid for. Wife got her fist SS check. Saved $ for travel in our retirement, but it boils down to saving Medicare and SS.
Winning the Mid/terms is now critical to those plans.
Need to vote, donate and drive others to the polls this November. My retirement and plans depend on us sweeping these elections.

[get the red out]

4. I worry too

I am fortunate that I have had an administrative assistant job for 28 years at a public institution with great retirement and healthcare. But will my 403B, which was on target for retiring at 67 (I am 62), be able to cover expenses now? Especially since Trump and his party want to end Medicare and SS. If they do, I have no idea what to do about healthcare and making ends meet, and prices are INSANE!

[dalton99a]

5. The Affordability President is robbing and looting his country

[imanamerican63]

6. ........

What a crock of💩

[EYESORE 9001]

7. I'm providing economic support to four households, including my own

Retirement? It is to laugh.

[hamsterjill]

8. Agree completely.

I'm a little over a year into retirement, and I haven't had a peaceful day since that sonofabitch got back into office. I hate him for that reason alone if not for all of the other crap that he's done to hurt people.

In my opinion, it's going to take more than voting in the midterms. I hope to God that I am wrong, but I think we are beyond being able to salvage a Democracy that so many are not even interested in fighting for.

Please someone do something!!!! Our elected reps seem to be helpless. We need a genius to come up with some unorthodox methods to counter all of this, and when that happens, we need to all get the fuck behind that idea and stop nit picking and complaining about miniscule differences.

[cer7711]

9. I feel ya!

I'm a 62-year-old man who has spent a liftetime working retail, CS and inside sales jobs.
Diabetes is slwoly killing me. Blurring vision, numb feet. Dental-relatedd pain so bad I swig clove oil daily.
Still working full-time. Had to let the medical insurance go because I could not afford it.
I pride myself on slow-cooking a pot of vegetables and living off that for a week,
Eggs are a treat I allow myself on occasion. Ditto toast and milk.
Cannot afford a car anymore. 9k in my 401k. (Pathetic, I know, But how can you save when every dollar goes to expeenses?)
All I hope for now is a quick, painless death.
I've given up hope of ever making a living wage, or seeing a viable public-option health care plan rolled out nation-wide.
Decades have passed and the life of the hard-pressed working- and middle-classes just keeps getting ground down to nothing.
I would say "hang in there, brother:" but those words ring hollow and empty.
What is to be done?
At this point, the question is irrevelant.
This social-Darwinist, crony-capitalist society we live in has ground most of us down to peasanrty eekinbg out a tawdry, hand-to-mouth existence in the new-feudlism.
I say this w/o sel-f-pity. It is simply a recitation of lived truth uttered from the bottom of the societal barrel.
It is what it is.
And what it is is nightmare.

[LuvLoogie]

10. I'll be working in some capacity until I'm dead. I turn 65 this summer.

roof leaks through the ceiling in 4 places. I have maybe 20 k in my 403b. Had a quadruple bypass in January 2024. (I'm doing well). I've got about 25 years left on my current refinance at 1300 a month. I only earn 26 bucks an hour. My wife has a small business and earns less than that. She is not insured as my work changed from being umbrellaed in a non profit 13,000 employee organization to an independent at 20 employees. Family coverage premium would have gone from 500/month to 1600 per month. So it's just me via company. We have a good separate dental/vision plan through my work that covers my whole Family, though. My 21 year old daughter is working full time hours but is not considered a fulltime employee. She has her own Healthcare BC/BS plan via Illinois marketplace which I help her pay for. My 18 year old daughter is starting college next fall and qualified for Medicaid as she has cerebral palsy.

I still plan to start drawing Soc Security in a couple years and changing gigs to a side hustle that will get me enough income without taking a hit on the social security pmt. I didn't have my kids until I was in my 40s so I'm kinda running outa runway, LOL.

Find a room mate, reconnect with siblings or extended family. I don't know if you've seen the film NOMADLAND, but I think it is important to find a community to be part of, even if you're going to be on the move.

[Fil1957]

11. Trump is an easy target, but he's not the problem so much as a symptom of something much deeper in this nation. The

problem are those who enable him.

Without the oligarchs and the other 70+ million enablers, Trump would be just another eccentric billionaire spouting off crazy stuff that gets into the media from time to time, instead of being the most powerful and destructive person in the world. Unfortunately, so many people in this country are ignorant, xenophobic and just plain stupid that they can't see through the B.S. the right wing media is feeding them, and as a result, they often vote against their own interests.

America has always had a large number of ignorant people, but the number seems to have grown over the last 40 years. It's because of them we can't have nice things like they do in other developed countries.

[1WorldHope]

12. I'm really discouraged as well. It seems like we should have solved this problem the last time he was in office.

From all appearances we have no superheroes in Congress who are going to do anything but tell us to vote in the next election and give them plenty of money when we do it. So what is our next option? Do you suppose if we got 4 million people to descend upon the capital and protest would that do anything? I've started to feel pretty hopeless too. I'm finding myself trying to do the best I can to ignore it for a good number of hours every day and get outside touch the grass smell the flowers pet the dogs feed the birds and pray for his demise. If this isn't the death of America then I don't know what it is. And naturally we had to take the whole fucking planet with us.

[Hugin]

13. Yep.

We’re being robbed of a future we worked towards for a lifetime.

[CousinIT]

14. I"m a year out. I know the feeling.

Last edited Wed May 20, 2026, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Worked 50 years and don't even know if Social Security or Medicare will exist in a year in their current form. OR if I can afford the costs on a fixed income. It's a fucking disaster.