53 now. In the words of a very fine song; 'the road behind me, is longer than the one ahead'.
 
Glad to be self-employed, I'd hate to be working for any company right now.
 
I live in a backwater of Scotland..a very pretty place, but with little or no industry. Farming or forestry. The population is small, but aging rapidly, as it's very popular for retirement..house prices are still relatively low.
 
The upside of that (for me) is that there is plenty of work in gardening/property maintenance..older folk become unable to look after their own properties eventually.
 
I'm (sort of) lucky in as much as I had some very good advice in my 20's, and took out personal pension funds with a couple of companies who have weathered the financial storms. I've seen my pension funds grow by 10 - 15 % per annum, although I stopped making contributions long ago. The state pension won't be enough to buy a loaf of bread by the time I retire..if I ever do.
 
I suppose I'm what they call 'asset rich, cash poor'. Don't know from one week to the next how I'm going to pay the bills or feed the family, but if if I could realize my assets, I'd probably have enough to live on for 15 years or so. After that..what? Dunno. Drive off a cliff. Thelma & Louise style.
 
I know one thing..I wouldn't want to be starting out these days..happy I was born in 1960.

Whew! Tough topic. This one and the loss of job threads. My heart aches for everyone affected. Heck, my dream was to have been retired 6-years back, but that got sidetracked somewhere along the way after getting married. Not a complaint. Just that things change a bit when those type of life events happen. One major concern now-a-days is healthcare costs in the U.S. Even the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) isn't quite as affordable as I was hoping. Fortunately I do not need to go that route at present as I employed by a company with a health plan. I feel the ACA is well intentioned, but the insurers in the plan are charging fairly hefty prices. It very well could be that U.S. healthcare costs justify the charges. Also, the fear of losing one's savings is always prevalent. Somehow these fat-cats always seem to find a way to unstablize the economy every 10 years or so in their quest to make themselves richer. And finally, taxes. Where I live, taxes just really eat away at your hard-earned allottment. Property taxes in particular. They are beyond a joking matter anymore.
 
Sometimes I joke with my wife about getting rid of most everything, and buy a little ranch or mobile home, and just kind of live a 'simpler' life. It could actually be rewarding if the right location was found with the right attitude.