Retirement Planning - Lessons Learned

[MoKelly]

Hmmm looks kinda full from here, but that may be me. I guess that perhaps you are farther out; 11 hospitals in or near St. Louis are at more than 90% full in their ICUs, another six are over 80% full, out of 21...
https://data.democratandchronicle.com/covid-19-hospital-capacity/missouri/29/st-louis-county/29189/

Better than Alabama which had no free ICU beds yesterday, in the entire state.

If you need to be in a hospital, you need to be in a hospital, but it isn't a great time to need care.

Stay safe.

All the best,

Peter

Sorry. I guess my post was confusing.

Hospitals here are not advertising folks to come to the ICU or even check into hospital beds. Rather, they want folks to see their doctors and get preventative tests.

Also, the sad thing, is the stats are for “staffed” capacity. There are real differences between actual capacity (physical) and staffed capacity. As with everything it seems, there is a lack of folks willing to work.

MoKelly

 

[two_bit_score]

Sorry. I guess my post was confusing.

Hospitals here are not advertising folks to come to the ICU or even check into hospital beds. Rather, they want folks to see their doctors and get preventative tests.

Also, the sad thing, is the stats are for “staffed” capacity. There are real differences between actual capacity (physical) and staffed capacity. As with everything it seems, there is a lack of folks willing to work.

MoKelly

That is the key thing that is rarely reported. To use staffed capacity definitely makes the crisis sound worse.

They could just be honest and say there aren’t enough people to take care of the sick, but there are plenty of beds.

 

[dirttoys]

Did a search and didn't find any recent threads so here we go......

At 58 with the Good Lord willing my retirement window is 4 to 7 years out. Job is steady albeit stressful at times and hoping I can just ride it out and be happy until it's time to pull the trigger. Finances are in order and almost debt free! Wife and I have been truly blessed.

I hang out here on TBN hoping to buy that subcompact one day for a retirement toy. It will be the Massey GC when that day comes.

One marital debate is will we uproot and move to a retirement dream home we've always wanted or will we stay closer to home and family.

So for the experts:

- What have you learned in retirement?

- What would you have done/planned for differently?

- Did you move away or stay at home and are you happy?

Thanks for your time.

Andy in N.C.

Great questions, nice to be thinking down the road.

Story, moved from large city KC to 40 acres on LOZ. For myself and leadership it has been a home run. I am 54 and pulled the plug last year.

Understand your money!! Know best/worst case for your lifestyle and make sure you will be happy. If your coupled, make double sure leadership will be happy!

Pick your hobbies and make sure the team is happy with them and the money doesn't put painful limits on you.

I golf (not well) a few times a month to keep up with just a couple of really good friends. I still help the kids with a variety of things. But, mainly I putter around with various landscape, shore line, and yard projects.

The thing I truly work on is having small achievable, but meaningful goals, so I always have something to do, and it is always something I enjoy.

It is early, but, I have yet to miss the other way of life for even a fleeting second

Best to you, ENJOY

ed

 

[newbury]

To me the key to retirement and lessons learned is to be flexible. don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
My story:
She Who Must Be Obeyed (SWMBO) and I have a house in Mississippi on 75 acres (with 5,500 sq feet in 3 "workshops") in Mississippi we were planning to retire to, since 2011. And be retired there by 2015. Meanwhile we've our main residence in Alexandria, Va. When we bought the place we were both working full time in Northern Virginia.
The details:
I saw an ad in the Tupelo paper in summer 2011, we were looking to retire in the Tupelo area near her relatives. Our four children were out of the nest and planned on living elsewhere than where they grew up. We drove down, (900 miles 1 way) bought it, then came back, in one weekend.
We had been trucking a load or two of our "stuff" down to MS, on and off, for about 5 of those years. But life, and death of others, has gotten in the way.
I used to be a "plan the work and work the plan" type.
But SWMBO, an attorney, had to do significant (free) estate work for relatives, which stalled us for several years.
Then one of our sons, who had bought a lot down in Mississippi and had planned on moving there, changed his mind, moved to near us in Virginia.
A daughter who got her Doctorate and was going to be "anywhere else" moved nearby to us and got a good consulting job AND married.
Another son got married and moved to one of my houses 3 mile from us. Where he now lives with wife and 3 children and most of the time my B7610..
And the third son, who still lives at home, has finally got a decent management job.
So life gets in the way.
In January 2020 we drove our (then) brand new Ford Escape down to Ms for a short trip. Be gone for a month.
Got down there, Covid 19 hit. SWMBO refused to come back to Va. Her mother (now 97) fired her housekeeper. and SWMBO ended up being driven in to town by me to stay with her and help for 3 days a week. Due to my MIL's age C19 was an extreme concern. We finally left July 2021 after everybody got shots and the situation seemed stable. Be back down in 2 months.
Now C19 has a new Variant, Mississippi once again tops the "danger areas" and according to SWMBO we are not going back for a "while".

So for me lessons learned includes to be ready for everything.

 

[deserteagle71]

It's surprising to me to see the wide variations in hospital capacity depending on where you live as mentioned in these posts.

For the first 70 years of my life I was lucky enough to need no surgery. Then I retired - and since retirement have had 4 surgeries, albeit all minor. Three of these were since covid hit and I never had any delays - each surgery happened within a week of being recommended by the doctor.

What surprised me when I retired was the wide difference in insurance plans when I had to buy my own insurance. All my life I'd worked for companies with excellent insurance benefits - everything was covered. After retirement I found that if I wanted anything but "torso" insurance, meaning if I wanted my eyes, teeth or ears covered - I had to pay extra. Why is that? Why is the ability to see, to eat, to hear not covered in every basic insurance plan? Are those three not basic abilities necessary for everyone so someone decided to make them optional??

 

[ponytug]

Sorry. I guess my post was confusing.

Hospitals here are not advertising folks to come to the ICU or even check into hospital beds. Rather, they want folks to see their doctors and get preventative tests.

Also, the sad thing, is the stats are for “staffed” capacity. There are real differences between actual capacity (physical) and staffed capacity. As with everything it seems, there is a lack of folks willing to work.

MoKelly

My apologies, I mis-read your post.

All the best,

Peter

 

[newbury]

It's surprising to me to see the wide variations in hospital capacity depending on where you live as mentioned in these posts.
<snip>

Even worse is the situations with ICU's -
From Forbes:
BREAKING|Aug 19, 2021,09:41pm EDT|45,853 views

These 6 States Have Almost No ICU Beds Left As Covid Hospitalizations Soar​

Joe Walsh
Forbes Staff
Business
I cover breaking news for Forbes.

Updated Aug 20, 2021, 04:57pm EDT

TOPLINE​

As new Covid-19 infections increase nationwide, some communities are facing a looming hospital capacity crunch, with open space in intensive care units falling below 10% in six states.

Emergency room nurses speak to each other at the Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital on August ... [+]
GETTY IMAGES

KEY FACTS​

Almost 78% of beds in U.S. hospital intensive care units are in use, and roughly one-third of adult ICU patients (or 22,345) have the coronavirus, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Alabama has the nation’s worst capacity crunch, with HHS reporting more ICU patients than total beds — health officials said Alabama ran out of ICU capacity Wednesday and dozens of patients were forced to wait for space, as the state grapples with the country’s eighth-highest Covid-19 infection rate (cases have dropped off slightly in the last week).
In Georgia, 94% of statewide ICU beds are currently in use following a 74% jump in daily coronavirus cases over the last two weeks, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported some Atlanta hospitals needed to divert ambulances due to capacity issues.
ICU capacity sits at 93.2% in Florida and 93% in Mississippi, which have the nation’s third-highest and highest new Covid-19 infection rates, respectively.
Texas reported ICU usage of 92.7%, and Dallas-area hospitals warned Thursday that if their region runs out of intensive care beds, they may need to consider vaccination status when prioritizing who to treat.

Kentucky is using 90.7% of its ICU beds, and Gov. Andy Beshear said Wednesday every hospital bed in the state may be taken up in the next two weeks.
ICU occupancy is above 80% in 10 other states: Louisiana (89.3%), Missouri (88.9%), Oklahoma (87.9%), Arkansas (87.4%), Nevada (85.4%), North Carolina (84.8%), South Carolina (83.8%), New Mexico (83.6%), Idaho (82.7%) and Maine (80.4%).

 

[two_bit_score]

I have a friend who was a firefighter/ems in Texas. He retired from that and became an RN. He was working and happy when he was looking on line one evening and saw an advertisement for RN jobs in the PNW. He was offered double what he was making in Texas and they were packed and moved within a week.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Sorry. I guess my post was confusing.

Hospitals here are not advertising folks to come to the ICU or even check into hospital beds. Rather, they want folks to see their doctors and get preventative tests.

Also, the sad thing, is the stats are for “staffed” capacity. There are real differences between actual capacity (physical) and staffed capacity. As with everything it seems, there is a lack of folks willing to work.

MoKelly

It's hard to distinguish who doesn't want to work, and who doesn't want to work there. The nursing shortage has been in the news for years.

As for the labor shortage, the local experience in our small, rural county indicates that for $15/hour, a regular schedule with decent working conditions, sick leave, and medical insurance, you can have all the workers you want. People have gotten tired of being treated like disposable cogs in a machine.

 

[KennyG]

There are two tiers of employers here. The first pays over $15/hr with full benefits. They require a basic level of skill in reading and math, no addictions and that you show up for work regularly. The second tier pays over $10/hr without benefits (there aren't any "minimum wage" jobs anymore) and just requires you to show up. Neither can find workers.