- Tamara Ponzo Brattoli’s retirement plans changed after the sudden death of her son in 2018.
- Brattoli took a job at Costco to pay her bills, but she worries about her financial future.
- Many older Americans face financial hardship after the loss of loved ones, which affects their retirement.
Tamara Ponzo Brattoli, 57, had settled into a quiet retirement in her 60s. She raised three children with her husband and worked as a professor at a community college in a Chicago suburb.
However, when her son died suddenly, she said, in addition to grief, she became much more concerned about her retirement.
Images of Brattoli’s late son Anthony from his travels abroad, along with some of his belongings. Laura McDermott/BI
Her son Anthony was a college student who died after working abroad the summer before his senior year. His death hit the family hard, and Brattoli struggled to return to work. After taking a leave of absence to grieve and coming back for a few semesters, she retired from teaching, took her early retirement and got a job as a warehouse manager at Costco to help her make ends meet.
She is proud of herself for reducing her financial burden and returning to work in a role she could afford, even though it was in a completely different industry.
Although she earns enough to live comfortably, she said she worries her pension won’t keep up with inflation, which could make her finances tighter. She wishes she had had more resources and guidance to strengthen her finances after Anthony’s death and had saved more money earlier in life in case tragedy struck.
“I regret not maximizing my options during that terrible time,” she told Business Insider. “I needed better help making decisions, but I didn’t know where to turn, and I don’t feel like my former employer, or my union, or my therapists really knew how to help me.”
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Brattoli is one of several dozen older Americans who told BI through interviews and a volunteer survey in recent months that the loss of a loved one affected their finances and retirement plans. Some respondents said that losing a spouse, parent or child caused them to panic and make poor financial decisions. Others said they had to quit work or take lower-stress jobs to cope with the pain.
Read a letter Brattoli wrote to her younger self about what she would have done differently or kept the same. Her story continues below.
Raising a family as a college professor
Brattoli sits at the living room table poring over notes from a textbook. Laura McDermott/BI
Brattoli grew up in a middle-class family in Sacramento, California, and was the first in her family to graduate from college. She earned a master’s degree in English and landed a job teaching at a community college outside Chicago in 1993, where she also directed its study abroad program.
She and her husband had three children and invested much of their money in them. She taught extra classes to keep their finances afloat and fund vacations.
Brattoli supported her children’s musical passions, including financially. Anthony played the pipes and enrolled at Brown University. He won the Brown University Orchestra Concerto Competition and had a concentration in English and Slavic studies. In 2018, he got a job in Prague translating Russian legal documents into English.
“I had this job that allowed me to be flexible during the day, but then I was running around, taking the kids to their appointments,” Brattoli said. “And then at night, I was grading papers until late.”
Grieving and working
A shrine to Brattoli’s late son Anthony, who suffered a brain hemorrhage. Laura McDermott/BI
While in Prague, Anthony suffered a brain hemorrhage and was in a vegetative state for a month. Brattoli traveled there and stayed with Anthony for three weeks, and they flew him back to the US, where he lived out the last days of his life. The university’s insurance paid for the return flight, though she regretted not investing in good travel insurance as a backup in case Brown didn’t cover her in full.
Brattoli went on leave after Anthony’s death, but returned to work starting in spring 2019 — including distance learning before and during the pandemic — to pay her bills.
“I was completely unable to teach and I forced myself to get through it for a while, but I couldn’t function,” Brattoli said.
She said that because of the grief, she didn’t prioritize long-term financial planning, adding that she didn’t know where to turn for help beyond therapists or her employer. She wishes she had talked to a financial advisor or looked into retirement resources to make her savings go further.
As she ended her teaching career at age 54, she took a job at Costco, first as a seasonal clerk packing e-commerce orders, then in an administrative role handling accounts payable and planning truck routes. She was promoted to facilities supervisor at a distribution center, which paid about $65,000 a year. She said she is still financially stable and that her Costco salary allowed her to pay her bills with some ease.
Her husband, who is several years older than her, worked after Anthony’s death but lost his job during the pandemic. He also returned to Costco, working in a warehouse.
Financial pain
Brattoli stands by the living room windows. Laura McDermott/BI
Brattoli contributed to her public school retirement plan, though she said she and her husband didn’t save much. She didn’t track how much she put into her retirement accounts and said it was difficult to increase her contributions. She wishes she had set aside a lot more of her income earlier so that interest would accrue on it.
In the years after Anthony’s death, Brattoli said her grief and lack of direction led to several financial issues. Because she gave up teaching, she forfeited her state pension early and was paid less than if she had continued teaching for more years.
Since she has a public pension, a Social Security provision cuts her benefits from her private sector job.
“Now I’m on a penalty and it will be for the rest of my life,” said Brattoli. “Even though I’m now working for Costco and getting on Social Security, my Social Security is going to be terrible.”
She intends to work for Costco until age 65, when she expects to have enough to retire, fearing she won’t be physically equipped to work there until much later. Costco provides her health insurance, and with her children now financially stable, she said she could save more for her future by putting much of her income into a 401(k). She said her pension would help keep her afloat after retirement.
“I feel insecure now because inflation has already messed with my pension,” Brattoli said. “I struggled with that because I got my pension and then inflation went up and it’s not like Social Security where it automatically goes up based on how much inflation goes up.”
Brattoli said that despite the pain of the past few years, the decision to work at Costco was the best decision. Her income and pension from Costco got her to where she would be if she were still teaching full-time, and the role helped her rebuild her confidence.
“It gave me a chance to focus on something completely different from teaching,” Brattoli wrote in her letter. “Now, I wear steel-toed shoes. I learned to drive a forklift. I climb on the back of semi-trailers and on building roofs.”
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