Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[ovrszd]

If I did that we'd have the cops at our house in 2.... we live near the airport.

 

[MossRoad]

For clarity, I was referring to married couples. People that remain single their whole lives always raise my eyebrows. Not saying bad. Not saying good. Just unique.

Ahh. Well, see my other reply.

 

[riptides]

If I did that we'd have the cops at our house in 2.... we live near the airport.

If I did that....I would be lucky to have anyone even cops show up.
But one year a neighbor did call the fire department on me...thought barn was on fire. No idea how he saw that or thought that.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

He's a she. And she did have financial help from mom and dad through the first 4 years of college. We started planning for that when she was born. We saved enough for 1/4 of her tuition in 529 plan. We paid another 1/4 tuition. That was the same cost as Catholic grade school and high school, so we were used to paying that amount. She paid for 1/4 of it by working during college. And she got 1/4 of it in merit scholarships.

We know that we are fortunate to not have had any major financial setbacks or catastrophic health crisis coupled with a stable marriage.

There are a lot of people that do experience catastrophe. We understand that. But the majority of homeless people that I've encountered have mental issues and/or drug addiction, and a low level of education.

So I'd start with education from a very early age. All of my siblings and pretty much all of my peers knew how to read, print, their colors, how to count, all before 1st grade. That starts at home.

Home is where the problems start. How does society fix that? I don't know.

I think Medicare and Head Start are the only surviving parts of Johnson's "Great Society." The oldest and the youngest are most at risk. By far the most common form of child abuse is neglect. "Sesame Street" was started to address the needs of children left to the TV babysitter, but that is not interactive. My sister taught elementary school, and was astonished that children started school without knowing what to do if someone told them to sit down. Latchkey living is a fact of life for many children. The paranoia of our society exacerbates the damage, since children are no longer allowed to freely wander. Much of their adult difficulty forming long term relationships can be traced to being managed in child herds and not learning how to form adult relationships. Their first reaction to frustration is a tantrum.

Better training and programs for day care would help, but day care workers are lucky to get minimum wage. Parents working two jobs don't have the time, and many of them are so ignorant they wouldn't know what to do if they did. Post-WWII the Israelis experimented with creche child care where children of working parents lived in the creche and parents got visitation. The practice faded away, but by most accounts the program was successful. I doubt a similar program would fly in the US, but we need to be prepared for a flood of unwanted children. If you think it's bad now, wait a decade.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

You bring up a valid point that's often overlooked.

It addresses the second thing I tell people about retirement. It doesn't matter what your income is, what matters is what you spend.

My retirement income is very close to what my working income was. We have actually improved our lifestyle in retirement. Bought a farm. Built a new house and shop. Bought $60K of farm equipment.

What we immediately noticed was our daily out of pocket expenses went down. Mileage on our vehicles dropped dramatically. I have two trucks. In the last 12 months I've driven them a total of 10K miles.

We adhered to the concept of controlling our spending. It freed us. Yesterday we ate lunch at the local cafe. I had to look in my wallet before we went in to see if I was carrying cash. Hadn't spent any pocket money for a few days and couldn't remember. When I was working I was digging cash out of my wallet daily...

Cash flow is king. I don't know how many times I was told that a home should not be a part of my retirement investments because I have to sell it to get a return. Those people have never paid off a mortgage. My property taxes are $200/month. We just replaced our kitchen appliances. <shrug> One month rent in comparable digs.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Taxes $400 month here, but yea, cheaper than rent.

 

[ovrszd]

Cash flow is king. I don't know how many times I was told that a home should not be a part of my retirement investments because I have to sell it to get a return. Those people have never paid off a mortgage. My property taxes are $200/month. We just replaced our kitchen appliances. <shrug> One month rent in comparable digs.

Yep. I don't expect a return from my home. I expect to live in it until I die. I don't care beyond that. That's my boy's concern.

 

[ovrszd]

Taxes $400 month here, but yea, cheaper than rent.

I'm $650. Still cheaper than rent.

 

[bigtiller]

$440 for me, but I charge my tenants more than that for rent.

 

[MossRoad]

Our property taxes are less than $100 per month.