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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Oct 19, 2021 11:15:25 GMT -5
Because of the difference between the cheapest walker being sold around here and the most expensive, mom bought herself what she called a "Cadillac". She used it a lot and it's now at my sister's house. Since mom paid for it, whoever needs it first will use it. Her wheelchair was pretty basic because she wasn't leaving the apartment much. She wasn't in it all day. It was mostly to get her to and from the car for doctor's appointments. It isn't one I would want to sit in for hours at a time. She did go for the cheap one for that. I lucked out in that my FIL had died a few months before I got sick and TD’s mom offered me his bed, wheelchair, walker and several other items. As he was an amputee, he needed these and bought for his comfort. I have sat in some horribly uncomfortable wheelchairs, and even sitting in them an hour it was miserable. I do have a not so funny wheelchair story. I was in rehab for almost a month, and a wheelchair (a nice one, but not as nice as FIL’s) was left in my room for my use. It was used to wheel me to my exit from the facility, as it made no sense to unload the chair TD had in the car to bring me to the car and reload it back up. An orderly pushed me, but did not return the wheelchair to my room, but left it at the entrance. 2 days later, I got a call from the business manager of the facility, accusing me of stealing their wheelchair. It was a pretty nasty call. The call went to my voicemail, but TD heard it. I returned the call, leaving a voicemail. TD also called and gave them hell, also leaving a message. At that point, we were not married and all of this was on my insurance. The idiot manager called HIM back, falling all over himself apologizing to TD, even though I was the patient and he was my BF who paid NONE of my bills. They found the wheelchair where the orderly left it…..at the entrance where I left from. I never heard back from him myself.
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Post by minnesotapaintlady on Oct 19, 2021 11:26:18 GMT -5
Personally, I would not muddy the waters with all the "other person" income and savings and what they're covering/not covering. With no legal protection of marriage that would at least divide the assets, you should make your plans as if that could be gone at any time. You don't want to be tied to a person because you're financially dependent on them.
So...with that...how much do you WANT to have in retirement? I think the 2K estimate above for the pension is reasonable. Another $1000? Well, with no social security that would mean you'd need 300K in savings in addition to the pension. This would give you 3K/month, but you couldn't make any big ticket withdrawals. You'd have to save up for them from your 3K. The social security gives you more of a cushion because you could essentially stop the monthly withdrawals on your investments once you start drawing that. Firecalc is super happy with a 36K/year income starting with 100K in assets today retiring at 59 with 2K pension starting at 59 and 12K/year social security starting at 65 (100% success rate) but it falls apart once you hit 37K/year, so not much cushion. Putting 10K/year into your accounts until 59 gets you to 40K/year.
No, I’m not counting on anybody else’s income or help for my retirement. I firmly believe in having my own money and being able to take care of myself, no matter what. I only provided that info to give you all an idea of my current expenses. How much do I WANT to have in retirement? Good question. Idk the answer. After my paycheck deductions and automatic savings withdrawals, I live on a little over $3k/month now. But I know $3k now won’t be the same $3k years from now.Thanks for providing some numbers. I just woke up, when my brain catches up with my body, I will give it some more thought. I was assuming the pension was inflation adjusted, but now I see I was confusing your post with the other retirement savings/pension post, so that part isn't clear. The 4% withdrawal on savings does take inflation into account.
But, you're right, if the pension does not have an annual adjustment, you're going to need a lot more savings.
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wvugurl26
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Post by wvugurl26 on Oct 19, 2021 11:27:31 GMT -5
If you login to TSP, it will tell you how much your estimated monthly benefit is based on your current balance. Of course this doesn't answer the how much do I need question.
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countrygirl2
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Post by countrygirl2 on Oct 20, 2021 6:39:05 GMT -5
We have about $5600 a month available not counting rental income. We seem to spend a great deal of it.
But a $1000 to $1200 a month goes for insurance and scripts so that is eating a bigger part of our income. We allowed that much in retirement but its going to keep going up is the issue.
We will have income now from rentals to pay our taxes and have extra income and if we need to can start selling 1 at a time for additional income. I think health care will keep increasing, my drug coverage is going up $40 a month this year and coverage dropping to only 50%, I'm looking at changing. I expect the same rise on my supplement and likely both of hubs too. So we may be looking at another $120 a month in premiums. Going to be a killer if this continues every year. That is our biggest concern.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Oct 20, 2021 8:59:58 GMT -5
No, hopefully at 58 or 59. Their employer offers some kind of SS supplement that they can get until they actually qualify for SS. I don’t know the details though, or if it’s equal to what they would receive from SS once they are eligible. I do know for sure that the “supplement” is real though. Hubby retired with a "supplement." The day he turned 62 they took it away. His was very close to what his SS turned out to be. We considered waiting to collect SS, but felt we were better off getting the payments right away rather than drain the 401k to pay the bills. My sister works with Border Patrol agents, who are forced to retire early, in their 50s, and get a pre-SS supplement. She has said that it cuts off at 62, as soon as you are eligible for SS, not when you take it. Personally, we are waiting to 70 to take SS, to maximize the benefits. Technically, for a married couple only the higher earner needs to maximize, so that the surviving spouse retains the maximized SS benefit. The math may be different for a single, with no survivor to worry about. There's a website to figure out your best SS claiming strategy: Open Social SecurityYou will need to know what your SS benefits are expected to be at FRA (full retirement age). The basic trade-off is: take SS early at a big discount (up to 30% decrease from FRA benefit, if begin at 62) vs spend down TSP while waiting for increased SS benefits at a later time (up to 24% increase over FRA benefit, if wait to 70). Start early, SS reduced forever; wait for bigger SS, spend savings down early, but bigger SS later, forever. The SS benefits span can be huge: if expecting, say $1k/mo at FRA of 67, then at 62 SS is cut to $700, but waiting to 70 to start SS is $1,240/mo. If you were married in the past for 10 or more years, you could be eligible to claim SS on your ex's record. That opens up more options - you might be able to claim early on his record, leaving your benefits to grow over time, and switch later if yours is then better.
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Post by minnesotapaintlady on Oct 20, 2021 9:47:03 GMT -5
The SS benefits span can be huge: if expecting, say $1k/mo at FRA of 67, then at 62 SS is cut to $700, but waiting to 70 to start SS is $1,240/mo. I'm torn on the take early or wait thing. Yeah, you get a lot more per month waiting until 70, but it still takes 9 years to break even with what you would have gotten drawing for 8 years at the reduced rate starting at 62. But, spending down pre-tax before 70 is a good idea too. I dunno...I think in the end, I'll pick a spot in the middle.
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teen persuasion
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Post by teen persuasion on Oct 20, 2021 10:07:58 GMT -5
The SS benefits span can be huge: if expecting, say $1k/mo at FRA of 67, then at 62 SS is cut to $700, but waiting to 70 to start SS is $1,240/mo. I'm torn on the take early or wait thing. Yeah, you get a lot more per month waiting until 70, but it still takes 9 years to break even with what you would have gotten drawing for 8 years at the reduced rate starting at 62. But, spending down pre-tax before 70 is a good idea too. I dunno...I think in the end, I'll pick a spot in the middle.
Well, we want to retire early anyways. So we already need to fund expenses from the retirement accounts between mid-50s and whenever we do take SS. As long as markets cooperate and our retirement accounts don't tank, we can keep rolling along and wait until 70. If anything changes along the way, we can reevaluate, and start SS as needed. But I'd really rather wait and max out DH's SS so that worst case scenario (live a long time, retirement accounts drained) we have our max monthly income possible. But our case is different from Pink's - no pension. SS is our only regular income for retirement. We saved harder to retirement accounts to make up the difference. Withdrawing 4% shouldn't deplete it within 15 years. Withdrawing even less (after SS gets added in), it's likely to grow rather than shrink over time.
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jerseygirl
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Post by jerseygirl on Oct 20, 2021 11:11:23 GMT -5
I took SS at 66 but also didn’t sign up for Medicare until 66. I didn’t know I should have signed up for Medicare at 65, thought it was take SS and Medicare same time Wrong! I now have a 10% penalty on my Medicare part B - until I die
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2021 11:47:18 GMT -5
So I’ve been thinking about this some more and doing a little math myself. 2 posters here mentioned $300k bare minimum albeit the scenarios were different. I am on track to have at least that much in my TSP, if nothing horrible happens. $300k got stuck in my head from this thread, so I do feel a little better knowing that I should have at least that. Maybe I can upgrade to ham and crackers instead of bologna?
Of course I hope that Mister and I live happily ever after and grow old together. But I have to be ok financially whether we do or not. I love him, and how we went about buying this house wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m not completely stupid either. When I moved out of my house a couple years ago, both my kids told me separately how much that house means to them and how it represents stability and home to them, because it’s where they grew up. I never knew it meant anything to them. I also didn’t realize until the past couple of days that it represents stability to me too. Not necessarily home, but definitely stability.
I guess that’s why I’ve been so adamant about not selling it. It is to me, what my Grandmother tried to give us with her houses…. I know I’ll always have somewhere affordable to live as long as I keep it. And my children can do whatever makes sense for their lives with it after I die. Once the mortgage is paid off, taxes and insurance are ~$3000/year, I think. I’d have to go look to be sure. But it’s not much in the grand scheme of things. It’s a sturdy brick house that’s never been terribly expensive to maintain. We’ve spent more money fixing stuff where I live now, in 2 years, than I’ve spent in 20 years fixing stuff at my other house.
Zillow says I could rent it out for over $1k/month, I don’t know how accurate that is. It is a 3BR, 1 1/2BA in a quiet neighborhood. But whether I keep it and rent it out or sell it at some point after I retire, it can be an important asset IRT my retirement, I’m thinking. Am I wrong on that?
For now, I’m going to bump up my savings a little more and see how that feels. I’ve been doing that little by little since I’ve been living with Mister, in my retirement account and my regular savings. And so far, I haven’t felt that the money I have left to spend is too little. The pandemic started 8 months after we moved, so it’s not like we’ve been spending money traveling or going out anyway. We just got a COLA at my job that was almost $1 more per hour, and we get another small raise next month.
Thanks to all of you for helping, especially for providing numbers for different scenarios. They gave me some good starting points. I’m reasonably intelligent (some days lol), but trying to figure it out has always been so overwhelming and stressful to me that I would just give up before I even got started good. I don’t know why.
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azucena
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Post by azucena on Oct 20, 2021 11:56:13 GMT -5
Seems like your general thinking is correct. I'd try to put both raises into savings. Maybe split between retirement and liquid savings. It's money you didn't have before so you shouldn't miss it at all. I don't think you're in our WIR savers group. I find it very motivating to set an annual goal and report at least monthly there for accountability. Means I can splurge a bit here and there but not get too far off track because I have to report in
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2021 12:35:51 GMT -5
Seems like your general thinking is correct. I'd try to put both raises into savings. Maybe split between retirement and liquid savings. It's money you didn't have before so you shouldn't miss it at all. I don't think you're in our WIR savers group. I find it very motivating to set an annual goal and report at least monthly there for accountability. Means I can splurge a bit here and there but not get too far off track because I have to report in I’d forgotten all about the WIR groups. I might check out the savers group. Thanks!
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azucena
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Post by azucena on Oct 20, 2021 12:48:11 GMT -5
Just jump right in whenever. You'll see folks track all sorts of ways and are very encouraging. It's been very positive reinforcement for me, and I always learn a couple new tricks each year. My biggest success has been figuring out which bills are due each pay cycle and leaving enough in our account to cover them, gas, groceries, etc and then sweeping the rest off into savings before we have a chance to flitter it away. DH laughs because we become artificially poor within a few hours of payday, but he will tell you it works. If something comes up, we will flip money back out of savings, but it's a good fail safe for really thinking about if it's necessary/really wanted.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on Oct 20, 2021 12:58:21 GMT -5
Just jump right in whenever. You'll see folks track all sorts of ways and are very encouraging. It's been very positive reinforcement for me, and I always learn a couple new tricks each year. My biggest success has been figuring out which bills are due each pay cycle and leaving enough in our account to cover them, gas, groceries, etc and then sweeping the rest off into savings before we have a chance to flitter it away. DH laughs because we become artificially poor within a few hours of payday, but he will tell you it works. If something comes up, we will flip money back out of savings, but it's a good fail safe for really thinking about if it's necessary/really wanted. Honey, is that you? I get told all the time "we have no monies" even on the day I get paid
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Post by The Walk of the Penguin Mich on Oct 20, 2021 13:17:44 GMT -5
Just jump right in whenever. You'll see folks track all sorts of ways and are very encouraging. It's been very positive reinforcement for me, and I always learn a couple new tricks each year. My biggest success has been figuring out which bills are due each pay cycle and leaving enough in our account to cover them, gas, groceries, etc and then sweeping the rest off into savings before we have a chance to flitter it away. DH laughs because we become artificially poor within a few hours of payday, but he will tell you it works. If something comes up, we will flip money back out of savings, but it's a good fail safe for really thinking about if it's necessary/really wanted. LOL! I just wrote a large check to TD for our expenses until the end of the year. It is not so much of not having the money, but not wanting an even bigger tax bite than we already will have for this year. That money came out of my ‘I need a new car now’ account, which I had been diverting to better investments than my savings account. My car isn’t going anywhere anytime soon though. I did just the check from dad’s house in it, and it will be parked there until I can figure out how I want to invest it. Not sure if I want to do Dogs with it or look at dividend investments.
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