Join Early Retirement Today
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 11-25-2017, 04:29 PM   #21
Moderator
rodi's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: San Diego
Posts: 14,171
Some of the things that I was tipped off, by posts here, to investigate prior to retirement:

* Not a bad idea to put a HELOC in place prior to retirement. Even if you never use it - it's nice to have a line of credit you can use if needed... especially if you want to tap IRA/401k (taxable) spending over multiple years. (A lot of our funds are in pretax accounts... so withdrawing a big chunk has tax consequences AND could eliminate our ACA tax credits.) We haven't had to use it - but it's there... just in case.

* As someone else mentioned - get any expensive medical/dental/eye exams/glasses taken care of while you have employer benefits for this stuff. We moved a replacement crown in sooner for DH since we knew we'd be going off of the cobra dental.

* Along the same lines - consider doing any expensive planned home improvements while you can cash flow them from employment income. We finished the bulk of our kitchen remodel before I pulled the plug.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 43210 View Post
FAFSA/CSS issues may rarely affect retirees, but it will affect me (I'll do a thread on it some time), and it can add up to 47% to marginal rates on income, and may interact with other stuff, and there's up to 5.64% per year asset tax, so fo me this is the biggest tax bomb of them all (but at least I know it exists).
You're not alone having kids college expenses ahead of you. I don't know that I'd consider FAFSA/CSS stuff a "tax" - but there is a system and sometimes you can structure your assets/income to reduce the college costs and increased the amount of financial aid offered by a school. We recently met with a specialist on EFC/FAFSA/CSS stuff. Our low retirement income helps us. Unfortunately, on the CSS profile - our granny flat rental in our backyard counts heavily against us. We've got enough in their 529's to mostly cover the public UC/CSU colleges... if that's where they end up.

I'll be interested in your thread on the topic. There are several regulars looking at this stuff in the nearterm or just through it. I've got a HS Junior and a HS Freshman - so this is a subject I'm really focused on these days.
__________________
Retired June 2014. No longer an enginerd - now I'm just a nerd.
micro pensions 6%, rental income 20%
rodi is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 11-25-2017, 06:01 PM   #22
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
jollystomper's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Posts: 6,135
Part of our planning has been to actually live on our planned retirement budget. We did it for a couple of quarters a year starting around 3 years ago, and since the end of 2016 have been living on it. This has helped us fine tune our spending categories. Certainly not an exact science but, along with looking at our past spending trends, it has made us a lot more comfortable with our retirement spending plans.
__________________
FIREd date: June 26, 2018 - "This Happy Feeling, Going Round and Round!" (GQ)
jollystomper is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-26-2017, 06:37 PM   #23
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 275
Quote:
Originally Posted by 43210 View Post
FAFSA/CSS issues may rarely affect retirees, but it will affect me (I'll do a thread on it some time), and it can add up to 47% to marginal rates on income, and may interact with other stuff, and there's up to 5.64% per year asset tax, so fo me this is the biggest tax bomb of them all (but at least I know it exists).
Quote:
Originally Posted by rodi View Post
You're not alone having kids college expenses ahead of you. I don't know that I'd consider FAFSA/CSS stuff a "tax" - but there is a system and sometimes you can structure your assets/income to reduce the college costs and increased the amount of financial aid offered by a school. We recently met with a specialist on EFC/FAFSA/CSS stuff. Our low retirement income helps us. Unfortunately, on the CSS profile - our granny flat rental in our backyard counts heavily against us. We've got enough in their 529's to mostly cover the public UC/CSU colleges... if that's where they end up.

I'll be interested in your thread on the topic. There are several regulars looking at this stuff in the nearterm or just through it. I've got a HS Junior and a HS Freshman - so this is a subject I'm really focused on these days.
I've just started a thread on the topic
Kids in college after retirement (lower income version)
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ion-89513.html
43210 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-26-2017, 09:16 PM   #24
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
SecondCor521's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Boise
Posts: 7,866
Quote:
Originally Posted by 43210 View Post
I've just started a thread on the topic
Kids in college after retirement (lower income version)
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...eply&p=1970102
Thanks for starting the thread.

The link above didn't go to the right place for me.

The link I think you want is:

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ion-89513.html
__________________
"At times the world can seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe us when we say there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough, and what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may in fact be the first steps of a journey." Violet Baudelaire.
SecondCor521 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-26-2017, 10:07 PM   #25
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 275
^ (link fixed)
43210 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-27-2017, 10:14 AM   #26
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 275
Thanks for the comments/suggestions everyone. This is very helpful.
43210 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-27-2017, 10:25 AM   #27
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
JoeWras's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 11,701
The retiree health care thing is pervasive at my Megacorp. Very few people know it exists. It is full pay, no discount, but the network is excellent compared to similar ACA plans. Well worth it if you don't need the subsidy. I'm not sure why Megacorp doesn't talk about it. They used to list it in the benefits booklet, now it is buried on some web page somewhere. I guess not too many people retire, they leave first.

The other thing to mention is possible access to 401k at 55. Not all plans allow it, but those that do it can really be a huge help.
JoeWras is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-27-2017, 01:19 PM   #28
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Feb 2015
Posts: 296
OP....I see where you said you will not have a pension ....nor SS. How is this possible? I may have missed it but even self employed people pay into the SS system. How is it that you will not qualify for SS? Do you not have 40 quarters of employment? Just curious and I must be missing something?
MrLoco is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-27-2017, 03:22 PM   #29
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
Posts: 275
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrLoco View Post
OP....I see where you said you will not have a pension ....nor SS. How is this possible? I may have missed it but even self employed people pay into the SS system. How is it that you will not qualify for SS? Do you not have 40 quarters of employment? Just curious and I must be missing something?
I have never paid into SS, (nor pension). Instead my employer has a 401a. Probably about 5% of workers are not in SS.
43210 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-27-2017, 09:25 PM   #30
Recycles dryer sheets
 
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 149
One thing I didn't plan on was my wife's reaction to getting subsidized health care - she hates it, especially having our kids on medicare. Fortunately for her, but unfortunately for me, we sold a few rental houses this year and the capital gains kicked us out of the subsidy for next year so we will get to pay an additional $500'ish per month.
kevdude is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-28-2017, 04:34 AM   #31
Recycles dryer sheets
Backpacker's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: On a dirt road
Posts: 332
One thing our fee based FA did was to force us to admit the probable need for a line item in the budget for"helping out" adult kids. As much as we'd like to think that they all are over 21 and on their own, several of the 5 still seem to need the odd extra 300-500 bucks once or twice a year. Not major but still rather than being in denial about it we put it in the budget. I really hated that he was right 😁.
__________________
"Up sluggard and waste not the day, in the grave will be sleeping enough." Benjamin Franklin
Backpacker is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-28-2017, 06:06 AM   #32
Full time employment: Posting here.
Carpediem's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 770
Quote:
Originally Posted by Backpacker View Post
One thing our fee based FA did was to force us to admit the probable need for a line item in the budget for"helping out" adult kids. As much as we'd like to think that they all are over 21 and on their own, several of the 5 still seem to need the odd extra 300-500 bucks once or twice a year. Not major but still rather than being in denial about it we put it in the budget. I really hated that he was right 😁.
Ugh....I guess I need to revise my retirement budget as well as we have 3 over 21 adult kids 'living on the edge'. In fact, we just heard 'through the grapevine' that one of them isn't driving his own car because he allowed his license tabs to expire.
Carpediem is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 11-28-2017, 07:38 AM   #33
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 2,509
I think tax diversification is often over looked. Many discussions on the ER forum have people disagreeing because one is using after tax funds and the other TIRAs. Both have good points from their perspective. I think many people don't really plan out there ER tax diversification, myself included.
bingybear is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Stuff You Didn't Know You Didn't Know mickeyd Other topics 21 08-07-2017 03:33 PM
Things I didn't know imoldernu FIRE Related Public Policy 26 06-22-2015 09:23 AM
I'm Wealthy And I Didn't Even Know It novaman Other topics 37 08-15-2011 06:57 AM
Things own you; you don't own things - know what is want and a need dex Young Dreamers 21 10-26-2005 12:40 PM

» Quick Links

 
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 10:54 PM.
 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.