Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 444, Planning for Retirement.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 444.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode to help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Planning for Retirement.
It's a dialogue between Paulina and Carlos and it uses some vocabulary that is common in the United States when talking about paying for your retirement years.
Let's get started.
I should be sitting pretty for retirement.
Yeah, I should be okay when I retire, too.
I've been contributing to a 401k through my work for years and my company gives a matching contribution.
Really?
I never bothered with a 401k.
A 401k really adds up over time.
I also have an IRA which is tax-deferred, and I have my money in a portfolio that is split between stocks and bonds.
All of these investments are for the long haul, of course.
How about you?
What's your retirement plan?
Where do you have your money invested?
It's safe and sound.
Don't you worry.
You make it sound like you have it stashed under your mattress.
A mattress is a very safe place for your money.
Our dialogue begins with Paulina asking Carlos, Did you get your social security statement?
Social Security is a US government program that allows you to get money after you stop working, when you retire.
You pay taxes every year when you work, and those taxes are given back to you when you stop working.
A social security statement is a piece of paper the government sends you every year that tells you how much money you have spent, or rather how much money you have paid the government.
The government is the one that spends the money.
Paulina says, I just got or received mine in the mail.
I should be sitting pretty for retirement, Paulina says, if I keep working at this rate.
At this rate means, at this pace, working the same number of hours each week for the next 20 years.
She says between Social Security and my savings.
The word between normally means in the middle of two things.
But here, the use is a little bit different.
It means together, combined, both.
So she's saying, if I take both my Social Security money and my savings, the money that she put in a bank and saved, She should be sitting pretty for retirement.
To be sitting pretty means to be in a good situation, a good position.
You don't have any problems or worries, especially financially.
Retirement is the period of time after you stop working.
In the United States, it's usually at age 62 or 65.
Carlos says, yeah, yes.
I should be okay when I retire, too.
I've been contributing.
I've been putting money in. into a 401k.
A 401k is a special type of US retirement account that the employer, the person who you work for or the company you work for, gives money to the workers for their retirement. the workers also give money or put money into the 401 .
In some companies, the worker is the only one that puts money into the 401 , but in some companies, in most companies, both the company and the employee, the person working at the company, contribute or put money into this account. and you invest that money.
You put it in stocks or other financial instruments, as they're called other financial investments, and you hope you will have more money when you retire.
401ks are usually accounts that you don't have to pay taxes on when you put the money in.
You have to pay taxes typically when you take the money out when you retire.
So Carlos has a 401k.
He says, my company gives me a matching contribution.
A matching contribution is what the company gives or puts into your retirement account.
Matching means usually they put in the same amount as you do.
Contribution just means what you give to someone or something.
Paulina says, Paulina says, I never bothered means I have never done that.
It seemed like too much trouble, so I never did it.
Carlos says a 401k really adds up over time.
To add up.
Here means to accumulate, to get more and more, to total.
Add up has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanation.
Here, it's a two-word phrasal verb meaning to accumulate, to grow.
Carlos says, I also have an IRA.
IRA stands for or means Individual Retirement Account.
This is another special account, retirement account, that you can have in the United States.
It is also one that you don't have to pay taxes on when you put the money into your IRA account.
Carlos says that his IRA is tax deferred.
To defer means to do something later, at a later time.
So tax deferred means you don't pay taxes now, but you'll pay it later.
You'll pay the government taxes on the money when you take the money out after you retire.
Carlos says that he has his money in a portfolio that is split between stocks and bonds.
A portfolio is a word that describes all of your investments, especially stocks and bonds.
Stocks are partial ownership that you have in a company.
They are sold in something called shares.
You buy shares in a company.
That means you're buying a certain small percentage of the company.
You own part of the company when you buy stock.
A bond B-O-N-D is an agreement where a The company or a government borrows money from you and agrees to pay you back with interest at a future date.
Bond has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at the learning guide again for some additional explanations.
Carlos says that his portfolio is split between stocks and bonds.
Split here just means divided when you have more than one part of something.
Carlos says that all of these investments are for the long haul, of course.
The long haul, H-A-U-L, means for the long term, over the long period of time, not immediately.
If someone says, we're here for the long haul, they mean we are here for a long time.
We're not going to worry about what happens in the next year or two years.
We are worried about, or we are concerned about, only what happens after many years.
Another word for long haul is long run.
The economist John Maynard Keynes once said in the long run we're all dead.
Meaning, if you worry too much about only what happens, after many years you may not be alive.
Carlos says that he has his investments and they are for the long haul.
Then he asks Paulina, how about you?
What's your retirement plan?
Paulina says, I have my money stashed away in a nice little nest egg.
To stash, S-T-A-S-H, away something means to hide something, to put it in a secret place.
A nest egg is money that you are going to use, in this case for retirement, money that you save for your retirement when you stop working.
That's called a nest egg.
Carlos says, where do you have your money invested?
Where did you put your money?
Stocks, bonds, etc.
Paulina says, it's safe and sound.
Don't you worry.
The expression, to be safe and sound, means to be secure, without any danger, without any worry.
Whenever there's a big fire here in Los Angeles or an earthquake, some members of my family, the ones who still love me, will call me and ask.
Carlos laughs at Paulina and says You make it sound like you are giving me the impression that you have your money stashed under your mattress.
Your mattress is what you sleep on, what most of us sleep on at night.
Paulina says a mattress is a very safe place for your money, suggesting that she doesn't have her money invested anywhere or in a bank, but she has it in her house underneath her mattress.
Putting some money underneath or below your mattress is a traditional way of saving your money, of keeping your money.
But, of course, it's not a very good investment, although nowadays perhaps it is the safest one.
Now let's listen to the dialogue again, this time at a normal speed.
Did you get your Social Security statement?
I just got mine in the mail.
If I keep working at this rate for the next 20 years, between Social Security and my savings, I should be sitting pretty for retirement.
Yeah, I should be okay when I retire, too.
I've been contributing to a 401k through my work for years and my company gives a matching contribution.
Really?
I never bothered with a 401k.
A 401k really adds up over time.
I also have an IRA which is tax-deferred, and I have my money in a portfolio that is split between stocks and bonds.
All of these investments are for the long haul, of course.
How about you?
What's your retirement plan?
I have money stashed away in a nice little nest egg.
Where do you have your money invested?
It's safe and sound.
Don't you worry.
You make it sound like you have it stashed under your mattress.
A mattress is a very safe place for your money.
The script for this episode was written by Dr. Lucy Say, who we hope will always be safe and sound.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
