huskerblue
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2008
- Messages
- 59
My friend died very suddenly with no warning a couple weeks ago. He was 52...I will turn 50 later this year. Parents died young from freak illnesses. Lots to think about.
Background:
I watched my parents skrimp and save and it rubbed off on me. Someday, they would be rid of all these kids and start enjoying life together more. Unfortunately, they contracted illnesses in their mid-50's and lived somewhat debilitated lives for the next decade+ with my mom dying at 66 and my dad a couple years later, his age was 71.
Nebraska boy with midlands conservative {cheapskate?} mentality. Raised in an upper-middle class family and was afforded excellent educational opportunities which were taken advantage of. After getting an advanced degree, took some business chances that did not pan out but were excellent opportunities to learn and grow. My parents didn't take any chances and I wasn't going to be like that. However, the bottom line of that was I was 30 and didn't have two dimes to rub together.
Went to work in the corporate world and started socking away money. During this time my parents died and inherited about $200K. Kept socking away with no real goals. Finally met the woman of my dreams and married at 40
she's a few years younger and also a first marriage. No kids. She is far less frugal than I and brought few assets but a high paying job into the marriage. She is very much a type A about her career.
We have gotten used to each other's fiscal habits and live a nice lifestyle but few financial goals. Max out 401(K)'s along with other investing {about $50K per year including company matches?} and took the rest and feaverishly paid down the $300K house CAUSE I HATE DEBT! Finished paying off the debt last year and found that we got killed on taxes so we bought a downtown townhouse in our old hometown of Omaha 50 miles away and love it. I could see us selling here and moving there permanently someday and so can DW. {I promised her that we wouldn't feverishly pay it down but we just made our first payment and it almost killed me to make the normal payment-HA!} Money for a nice downpayment was available as I recareered after nearly 20 years and I had a forced cash out of the piece of the company where I worked and owned {a small piece}. I make less now but I believe it will be more satisfying {I think, it's only been 10 months but so far, so good}.
Well, all this is fine and dandy and then my friend up and dies. And now all the crud in my brain from when my folks died are flooding forth again and I am wondering what is best, do I really want to just work and work with no goals and save and save with no goals?!?!
I'm very happy I found this site and hope that I will learn a lot here because frankly, the answer I'm starting to come up with is I don't want to just work and work and save and save, I NEED A PLAN!!!
For the numbers types, we have $1.3+ mill assets and now a new $140K loan on the second house {less the $150 I chopped off with this first mortgage payment, WHOOPY}, no other debt. The "liquid funds" are $670,000 {was a lot more not long ago} with a large amount of this in tax DEFERRED accounts, next to nothing in Roths and $120,000'ish in taxable accounts. The real estate and other "stuff" has a $660,000 value and that's maybe a bit conservative. It is relatively inexpensive to live in Nebraska {even with a high tax structure - the rest is fairly cheap}.
The portfolio makeup has been about 85% stocks, 15% bonds for years but after doing some reading and not liking the way our economy is headed {and I believe is headed for a LONG TIME = look at the Japanese economy in the same time scale of their baby boom versus our baby boom} at the beginning of the year, scaled back to about 65-70% equities, 20% bonds and 10+% alternative strategies. As of Friday June 27th, the portfolio is off 5.6% versus VFINX which is off 12.08%. I know it's good relative performance but it still feels crappy which probably says something about this new mentality I have since market losses when I was younger were just an opportunity to buy more shares cheaper. I am a total do it yourselfer with mostly funds. Used to have few but have recently diversified into a bunch of little niches.
BOTTOM LINE:
Plan needed. I hope I will learn a lot here. DW is agreeable in word to being done in about 9 or 10 years but I'll believe it when I see it. I think now that I would like to be done sooner but how the heck do you know what you can and can't do?! Plan needed.
Background:
I watched my parents skrimp and save and it rubbed off on me. Someday, they would be rid of all these kids and start enjoying life together more. Unfortunately, they contracted illnesses in their mid-50's and lived somewhat debilitated lives for the next decade+ with my mom dying at 66 and my dad a couple years later, his age was 71.
Nebraska boy with midlands conservative {cheapskate?} mentality. Raised in an upper-middle class family and was afforded excellent educational opportunities which were taken advantage of. After getting an advanced degree, took some business chances that did not pan out but were excellent opportunities to learn and grow. My parents didn't take any chances and I wasn't going to be like that. However, the bottom line of that was I was 30 and didn't have two dimes to rub together.
Went to work in the corporate world and started socking away money. During this time my parents died and inherited about $200K. Kept socking away with no real goals. Finally met the woman of my dreams and married at 40
she's a few years younger and also a first marriage. No kids. She is far less frugal than I and brought few assets but a high paying job into the marriage. She is very much a type A about her career.We have gotten used to each other's fiscal habits and live a nice lifestyle but few financial goals. Max out 401(K)'s along with other investing {about $50K per year including company matches?} and took the rest and feaverishly paid down the $300K house CAUSE I HATE DEBT!
Finished paying off the debt last year and found that we got killed on taxes so we bought a downtown townhouse in our old hometown of Omaha 50 miles away and love it. I could see us selling here and moving there permanently someday and so can DW. {I promised her that we wouldn't feverishly pay it down but we just made our first payment and it almost killed me to make the normal payment-HA!} Money for a nice downpayment was available as I recareered after nearly 20 years and I had a forced cash out of the piece of the company where I worked and owned {a small piece}. I make less now but I believe it will be more satisfying {I think, it's only been 10 months but so far, so good}.Well, all this is fine and dandy and then my friend up and dies. And now all the crud in my brain from when my folks died are flooding forth again and I am wondering what is best, do I really want to just work and work with no goals and save and save with no goals?!?!
I'm very happy I found this site and hope that I will learn a lot here because frankly, the answer I'm starting to come up with is I don't want to just work and work and save and save, I NEED A PLAN!!!
For the numbers types, we have $1.3+ mill assets and now a new $140K loan on the second house {less the $150 I chopped off with this first mortgage payment, WHOOPY}, no other debt. The "liquid funds" are $670,000 {was a lot more not long ago
} with a large amount of this in tax DEFERRED accounts, next to nothing in Roths and $120,000'ish in taxable accounts. The real estate and other "stuff" has a $660,000 value and that's maybe a bit conservative. It is relatively inexpensive to live in Nebraska {even with a high tax structure - the rest is fairly cheap}.The portfolio makeup has been about 85% stocks, 15% bonds for years but after doing some reading and not liking the way our economy is headed {and I believe is headed for a LONG TIME = look at the Japanese economy in the same time scale of their baby boom versus our baby boom} at the beginning of the year, scaled back to about 65-70% equities, 20% bonds and 10+% alternative strategies. As of Friday June 27th, the portfolio is off 5.6% versus VFINX which is off 12.08%. I know it's good relative performance but it still feels crappy which probably says something about this new mentality I have since market losses when I was younger were just an opportunity to buy more shares cheaper. I am a total do it yourselfer with mostly funds. Used to have few but have recently diversified into a bunch of little niches.
BOTTOM LINE:
Plan needed. I hope I will learn a lot here. DW is agreeable in word to being done in about 9 or 10 years but I'll believe it when I see it. I think now that I would like to be done sooner but how the heck do you know what you can and can't do?! Plan needed.
I guess I could go back to the card company websites and get old copies of statements.
