How Pension Plans Secure Your Future
I spent most of my youth in a small village, where most everyone knew each other. The cranky old neighbor who owns the barbershop, the chubby, jolly lady who lives across the street with three equally chubby children, to the two men who competed each other selling their wares in carts, roving around the village each and every day – one selling corn, while the other selling fruits. For many years, they, among other people, have been a regular sight for me while growing up. But as the years go by, many changes have occurred. The old man with the barbershop passed away leaving his eight children alone with their sweet, mother, the chubby lady was not as chubby as before, while the man selling fruits suddenly just up and disappeared, leaving the other, now old man selling corn all alone during his daily jaunts. My curious side got the best of me and so I went and tried to find out what happened to these three figures that have been so prominent in my life.
The first thing I did was go up to the barbershop and had a chat with one of the children – now an adult who took over his father’s barbershop business – of the cranky old man. Since his father passed away, I found out that they have been living a comfortable life, with their mother living contentedly in retirement. Knowing that their sole business was the barbershop, and that their mother did not have a job, I asked if their dad had some sort of retirement pension. I was not surprised then when I was told that yes, he did. After a few days, I then sauntered off to the house of the once chubby lady across the street. When I arrived, the now frail lady let me in, though with a jolly disposition still, her eyes betrayed certain sadness in her. I was taken aback by the condition of her once regal house. Where flowerbeds of different kinds once were, her garden was now bare with naught a thing growing and full of rusty old tools and other flotsam and jetsam that looked like they were left there to rot some odd decades ago. We sat on her porch, which by now was a rickety shade of its former glory, and talked. After a couple of cups of coffee — which was awfully good I might add — I finally had the nerve to ask, "What happened?" The woman broke down and started to recount her tale of woe.
About twenty years ago, she started, her husband, who was working overseas as an engineer and whom I have never actually seen, suddenly stopped sending money to her and their children. At first, she was furious, thinking that her husband strayed and had another woman, but deep down she was extremely worried. After a week, a letter came, and confirmed her innermost fears; her husband was killed during a freak accident while working on site. She went, as expected, hysterical and stopped eating save for a couple of crackers a day. The morning after her husband’s funeral though, while sifting through all the legal paperwork, she found out that her husband never got any form of company pension from the company he was working for. Soon after, while trying to raise three children all alone, her savings were all but gone. One saving grace though, she added, was that the house was all paid for and at least she had a roof to live under. Her children grew up and started their own families, and she was left all alone. Though she did get the occasional visit and financial aid from her children, it takes all she has in her to keep living, saying that she has not a thing to live for anyway. Before I left though, she told me the story of the man who sold fruits in a cart. His plight was similar to the lady in that, he too, never got a retirement pension for himself and his family. When he disappeared, the lady said, the fruit man was struck by a mild case of the flu. However, complications arose and he was stricken blind and paralyzed from the waist down. What complications were these, I would not know, however, what I do know is that influenza by itself would not cause any of these, except if his sickness was misdiagnosed as such. At any rate, being the sole provider of his family, they soon were swallowed by debts due to rising costs of living and exorbitant medical bills. One of the reasons why the man’s sickness went out of hand so quickly was that aside from lack of any pension plan, the man also had no insurance whatsoever. Here we see the importance of securing one’s future. Things can happen so fast that that we might lose everything before we realize what hit us.
It is good practice to prepare for any eventuality. Many times you might think that, hey, it would not happen to me anyway, but when it does, regret is all you would feel. Regret in knowing that you had the chance to do things right, but instead procrastinated, or even downright refused to believe. The examples above of my neighbors show those who prepared lived life comfortably and secure, if not themselves, their family and beneficiaries. Those who did not however, lived life day to day, full of pain, hurt, suffering, regret. Not to say you would suffer the same fate if you do not prepare, but rather it is better to be safe than sorry. Now, you might be thinking, "What ever happened to the man who sells corn?" After meeting with the once chubby lady, now frail, I went straight to the corn man, introduced myself, and after an exchange of pleasantries, bought myself half a bushel and convinced him, for his and his own family’s benefit, to go out and get good pensions for himself.
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