Uh oh...

...I might be working forever! Piggybacking off my last post about worry for my mom and step-dad who will be working well into their 60's and most likely 70's (yikes!!), I looked at my retirement fund today since the stock market crashed a bit. (I always look at the fluctuation when I read about those things.) At this point, it doesn't make much of a difference--I plan on having that $ in there for a long time, but it still is neat to look at (particularly when it goes up by a bunch!). So that got me thinking, I'm about 1.5 years from 30 which seems like a pretty grown up age. So I googled "how much should I have in retirement accounts by 30." There were many different answers, but the most common would be that you should have about a year's salary saved by 30. Holy shit! One place said something like a person who makes $48,000 (more than me, but the only ball park I could find) should be saving about $700 a month. Who the hell can afford that! Also, the big trend was to take advantage of company matching. Well, fuck. Teachers have no such thing as matching. Any penny in my accounts has come from me--no matching or anything like that. So basically, I would say I'm not even a quarter to that goal they mentioned-I don't want to work until I'm 60 or 70!! I think the only choice I have is to win the lottery.