Retirement thoughts Past Present Future

[Hay Dude]

As we speak, my son is student teaching in South Philly. The class is all 2nd semester high school seniors. All of them are Hispanic speaking (he gets to teach them primarily in English language). He is teaching them Geometry.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Social Security Faces Benefit Cuts. Could Raising Full Retirement Age Be the Solution? | The Motley Fool

Requiring recipients to wait longer for benefits could help address the program's revenue shortfall.

www.fool.com

 

[Username Taken]

Disagree -partially. Purdue is a FINE school, but As I well know, the first 2 years are spent taking prerequisites (Psych 101, Anthropology 101, Soc. 101, etc) THOSE classes are AMPLE time for the faculty lounge dwellers to indoctrinate our kids.
Maybe by years 3-4 when they get into the “major” classes, the indoctrination eases up a little.
Also, “sciences” are highly politicized, so dont agree there.

I think most schools these days have a 'core curriculum' that is required. Some, like Columbia, IIRC, take up most of the credits it takes to graduate leaving little room for practical education.

Before this last Century, all Colleges were liberal arts colleges. About the only Engineering schools were the Military Academy and a few others that dealt with Mining and Agriculture.

I don't mind liberalism. I am a liberal. I believe in so many liberal ideals. Where I have a problem is with doctrinaire, radical leftists. They don't belong lumped in with liberalism. I despise them. They are a pox on humanity, IMO.

Our Founding Fathers were considered liberal for their time. Of course, the French tried to copy us and they screwed it up. And we're paying for it to this day.

 

[drssg]

So SS should start paying out earlier since life expectancy has dropped almost 2 years since 2019 according to the cdc.

If SS retirement age was set to the current average life expectancy (as it was when SS was started), I'm pretty sure it would still be a significant increase.

BTW, I'm not actually advocating that idea. I'm just saying that the scope of SS has changed over the years, and that has added to other problems with it.

 

[Hay Dude]

I think most schools these days have a 'core curriculum' that is required. Some, like Columbia, IIRC, take up most of the credits it takes to graduate leaving little room for practical education.

Before this last Century, all Colleges were liberal arts colleges. About the only Engineering schools were the Military Academy and a few others that dealt with Mining and Agriculture.

I don't mind liberalism. I am a liberal. I believe in so many liberal ideals. Where I have a problem is with doctrinaire, radical leftists. They don't belong lumped in with liberalism. I despise them. They are a pox on humanity, IMO.

Our Founding Fathers were considered liberal for their time. Of course, the French tried to copy us and they screwed it up. And we're paying for it to this day.

BUT in that ”core curriculum” theres a lot of ample opportunity for the prof to go “off script”.
You oughta hear some of the nonsense my kids tell me each and every day. BLM stuff, LGBTQ+ whatever stuff…..its sickening.
Thank the Lord neither of them are ”retail” tuition.

 

[deserteagle71]

BUT in that ”core curriculum” theres a lot of ample opportunity for the prof to go “off script”.
You oughta hear some of the nonsense my kids tell me each and every day. BLM stuff, LGBTQ+ whatever stuff…..its sickening.
Thank the Lord neither of them are ”retail” tuition.

Yes! My grandson, raised with traditional values, started University classes not long ago and then quit...told his parents that the classes he had to attend were total indoctrination and against all those values he had been brought up with. Especially the part about an individual being responsible for his own actions, that your destiny is your own hands....oh, no - the new mantra is that this corrupt society we live in is responsible for all the poverty and crime.

He is considering a good trade school as an alternative; I've told him I'll support him in that, whatever it takes. But this economy being what it is, he's already got a good job.

Which brings up another point. The nearest town to me has Help Wanted signs on just about every business. Yet there are people standing on street corners, begging. WHY?

 

[Snobdds]

If SS retirement age was set to the current average life expectancy (as it was when SS was started), I'm pretty sure it would still be a significant increase.

BTW, I'm not actually advocating that idea. I'm just saying that the scope of SS has changed over the years, and that has added to other problems with it.

Social Security should be around 75 today.

 

[beowulf]

I had no mentoring at all - parents were paycheck to paycheck so putting anything away for retirement was not a discussion. So, I got a late start at it, but managed to put it together - though it would have been better much earlier.

So, when our daughters were in high school, we put $500 each into Vanguard accounts for them and explained a bit about saving, retirement and so on. They were not particularly impressed. But then when the quarterly statements came in, they saw that the $500 was now more - each time it was more. So, this led to other discussions. They both had multiple jobs while they were in college and started to put some more money into their Vanguard accounts.

Many years later those accounts had from $60,000 to $70,000 in them and still growing. That $500 was the seed, and opened the door to many discussions about money, interest, credit cards and more. We have always advised them to plan now for retirement as that will someday become the most important thing in your life, and to always work where you have health insurance. They also have other retirement accounts and are so much farther ahead of where we were at their age - so my advice - mentor those who are just starting the journey - it may be the best thing you ever do.

 

[ovrszd]

Which brings up another point. The nearest town to me has Help Wanted signs on just about every business. Yet there are people standing on street corners, begging. WHY?

This one concerns me. Just using my phone, at 70 years of age, I can get a job within 5 minutes.

 

[Snobdds]

On the day the kid was born, I opened up a college 529. Even though there is plenty in there to pay his expenses, we still self fund his college. We have to take withdrawals each year from it now that he's in college, but those go straight into a roth IRA. We set him up with a Roth IRA at age 19, at his income level he can only put in an amount to what he makes a year, but we make sure he makes at least the max IRA contribution. There is a lot of money out there for college, but there is no money out there to start a life after college. He is building up his post college life starter fund. We take him with us to the financial planner meetings to get him exposure to money management.

We teach him about credit. We have him take out a small personal loan that goes right into a money market account and he is responsible for paying down his small loan. Once it's paid off we do it again. Having good credit requires paying for it. We also gave him a credit card with a $1,000 limit and he is responsible for managing it.

His mom watches his accounts like a hawk. To be honest, he is now 21 and he is good with money. He has never come to us to ask for money, ever.

Good financial skills are taught and the sooner you do it the better.