Just think of what would happen if you hadn't planned and saved when you discovered a major health problem. As I understand it, Medicare will only pay 80% of your medical bills, so what happens if you rack up several hundred thousand in surgery and medicine costs? Yep, you're out $20K/$100K of cost. It's bad enough being sick, now you've got to worry about where the money's going to come from to pay your bills. No thanks, I'd rather live modestly and accumulate enough savings to handle even this kind of tragedy.
What I haven't seen, here or anywhere else, is what happens to your personal economic picture AFTER you retire. People used to say that spending 4%/year of your savings was safe, but with record low interest returns and a volatile stock market, now I'm hearing that's not such a good idea. I retired almost five years ago and am so far holding my own, but after inflation I'm actually a tiny bit behind. Where does one go for income these days, besides back to work? Or is that a topic for a separate thread?
I would be using this computer out in the snow if I got into that stuff. But I have got some goofy stuff, like having a subscription that was supposed to stop, keep billing us, it was a computer security thingy she bought. And phone calls that are to odd places?
