Are you "lucky"if you have a secure retirement?

[300UGUY]

We are leaving some money to the Salvation army, and some to relatives. It might change in the future, as I see some relatives need help more than others, but hopefully, this will be some years in the future.

 

[jix]

Boys, I been in a lotta places in this world way off of the beaten track, in the army and in wars. I think that the Sally Ann is a Good charity that puts 100% of donations to work directly to benefit the poor, the disabled, the sick, the starving, and the lost.

I give money to them every year, but I am not in the Salvation army. I do it because I have seen their work in many places. Good people doing good things. No rake off, no executives, no perks, no waste. If there is a more deserving charity, I do not know what it is.
I support the Sally Ann. I don't know a soldier who does not.

 

[Parkanzky]

I'm not well heeled enough to travel first class and I find traveling as a run of the mill tourist loses it's charm after a cruise or two. As we were in line waiting to ping our cards to get off the boat at one port the cattle in the chute effect became apparent and my wife turned to me and went Bah-- Mooo.
Tonight we went out for Valentines day dinner at a restaurant that tries to be a bit pretentious. The waitress went through the wine tasting ceremony for a $25 bottle of wine. Like I would ever pretend to know that that bottle was off and not what I ordered. It was good wine and the food was good but I really didn't need the show.
My point is I've been the places I want to see and done the things I could both afford and wanted to do and now I am content to retire to my home and have nice dinners with her cooked by one of us and topped off with that same wine for $13.00 a bottle down at the store without all the fuss. When we are done the kids will get what is left but they hopefully will be well into middle age by then so need to make their own way in the meantime.

Way off-topic for this thread, but it's already pretty derailed, so...

We took my mother on a cruise and really disliked it. We felt the same way about an all-inclusive resort we went to in Jamaica to attend a friend's "destination wedding." We chose one of the nicer cruise lines, and the Jamaica trip was at a well-rated resort. They just weren't for us.

For us, travel is a way to enjoy some of the finer things, see the country or the world, and to immerse ourselves in a culture we wouldn't get to see otherwise.

Before we went to Europe, we had arranged for a rental car for the three weeks we were there, a hotel room for the night we arrived, tickets for a big event we wanted to attend (The Formula 1 Grand Prix in Italy), and hotel rooms for the race weekend. Otherwise, we would get up in the morning and decide what we wanted to experience that day. A few days were incredibly cheap (A room at a small hotel in rural Italy and street caf駸 along the way), while a few days were staggeringly expensive (A room on the bay in Monaco and high-end restaurants). We might spend an entire day just walking around a big walled city on the mountainside that we had happened upon during our drive. Of course we still stopped at places like the Coliseum and countless museums and duomos, but I feel like we know the places we visited so much more than if we'd taken a canned tour. It was wonderful to be eating dinner along the Grand Canal in Venice and be able to decide that we wanted to see what the Adriatic resort towns were like, or visit a lake-side town in Switzerland, then get up the next morning and do it.

Another example is the trip we took to CA recently. We got a car for the week and a hotel for the first night. Then we spent a couple days in Fisherman's Wharf, a couple days driving through Napa and Sonoma, drove up to Lake Tahoe and Reno, then down to Carmel, Monterey, Big Sur, etc. before looping back and spending a couple days in Union Square.

We spend the flight home from our vacations talking about where we might like to see next. Right now, we're limited by our vacation time. But when we're retired, we want to be able to travel as far and as frequently as our savings will take us. So I fully expect our retirement spending to outstrip our current spending, at least until as long as our health permits it.

 

[ovrszd]

I take a different view on the amount of income needed after retirement. When you retire your house should be paid for and your children should be grown ,educated and on there own so your expenses should be a lot less then when you were working full time with a house full of dependents. Let's for the sake of round numbers say that when you were working you brought in 100K, Of that you paid 7.65 % in social security and medicaid taxes or $7,650. then you probably paid 17% state and federal income taxes Or $17,000. Depending on when you bought your house and how big it is your mortgage payments might vary from $600 to $1300 per month or more but lets say $800/m not counting property taxes So $9600 per year. Then you were commuting to work about 20,000 miles a year at $0.50 per mile for $10,000. Lets skip feeding , clothing and educating kids as not everyone has them. So you were living on $ 100 -7.65-17-9.6-10 which equals 55.75K
Now if your retirement income was $56,000 and it came from SS or a pension plan you would not have to pay SS and medicare taxes on it and at that lower income the income tax bite might be just 10% or 5600 your house is paid for, and you don't have to commute to work and your Beemer can sit in the garage and appreciate. So assuming the kids have moved out you have $50,400 to spend on what you want as apposed to $55.75 net from $100K while working. That comes out to your only gaining $2.68 per hour for working a full 2000 hour year.
Oops I forgot that you were contributing 6% a year to your retirement plan or 401K. So you were living on less then $50K.

I agree. Regardless how much we throw this subject around, it always comes back to the same thing. It's not as important how much you have to retire on as it is how much you spend in retirement. Number one thing is be debt free.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Yes, to each his own. Get yourself debt free so that the income you can draw retired is sufficient for your basic upkeep then spend they rest of it as you want to. I've never understood people that change houses in their fifties and sign on to a thirty year mortgage that will last until their eighties.

 

[JDgreen227]

Yes, to each his own. Get yourself debt free so that the income you can draw retired is sufficient for your basic upkeep then spend they rest of it as you want to. I've never understood people that change houses in their fifties and sign on to a thirty year mortgage that will last until their eighties.

Three years after I retired the mortgage I had mostly paid off before my divorce came up for possible refinance...they (credit union) told us that we qualified to borrow $350,000...my ex wanted to borrow that and payoff the existing mortgage and buy a vacation home. Unlike her I had been following the financial situation and bluntly told her we were NOT going to refinance....had I done that odds are I would be living in a rented apartment now.

It never fails to amaze me how the uninformed and clueless are the ones who want to borrow money for the present while living in the future. May not have any bearing on my thoughts, but: Several years after the GFC my brother bid on a foreclosed house that had a market value of maybe 85 grand before the GFC. The loan outstanding on the property was about $178,000....now, who in the right state of mind would loan 2X the actual market value on a property and who would be stupid enough to borrow that much???

 

[ovrszd]

I think that type of borrowing is more commonplace than we can imagine.

As someone mentioned earlier, my wife works with a lady that is 67. She just signed a 30 yr mortgage.

 

[doxford jim]

With respect to remortgaging, I can understand why. For the most part, the interest on a mortgage is low in comparison to a loan. If money is tied up in investments, it makes sense to take out another mortgage.
I took out a $65,000 mortgage because it was cheaper to pay the mortgage than cash in investments and retirement funds. The mortgage was only $600 a month - less than rent, so I felt comfortable doing that. The mortgage was paid off without any problems.
I guess convenience make a difference as does messing with investments.

 

[houstonscott]

With respect to remortgaging, I can understand why. For the most part, the interest on a mortgage is low in comparison to a loan. If money is tied up in investments, it makes sense to take out another mortgage. I took out a $65,000 mortgage because it was cheaper to pay the mortgage than cash in investments and retirement funds. The mortgage was only $600 a month - less than rent, so I felt comfortable doing that. The mortgage was paid off without any problems. I guess convenience make a difference as does messing with investments.

Agreed, if you can borrow money at 3% why would you cash investments paying 6.2% to avoid it, now imagine that against a portfolio earning 20%. Plus the 3% mortgage can be tax deductible. HS

 

[JDgreen227]

I think that type of borrowing is more commonplace than we can imagine.

As someone mentioned earlier, my wife works with a lady that is 67. She just signed a 30 yr mortgage.

Was that a conventional mortgage or reverse mortgage? And so much depends on your financial situation...if she is of limited income but has a lot of equity built up....????