Personal Life Expectancy

[Dawg52]

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Originally Posted by Moemg My longevity is all over the place Mom still alive and relatively healthy at 93 . Dad died at 69 and brother died at 53 .

Somewhat similar here. Mom still going strong at 90. Dad died at 83, but brother died at 56. I'm not counting on anything. Just hoping for an average life span.

[Nords]

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Originally Posted by Dawg52 I'm not counting on anything. Just hoping for an average life span.

I'm counting on not outliving the money, and if that means that I should plan for a lifespan of 120 years then it's probably not much more expensive than planning for 100 years.

I suspect the end-of-life costs will be about the same, whether I'm 98 or 118. I just don't want to be wishing that I'd saved enough money to afford a larger caliber.

[W2R]

As I see it, life expectancy is not as relevant to ER planning as is the upper end of the probability distribution. In other words, my life expectancy may be 86 or some such value (I have no idea), but there is always some finite probability that I COULD live to 95, 97 (like my mother), or 100, or whatever. Since I don't want to suffer during those years, if this should happen, I will plan to live longer than my life expectancy.

When we ER-forum members put our financial plans into FireCalc and get a 95% probability that it will last a given length of time, that is sufficient for many of us. We don't look for a 50% probability. At least, I don't.

Likewise, when thinking of how long my plan should consider, I try to estimate an age before which it is very probable that I will expire. To me, this is preferable to simply using my life expectancy. The latter is probably just the 50% probability point.

My financial plan assumes that I will live to 95. Perhaps I am slightly less healthy as my mother was, so that will probably be adequate. However, I have some contingency plans that could stretch it out a few more years if need be.

[Goonie]

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Originally Posted by ladypatriot .....two-thirds of American are overweight and one-third of those are morbidly obese, and that by 2040 we'll ALL be overweight.

I'm NOT over-weight.....I'm just under-tall!

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Originally Posted by Walt34 I'd like to help bankrupt the County and SS and be a leech on society until age 90+ but based on family history I expect to kick the bucket at about 80-85.

About the same deal here.....I'd love to be a burden on society when I'm old & decrepit. Family history-wise: Mid-70's to late-90's.....it's a crap shoot! Who knows!

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Originally Posted by SecondCor521 So I guess I would say I'll plan on 80 +- 30 years, which is a pretty useless number.

It may seem like a useless number, but I sure like your way of thinkin'......80 +/- 30.....I love it!

I have a friend who's dreading following in her relatives footsteps......she doesn't want to live to be OLD! Her Mom is 85, her Aunt it 87, and her Uncle is 91. Most of her now-deceased relatives made it to at least the mid-80's.

Also, I went to a birthday celebration at the local coffee shop the other day for a fellow's 94th! His sister is 97, and his "kid brother" (as he calls him) is 91. Their parents lived into their 90's also. All 3 are in exceptionally good health, and as sharp as tacks! And a very good, long-time friend of ours will be 92 in a couple of months. He went to the doctor last December for a check-up, and the doctor gave him (in our friend's estimate) some very bad and disturbing news.......doc told him that as good as his health is, and as good of a condition that he's in, he should easily live another 10 years! He said he told his doctor to kiss his *ss! A week later he fell and broke a hip....they did a hip replacement, and a few weeks later he was back at the coffee shop.....complaining that the doctor wasn't going to let him drive for 6 weeks! The doc released him to drive in 4 weeks...must've gotten tired of listening to him b*tch!

[Khan]

The online tests have me living to 90 or 95.

Having inherited all my mother's nerve and joint problems (arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve entrapment), and very much liking to live alone; I see no point to living beyond 75.

I hear all the arguments: "Sure you'll be bedridden, immobile, and in constant pain; but at least you'll be alive."

[GoodSense]

I don't really feel any number is secure given how much longer people are living now compared with 30 years ago. Both DH and I have longevity genes in our families. For me, grandfathers passed away at 88 and 97. Both grandmothers are still alive at 88 and 89.

In my planning I assume I will live forever, but end-of-life care will probably eat away at it, which is OK for the final drain anyway.

[haha]

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Originally Posted by aenlighten Life expectancy at 66 is about 86. I expect to reach 90 but not a lot longer. I did a poll here on life expectancy but it appears it is not correlated with early retirement and wealth. This makes some sense as the strongest factor in longevity is genetics, but one sees a fairly wide range of risk taking behaviors exhibited in the same families.

Does a regular motorcycle rider pay a higher premium for an individual life insurance policy? Overall I would tend to believe that what works for life insurance companies is pretty sound.

Ha