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Old 10-19-2017, 07:59 AM   #261
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Not everyone living on $3900 a month needs that much. Some may only need $2500. Plus there is some inflation built into SS, correct?

$3900 is plenty of money for many who LBYM, don't live in a HCOL location, and don't have expensive hobbies. I know several people who barely made that much in their best years and have retired on less.
no doubt. and many who have retired on more than that, based upon assumptions far more conservative, and over shorter timespans, have wound up destitute.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but the longer one projects, and the more assumptions one makes, the bigger the risk of it not working out as planned.
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Old 10-19-2017, 10:40 AM   #262
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I know I have mentioned it before but I knew 2 couples that retired on a tight budget in their late 40's and by 60 were sorry. They had to keep pinching pennies and were not able to travel or go out like their friends were doing. Yes you could move to a very LCOL but is that what you want to do when you are older and have to make new friends, etc?
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Old 10-19-2017, 10:50 AM   #263
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I know I have mentioned it before but I knew 2 couples that retired on a tight budget in their late 40's and by 60 were sorry. They had to keep pinching pennies and were not able to travel or go out like their friends were doing. Yes you could move to a very LCOL but is that what you want to do when you are older and have to make new friends, etc?
Well, if they live in a HCOL area and enjoy extensive travel, then maybe $3900 a month isn't enough for them. But, there are millions of people that don't fit those parameters and can live quite well on $3900 a month.

It all depends on your lifestyle.
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Old 10-19-2017, 10:55 AM   #264
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My point was that originally people had enough but as time and inflation take control living in a MCOL gets more expensive and eventually the life they enjoyed evaporates and now they are just surviving.
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Old 10-19-2017, 10:58 AM   #265
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I know I have mentioned it before
Hehehe - seeing that we often discuss the same (or at least, very similar) subjects here on a regular basis, I think it's inevitable that many of us will make multiple near-duplicate replies. I know I do

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but I knew 2 couples that retired on a tight budget in their late 40's and by 60 were sorry. They had to keep pinching pennies and were not able to travel or go out like their friends were doing. Yes you could move to a very LCOL but is that what you want to do when you are older and have to make new friends, etc?
Agreed, unless the individuals concerned are going into it with eyes wide open, and are convinced that they can happily live on very limited means for the rest of their lives (or have no choice). Few would willingly want to do that. I retired on a very limited income in my mid to late 40's, but with a conservative WR, and SS coming online in the future, there are good indications that I'll have more fun money in the years ahead. I would like to let it all hang out at some point in the future - or at least let it dangle for a while

It's important to know yourself and have a capacity for realistic planning.
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Old 10-19-2017, 11:11 AM   #266
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I think age matters too. When my parents retired they had plenty of $ and a good pension. My Dad was sick but my Mom traveled and did the things she wanted to do. When my Dad died at 73 the pension went down because she got the survivor benefit. She still was able to travel etc on her $ saved. By 87 she no longer wanted to travel and had no $ left but still could live ok on her income. It was important to her to not leave a dime owing to anyone so her funeral was pre-paid and she instructed us to sell her car and then treat everyone that came to the fuenral to a lunch at the restaurant she specified. WE would have been happy to make up any difference but the car ended up being enough to pay for that meal. Now if she had lived longer she still would have been fine since she did not want to travel anymore. If she had wanted to travel we would have taken her on trips as gifts which we did a few times not because she did not have the $ but because we thought it was a better gift then things. I think the difference is not being able to travel at 60 is way different then not being able to at 87. Also I think sometimes people believe they will be content to do things that don't cost $ but once they have the energy and time they feel differently. Of course there will always be those people that are happy doing free things which is fine.
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Old 10-19-2017, 02:34 PM   #267
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These have all been great points. Not sure if it was mentioned but I noticed most people talking about SS 17 years later (from 50 to 67), but this guy is 37 so he is actually estimating success based on SS 30 years from now? Are you kidding?? That is beyond a stretch.

And does it really make sense to assume you really know how you will want to live that far down the road? You read of posters saying “I’ll have more fun money and be able to do things once SS kicks in”. Hunh? The time to do fun things is sooner, when you still can, not once you can afford it but can’t. Its a balance thing. You may have to work longer to guarantee both.

At 37 my concept of what I would be/want to be doing when retired wasn’t even close to what the reality is now. Most everyone here remembers the scary inflation of 1978 through the early 90s. When living it, it seemed like there was no hope of ever getting ahead , not with mortgage rates in the 12+ % ranges, and watching significant price increases on about everything every year. I remember getting 10% raises and still wondering how I would ever save enough to invest and take advantage of the high rates. A DOW of 23000 was ludicrous. Anyone starting retirement on a tight fixed budget during that era was screwed. My parents, who were not smart investors, REed about 1982, because they thought they were rich with $500k back then, (real estate sales) and had no concept of SWR, found themselves working again (or mostly trying) in their late 50s early 60s to keep their SOL reasonably close and ended up lowering it significantly. They really never did anything because they were always worried about money. Only DF is left at almost 79, and life is TV, drs visits and bowling. They divorced in mid 60s, mostly because of money. DM would have been broke in 4-6 years had she lived past 69. She was pretty bitter about her view of how her life turned out, but it was all their own doing. I was surprised at that, as at least they lived a “highish life” for a while. Bad math skills and ignorance were their undoing.

Seen it, not worth it. Better to make less in a job you enjoy working longer, than more in one you despise so you can RE sooner, IMHO.
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Old 10-19-2017, 03:16 PM   #268
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It all depends on your lifestyle.
Yes. If you add the word “desired” before lifestyle you have distilled the last 265 posts.
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Old 10-19-2017, 04:12 PM   #269
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Yes. If you add the word “desired” before lifestyle you have distilled the last 265 posts.
Very true...
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Old 10-19-2017, 06:36 PM   #270
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I have known many older retired people who are not living the retirement lifestyle they desired, or envisioned, simply because they overestimated the purchasing power, and/or the success of their investment strategies, because they retired earlier than they should have, based upon their overly optimistic assumptions.

So it's not just about the lifestyle you think you can be happy with. It's whether or not your dollars will provide you that lifestyle, over a period of, in the case of the OP, a half-century.
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Old 10-19-2017, 08:28 PM   #271
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I actually agreed with most of your post, but then chuckled at the below. My greatgrandfathers lived to mid 90s in pretty good health, and all 4 grandparents lived into their 90s. My paternal grandfather was extremely active--had a cabin in Colorado and hiked and fly-fished into his early 90s before he slowed down; maternal grandmother was also preternaturally active.
I'm about to be 60 but hiked 12 miles with 2800 elevation gain Saturday. We biked in Southern Italy in August with our youngest and some Houston friends and had a great time.
60 is the new 50 or so I tell myself until it doesn't work. Admittedly, my grandparents were teetotallers and I'm. . . decidedly not (sipping Glenlivet right now).

Edit: the Tahoe Rim Trail in my backyard (I live in Reno) is a lot of travelling that's only 20-60 miles away, so that part isn't expensive. A couple gallons of gas. It reminds me of granddad's Colorado cabin 30 miles down valley from Aspen that he built himself when I was a shaver, for about 15k. Paradise. I probably wouldn't have semi-retired to Reno from Houston if it hadn't been for his example, and the love for hiking and fly-fishing I got from him.

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And does it really make sense to assume you really know how you will want to live that far down the road? You read of posters saying “I’ll have more fun money and be able to do things once SS kicks in”. Hunh? The time to do fun things is sooner, when you still can, not once you can afford it but can’t. Its a balance thing. You may have to work longer to guarantee both.
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Old 10-20-2017, 05:20 AM   #272
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All you need is love (beatles July 1967) or a pop record with endless royalties. But seriously folks. Life's been good to me so far.
Wouldn't have seemed nearly as cool if it was "All One needs is love".
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Old 10-20-2017, 08:55 AM   #273
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Dow 50k coming up. A chicken in every pot. Make that two chickens. How much is enough?
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:11 AM   #274
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Wouldn't have seemed nearly as cool if it was "All One needs is love".
All YOU need is love.
All I need is $600,001.50.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:21 AM   #275
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They're floating the idea of reducing 401k contribution to $2400.00 max per year to pay for the tax cut. Truth is stranger than fiction.
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Old 10-20-2017, 10:32 AM   #276
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I wonder when the idea of a special flat tax for anything coming out of an IRA will get proposed.
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Old 10-20-2017, 12:35 PM   #277
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They're floating the idea of reducing 401k contribution to $2400.00 max per year to pay for the tax cut. Truth is stranger than fiction.


I would expect they would make IRA,401K equal contribution limits, only seems fair. If I also open up withdrawals of both IRA,401K to 55 to equalize them as well, accelerating withdrawals retirement plans would help tax revenues as well.
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Old 10-20-2017, 04:32 PM   #278
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So I go back to Woodhaven for a few days, and the thread is working it's way to 300 posts..

To the subject... been there, done that. Still have the original capital intact, 28 years later, and don't feel like we missed anything.

Wealthy? no. Vulnerable? could be, but we're good for three or four years @ foreseeable $80K nursing home costs if necessary.

Still have home on the lake in the campground, and our place in Florida, which we'll sell by year end. Very happy in our CCRC in Peru.

BTW...the past four days have been absolutely perfect. Fishing, biking, canoeing, deer walking around as if no one lives on my lot, and the geese training their Vees up and down the lake.

...but then, didn't retire until age 53, so who knows?
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Old 10-21-2017, 10:59 AM   #279
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I actually agreed with most of your post, but then chuckled at the below. My greatgrandfathers lived to mid 90s in pretty good health, and all 4 grandparents lived into their 90s. My paternal grandfather was extremely active--had a cabin in Colorado and hiked and fly-fished into his early 90s before he slowed down; maternal grandmother was also preternaturally active.
I'm about to be 60 but hiked 12 miles with 2800 elevation gain Saturday. We biked in Southern Italy in August with our youngest and some Houston friends and had a great time.
60 is the new 50 or so I tell myself until it doesn't work....
Actually that is exactly what I meant! You are already doing it One of the posters on this thread (and fairly common in general) are waiting until they colllect at FRA 67 to have “fun money”. So how many years does that leave you? Well, about 10 less than if you started even late as 57. I’m the same age as you, but I’ll spend some and save some, and worknuntil 62, not save it all until the end. Going to Prague tomorrow for a few days, then Vienna after that. 5th Europe trip in 7 years. There will be plenty to do when I am older that I can do now but will not later. Everyones desired lifestyle and plans are different.
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Old 10-21-2017, 12:18 PM   #280
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I don't see how the op can get that much ss if he stops working at 50. Is the wife a high earner and older? Def not a good move with a 16 year old. Too many unknowns. Too many "not covered by insurance" healthcare surprises!
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