The last recession was a big wake up call for a lot of people, especially those who were retiring only to find their pension was wiped out and they got literally nothing.
I came to the conclusion then, that I wanted to escape the system and fend for myself, and pay for my own retirement instead.
In my lifetime, our state pension age (at which you can retire and receive state pension) has already increased by 7 years, with further increases on the way. It makes financial sense for the Government to do this, with advances in medicine and the increasing number of people still alive at pension age. It's just not sustainable forever.
Anyone here old enough to remember interest only mortgages ? The idea was you took out a loan to buy your home, and every month you paid only the interest on the loan, but not any of the capital. At the same time you took out what was called an endowment policy, basically a life insurance contract that paid out on a certain date, timed to coincide with the end of the mortgage.
In theory, when the mortgage period ended the endowment policy would pay out to cover repayment of the capital, and with a lump sum left over that you were free to spend on whatever. It sounded really attractive to a lot of people and they were very popular.
Well as time has shown, it was all a long con. The endowment policies never paid out anything near to the value still outstanding on the mortgage and people were left with huge shortfalls. In other cases, the cost of the endowment policy was increased month after month after month 'to make up for a projected shortfall' until people found they were making payments every month that were 5 times what they started. This happened a lot during the housing crisis in the 90's and a lot of people had their homes re-possessed because they couldn't keep up the ever increasing cost of the endowment policy.
I digress... I see a lot of similarities between the housing system and the pension system. I think that pensions will be a thing of the past within my lifetime. The government clearly hates the state pension and is trying to phase it out, and the cost of private pensions (no guaranteed payout) is going to skyrocket. Everyone wants you to work and pay taxes until you are 65, then drop dead and not claim anything back.
I have no idea what the future holds for me, but I know for sure that I want to have control over it, not some unscrupulous investment firm. I'm not paying into some fund for 50 years only to be told at the end, "ah, sorry, we made some mistakes and gambled the money away, you get nothing back".
What if you get sick before retirement age ? What if in the worst case you get told you only have 6 months to live ? Well, I'm sure as shit going liquidate all my assets and head off round the world on a drug and alcohol fueled bender, and not just accept I took a gamble that I would live to retirement age and lost. I want to be in control of my money, and free to do what I like with it when I like.
This is the reason why I chose to become a trader, so I can have complete control over my own life. Why put my savings in a bank and earn 2% interest per year when I get that on average per trade ?
I admit it's an endeavour fraught with difficulties and not easy, there's no safety net to fall back on if you mess it all up, but my future is entirely in my own hands now and I prefer it that way.
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