What If You Can’t Work as Long as You’d Planned?

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Here’s a question for today: Are you preparing for the possibility that you’ll have to retire earlier than you planned?

We’ve talked a lot over the years about retirement savings, career planning, and work-life balance — but I’m curious how many of you are thinking about the possibility that your working years might end sooner than you’d like.

Between layoffs and the possibility that AI will dramatically change (or eliminate) some jobs, it feels increasingly uncertain whether the decision of when to retire will be entirely ours to make. (Not to mention the usual reasons, including family members whose caregiving needs don’t exactly respect your career plans — rude!)

And of course, there’s the particularly scary prospect of losing your job in your 50s. We’ve heard so many stories about experienced professionals struggling to find new jobs, sometimes despite decades of experience and impressive credentials… about how AI agents are filtering out older applicants, and I’ve seen a lot of stories recently about how women are having a particularly hard time getting hired in their mid-50s and beyond. (Actually, that last linked article’s title is “Are you over 45 and female? Sorry, you’re not getting a job.” Yay!)

Are you doing anything differently because of that possibility? Saving more aggressively, trying to pay off your mortgage, developing a side hustle, or thinking about a second career? Holding onto a dud job even though you’d really like to quit? Are you making a special effort to stay current with technology or keep your professional network strong?

Or are you reasonably confident that you’ll be able to work as long as you want to?

For my own $.02… it is not a great time to be a content creator! I’m grateful that Corporette is still doing OK, but we’ve never been hit this hard by Google changes, and almost every blogger I know is struggling thanks to AI answers that don’t send traffic back to publishers. It’s led to a lot of self-reflection about what the next 10–15 years might look like.

In the past, my husband and I have always prioritized saving in retirement accounts, but considering that it may be years before we can access that money, we’ve started prioritizing other forms of savings that will be accessible before age 59½.

At the same time, we recognize how fortunate we are that no one in our family currently needs extensive caregiving that only we can provide. We’re trying to prioritize travel and experiences while we’re healthy and have the freedom to do so.

Over to you guys! Readers, how much are you planning for the possibility of an involuntary early retirement — and has that changed your financial or career decisions?

Stock photo via Pexels / Yan Krukau.