How My Parents’ Generation Thinks About Retirement

A Conversation With My Parents

I recently had a chat with my parents about retirement planning.

The more we talked, the more I felt the generation gap. Their retirement plan is remarkably simple.

“We have a house.”

That’s it.

Real Estate = Retirement Plan?

For my parents’ generation, owning a home is the retirement plan. The logic goes: when the time comes, they’ll either take out a reverse mortgage, sell the house and downsize, or figure something out. It’ll work out somehow.

Pension? National pension, sure. Private pension or investments? Not really their thing. Stocks are still basically seen as gambling.

To be fair, it makes sense when you consider the era they grew up in. Real estate kept going up. If you owned a house, your wealth actually grew. That was their lived experience.

Why I’m Worried

The question is whether that trend continues.

The population is declining. There’s no guarantee real estate will keep appreciating like it used to. Medical costs will only increase. Relying entirely on a single property feels risky.

On top of that, their generation retired early. Many stepped back from their careers in their mid-50s. Banking on a single house to sustain 30-40 more years seems like a stretch.

But try telling your parents this. You get: “What do you know?”

Am I Any Different?

Honestly, when I look at myself while worrying about all this… I’m not that different.

“I’m a developer, I have skills, I’ll figure it out” — that vague sense of security. Isn’t that basically the same as my parents’ “we have a house”?

“I have skills” vs “I have a house.”

Both are over-relying on a single thing.

What This Made Me Think About

Watching my parents’ generation made me realize I need to diversify my own preparation.

Don’t depend on a single skill set — diversify the portfolio
Start investing, even if it’s small amounts
Take care of health (this might be the real core of retirement planning)
Actually check on my parents’ pension and insurance status

But of course, this is another one of those things where I keep saying “I’ll start next month.”

Whether it’s server migration, retirement planning, or a diet — procrastination follows the same pattern.