First let me say hello i'm new here.
I have been looking at my retirement plans at the ripe old age of 35 and if there's one word that describes my generation's economic future it's "screwed".
I am very pessimistic about the future state of social security, health care, as well as America's ability to maintain a growing healthy economy. The current U.S. GDP per capita seems like the high water mark especially with the constant outsourcing of industries that is going on. I have a bad feeling that the middle class is going to get squeezed very hard with prolonged rising unemployment in the next 30+ years. Wealth inequality will grow, standard of living will go down for most of the nation. The performance of the S&P 500 has been abysmal if you look at the last 10 years as a whole.
But I digress..
I am lucky in that I have been working ever since I was out of high school and right now I have a decent job that pays about 60k a year. I have accumulated a hefty savings of around 500k from a house I recently sold. I am seriously considering putting a 150k down payment on a new home in the area I live in now and putting the rest (approx. 350k) in a single premium immediate annuity that would give me about $1,100 (with inflation adjusted payments later) a month for the rest of my life.
My rationale in doing so is to give myself a permanent financial umbrella in case things turn really bad. I don't feel that I can get better than 4-5% yield anywhere else anytime soon. For the next 20 years i'll use the annuity to pay a big chunk of my mortgage and work as usual in order to rebuild my equity. I calculate that i'll have a completely paid off house long before retirement age in about 10 years and a nice source of new equity in case I want to sell or refinance. I'll also still have a nice rainy day source of monthly income to tap into for emergencies with my SPIA.
This also means I will not be liquid but there aren't any other major purchases i'm interested in. I have also considered that if things really go south in the next 30 years I can always take my monthly income and skedaddle to some other country where COL is lower and the dollar will go farther.
I am unmarried, have no children, and no beneficiaries.
So what do you guys think?
I have been looking at my retirement plans at the ripe old age of 35 and if there's one word that describes my generation's economic future it's "screwed".
I am very pessimistic about the future state of social security, health care, as well as America's ability to maintain a growing healthy economy. The current U.S. GDP per capita seems like the high water mark especially with the constant outsourcing of industries that is going on. I have a bad feeling that the middle class is going to get squeezed very hard with prolonged rising unemployment in the next 30+ years. Wealth inequality will grow, standard of living will go down for most of the nation. The performance of the S&P 500 has been abysmal if you look at the last 10 years as a whole.
But I digress..
I am lucky in that I have been working ever since I was out of high school and right now I have a decent job that pays about 60k a year. I have accumulated a hefty savings of around 500k from a house I recently sold. I am seriously considering putting a 150k down payment on a new home in the area I live in now and putting the rest (approx. 350k) in a single premium immediate annuity that would give me about $1,100 (with inflation adjusted payments later) a month for the rest of my life.
My rationale in doing so is to give myself a permanent financial umbrella in case things turn really bad. I don't feel that I can get better than 4-5% yield anywhere else anytime soon. For the next 20 years i'll use the annuity to pay a big chunk of my mortgage and work as usual in order to rebuild my equity. I calculate that i'll have a completely paid off house long before retirement age in about 10 years and a nice source of new equity in case I want to sell or refinance. I'll also still have a nice rainy day source of monthly income to tap into for emergencies with my SPIA.
This also means I will not be liquid but there aren't any other major purchases i'm interested in. I have also considered that if things really go south in the next 30 years I can always take my monthly income and skedaddle to some other country where COL is lower and the dollar will go farther.
I am unmarried, have no children, and no beneficiaries.
So what do you guys think?
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