[MX rider]

Originally Posted by bowlingal

it all depends on your lifestyle. I don't have a million dollars....or anywhere near it. BUT I am living a very active lifestyle, retired, own my home and car and have a nice nest egg. Managing your money is key.

100% spot on.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

There is a constant battle by financial companies for your money from two angles:

The short term spending credit companies
The long term investment management companies

The short term spending ads look to satisfy your immediate needs and desires
The long term saving ads play on the fear of uncertainty of the future and your financial safety and dreams of unlimited retirement options

One of the unrealistic long term planning assumptions is that you will keep your current lifestyle into retirement.
Hence you need an excessive amount of savings to fund this scenario.

Most people will downsize housing and slow down in activities just from aging.
The $200K lifestyle in New York City requires a lot more savings than in TV. and those people probably will have a different retirement than the average person across the country.

IMO, TV represents the average middle class working retirement to an active community. TV offers a lower cost of retirement with its structure than most working lifestyles, and therefore requires a specific financial analysis than one's working income and cost of living scenario. That's where long term advertisements fail when trying to instill fear into your preconceived notions of retirement. They just assume the same location, and the same lifestyle, or dreams of doing everything you didn't do while working, but that is also unrealistic just due to aging and family issues. . . I just watched one on TV on Bloomberg.

So there are several people on here who have retired without touching savings, or have relatively small savings and had made their retirement comfortable with social security. One will probably do better, have more options with a larger savings and income, but comfortable here in the Villages is very doable with social security and a moderate savings from employment of $300K to $1,000K

just keep it in perspective and realize that retirement will not be the same as your working lifestyle if you choose wisely for health and longevity, even golf becomes more difficult as you age. .

good luck in our retirements.

[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

There is a constant battle by financial companies for your money from two angles:

The short term spending credit companies
The long term investment management companies

The short term spending ads look to satisfy your immediate needs and desires
The long term saving ads play on the fear of uncertainty of the future and your financial safety and dreams of unlimited retirement options

One of the unrealistic long term planning assumptions is that you will keep your current lifestyle into retirement.
Hence you need an excessive amount of savings to fund this scenario.

Most people will downsize housing and slow down in activities just from aging.
The $200K lifestyle in New York City requires a lot more savings than in TV. and those people probably will have a different retirement than the average person across the country.

IMO, TV represents the average middle class working retirement to an active community. TV offers a lower cost of retirement with its structure than most working lifestyles, and therefore requires a specific financial analysis than one's working income and cost of living scenario. That's where long term advertisements fail when trying to instill fear into your preconceived notions of retirement. They just assume the same location, and the same lifestyle, or dreams of doing everything you didn't do while working, but that is also unrealistic just due to aging and family issues. . . I just watched one on TV on Bloomberg.

So there are several people on here who have retired without touching savings, or have relatively small savings and had made their retirement comfortable with social security. One will probably do better, have more options with a larger savings and income, but comfortable here in the Villages is very doable with social security and a moderate savings from employment of $300K to $1,000K

just keep it in perspective and realize that retirement will not be the same as your working lifestyle if you choose wisely for health and longevity, even golf becomes more difficult as you age. .

good luck in our retirements.

Good post Sportsguy
With the exception of several posts, not mentioned enough is health. Pretty obvious something life altering or catastrophic will upend the best managed retirement plan. So in addition to luck in retirement is best wishes for good health and daily practices

[Caymus]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

There is a constant battle by financial companies for your money from two angles:

The short term spending credit companies
The long term investment management companies

The short term spending ads look to satisfy your immediate needs and desires
The long term saving ads play on the fear of uncertainty of the future and your financial safety and dreams of unlimited retirement options

One of the unrealistic long term planning assumptions is that you will keep your current lifestyle into retirement.
Hence you need an excessive amount of savings to fund this scenario.

Most people will downsize housing and slow down in activities just from aging.
The $200K lifestyle in New York City requires a lot more savings than in TV. and those people probably will have a different retirement than the average person across the country.

IMO, TV represents the average middle class working retirement to an active community. TV offers a lower cost of retirement with its structure than most working lifestyles, and therefore requires a specific financial analysis than one's working income and cost of living scenario. That's where long term advertisements fail when trying to instill fear into your preconceived notions of retirement. They just assume the same location, and the same lifestyle, or dreams of doing everything you didn't do while working, but that is also unrealistic just due to aging and family issues. . . I just watched one on TV on Bloomberg.

So there are several people on here who have retired without touching savings, or have relatively small savings and had made their retirement comfortable with social security. One will probably do better, have more options with a larger savings and income, but comfortable here in the Villages is very doable with social security and a moderate savings from employment of $300K to $1,000K

just keep it in perspective and realize that retirement will not be the same as your working lifestyle if you choose wisely for health and longevity, even golf becomes more difficult as you age. .

good luck in our retirements.

Some people can't seem to be able to downsize in retirement. I noticed an article in my newsfeed today about a 76-year-old widower who is complaining that he can't afford the real estate taxes ($20,000) from his $5,600 monthly retirement income. I am thinking that many people would be happy with that level on income. He wants to know if he needs an advisor.

[Dusty_Star]

Originally Posted by Caymus

Some people can't seem to be able to downsize in retirement. I noticed an article in my newsfeed today about a 76-year-old widower who is complaining that he can't afford the real estate taxes ($20,000) from his $5,600 monthly retirement income. I am thinking that many people would be happy with that level on income. He wants to know if he needs an advisor.

Most of those article I read, like from MarketWatch are selling advisors. So in the 76 year old widower's case, yes he needs an advisor.

[Laker14]

Originally Posted by Dusty_Star

Most of those article I read, like from MarketWatch are selling advisors. So in the 76 year old widower's case, yes he needs an advisor.

I'm not sure he needs an advisor, but he could definitely benefit from following some good advice.

[Laker14]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Exactly. My middle daughter and her husband both have good jobs (both 6 figures +), save like crazy and have a very nice nest egg set aside to buy a home. No student debt for either of them, both funding their 401Ks for retirement...

Unfortunately, they are looking in Arlington, VA, where a "fixer upper" is $750-$1 million...

Yes, they could afford the low end of that, but their mortgage payments would be $6K/month... And that doesn't include remodeling of the very dated homes...

I am not directing my observations specifically at your offspring, but having observed mine, and those of close relatives and friends, I see many of them feeling put out by how hard it is to become wealthy. However, I see a lot of decisions being made that are making it harder than it needs to be.
Included among these are choices to live in high cost-of-living areas. True, the jobs pay more than they might in lower cost-of-living areas, but by the time you factor in costs of commuting, in time and money, and how much of that extra income gets chewed up in taxes and real estate costs, one might often do better living somewhere else.

More obvious to me is the tendency to refuse to "do without". I know young people who aren't saving a nickel for retirement, but must drive late-model Audis, or BMWs, and whose kids must participate in expensive activities, and they absolutely must take vacations to Disney World, and must "upgrade" the home they could barely afford in the first place,,,etc etc you get the point.

I know this makes me sound like my depression era dad, but living within one's means means occasionally saying "nope, can't do that"...and a lot of young people complaining about how hard it is to grow wealth simply haven't learned how to do that.

[Rainger99]

Originally Posted by Justputt

there's not much in expenses unless the great unknown (healthcare) hits hard and exceeds the lifetime cap

Is there a lifetime cap on health care expenses? How much is it??

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Originally Posted by Laker14

I am not directing my observations specifically at your offspring, but having observed mine, and those of close relatives and friends, I see many of them feeling put out by how hard it is to become wealthy. However, I see a lot of decisions being made that are making it harder than it needs to be.
Included among these are choices to live in high cost-of-living areas. True, the jobs pay more than they might in lower cost-of-living areas, but by the time you factor in costs of commuting, in time and money, and how much of that extra income gets chewed up in taxes and real estate costs, one might often do better living somewhere else.

More obvious to me is the tendency to refuse to "do without". I know young people who aren't saving a nickel for retirement, but must drive late-model Audis, or BMWs, and whose kids must participate in expensive activities, and they absolutely must take vacations to Disney World, and must "upgrade" the home they could barely afford in the first place,,,etc etc you get the point.

I know this makes me sound like my depression era dad, but living within one's means means occasionally saying "nope, can't do that"...and a lot of young people complaining about how hard it is to grow wealth simply haven't learned how to do that.

Hard times create strong people
Easy times create soft people.

Be thankful that the boomers had parents from the Great Depression (GD) who taught us how to survive and passed along a strong work ethic.

I was broke at the age of 40+, 10,000 cash, 10,000 IRA, $15 VISA bill, no income.
with two kids, a witch of an XWife and needing to put 2 kids through college. Did so, and recovered all the money lost, and still have not received any inheritance or massive lottery winnings, or any direct monetary support.

worked my ass off with technology skills, took care of my aging parents, whatever they wanted / need while i lived in my high school bedroom, saved everything, paid off college loans early, and continuing through last year when I had enough.

My dad was whining once when recovering in a skilled nursing facility. I went right to :
You don't get what you want; you get what you work for

he started working towards recovery versus just wanting to go home. My wife passed this along to her deadbeat sister, who without anybody to leach off, did find a job but they also did not like her boomer follow rules mentality either. .

good luck, we deserve our hard work rewards

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

Hard times create strong people
Easy times create soft people.

Be thankful that the boomers had parents from the Great Depression (GD) who taught us how to survive and passed along a strong work ethic.

I was broke at the age of 40+, 10,000 cash, 10,000 IRA, $15 VISA bill, no income.
with two kids, a witch of an XWife and needing to put 2 kids through college. Did so, and recovered all the money lost, and still have not received any inheritance or massive lottery winnings, or any direct monetary support.

worked my ass off with technology skills, took care of my aging parents, whatever they wanted / need while i lived in my high school bedroom, saved everything, paid off college loans early, and continuing through last year when I had enough.

My dad was whining once when recovering in a skilled nursing facility. I went right to :
You don't get what you want; you get what you work for

he started working towards recovery versus just wanting to go home. My wife passed this along to her deadbeat sister, who without anybody to leach off, did find a job but they also did not like her boomer follow rules mentality either. .

good luck, we deserve our hard work rewards

We certainly deserve the fruits of our hard labor

[Laker14]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

Hard times create strong people
Easy times create soft people.

Be thankful that the boomers had parents from the Great Depression (GD) who taught us how to survive and passed along a strong work ethic.

I was broke at the age of 40+, 10,000 cash, 10,000 IRA, $15 VISA bill, no income.
with two kids, a witch of an XWife and needing to put 2 kids through college. Did so, and recovered all the money lost, and still have not received any inheritance or massive lottery winnings, or any direct monetary support.

worked my ass off with technology skills, took care of my aging parents, whatever they wanted / need while i lived in my high school bedroom, saved everything, paid off college loans early, and continuing through last year when I had enough.

My dad was whining once when recovering in a skilled nursing facility. I went right to :
You don't get what you want; you get what you work for

he started working towards recovery versus just wanting to go home. My wife passed this along to her deadbeat sister, who without anybody to leach off, did find a job but they also did not like her boomer follow rules mentality either. .

good luck, we deserve our hard work rewards

I remember my dad putting water in the empty ketchup bottle, and shaking it up so we'd magically have more ketchup. I think I was in high school when I told him that it saved money in two ways: it stretched the ketchup and it reduced usage because nobody would use that watery stuff anyway. He laughed, but he threw the watery ketchup away and never did it again. But then, he had more money by that point in his career.
And then, I heard for the millionth time, what it was like to grow up during the Depression.

I am pretty sure Dad was one of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen

[Shipping up to Boston]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

Hard times create strong people
Easy times create soft people.

Be thankful that the boomers had parents from the Great Depression (GD) who taught us how to survive and passed along a strong work ethic.

I was broke at the age of 40+, 10,000 cash, 10,000 IRA, $15 VISA bill, no income.
with two kids, a witch of an XWife and needing to put 2 kids through college. Did so, and recovered all the money lost, and still have not received any inheritance or massive lottery winnings, or any direct monetary support.

worked my ass off with technology skills, took care of my aging parents, whatever they wanted / need while i lived in my high school bedroom, saved everything, paid off college loans early, and continuing through last year when I had enough.

My dad was whining once when recovering in a skilled nursing facility. I went right to :
You don't get what you want; you get what you work for

he started working towards recovery versus just wanting to go home. My wife passed this along to her deadbeat sister, who without anybody to leach off, did find a job but they also did not like her boomer follow rules mentality either. .

good luck, we deserve our hard work rewards

You needed to get that one off your chest, huh SG!
Just kidding. I appreciate your story. Unfortunately, everyone can relate to it as the 'ol saying goes...you can pick your friend's but you cant pick your family! Although in the case of a wife/sister in law, guess you can!

[fdpaq0580]

Originally Posted by Shipping up to Boston

You needed to get that one off your chest, huh SG!
Just kidding. I appreciate your story. Unfortunately, everyone can relate to it as the 'ol saying goes...you can pick your friend's but you cant pick your family! Although in the case of a wife/sister in law, guess you can!

If I knew then what I know now, I would be rich, have had more sex, and been way more fit and healthy! ____ Nah. Too much trouble, and things turned out just fine.

[Rainger99]

According to this video, if you are 65 plus, you are in the
top 50%, if you have a median net worth of $281,000;
top 10%, if you have a median net worth of $1,900,000
top 5%, if you have a median net worth of of $3,200,000
top 1%, if you have a median net worth of $16,700,000.

The numbers are from 2019.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb4U4k0cwDk

[manaboutown]

Originally Posted by Shipping up to Boston

. Unfortunately, everyone can relate to it as the 'ol saying goes...you can pick your friend's but you cant pick your family! Although in the case of a wife/sister in law, guess you can!

The way I heard it is "You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friend's nose."