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Old 12-08-2015, 11:02 PM   #41
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This was the reason that finally stopped me from doing OMY.
+1
My wife and I just reviewed where we were relating to ER this weekend, as we were trying to determine if we could leave in 2016 (would that be OLY: One Less Year? ) instead of 2017. Unfortunately the numbers worked out that we could, but it would be close and the hit for just the original 1 year that we had already planned for to 2017 would cost us in the neighborhood of $.5M and we decided to just stick with the original plan of the end of the 1Q 2017.....it was a really close decision though!
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Old 12-09-2015, 07:28 AM   #42
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Our life spans are uncertain and that makes retirement planning such an issue. It is sad when people die early and don't get to enjoy the results of LBYM. But I don't think there is a rational alternative to expecting your lifespan to be "average". Now you can tweak this a bit based on family history, current health, and activity level, but it will still be a crap shoot. Couple this with the idea that running out is worse than leaving a little on the table(given away), probably provides an incentive to be somewhat conservative. Thus the inevitability of anecdotes such as above.
I just don't see any rational alternative to a fairly conservative plan based on reasonable life expectancies? Obviously, as you age, flexibility in spending can help avoid extreme cases. But for most people aging and flexibility don't exactly go hand in hand.
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Old 12-09-2015, 08:07 AM   #43
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Sounds like fun !
Just be sure to keep enough so you won't be eating cat food at 80.


I think for the short term I'll be one of those who is still "tweaking" her plans. It's been 3 years since the "old guy", as I affectionately called him lost his battle with cancer and this is really the first year where I think I wasn't kinda in a "black funk" of grief.

Then since hubby took care of most of the investments, I've been taking the time to learn how to handle it myself (yes guys I'm one of the evil people who has a FP, right now it's a good decision for me. I do foresee it changing soon but for right now I'm happy with that).

Interestingly enough the only major financial decision has been to retire next year. I hate my job so it was a no-brainer once I ran the numbers a hundred different ways and still came out decent.

LOL, I'm by nature a pretty conservative person, outside of a few "vices". at my current spending level firecalc has me leaving 3 mil bucks to some one if I croak at 90. may have to get that Portuguese pool boy.
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Old 12-09-2015, 08:14 AM   #44
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I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually start out with anything like a reasonable retirement income and then "run out of money" in the sense of being evicted from their homes, unable to buy food, or unable to obtain medical care. I see plenty of people obsessing about this possibility as though it were a realistic fear, but I don't actually see it happening. Large segments of our society want us to obsess about this because it keeps our noses to the grindstone and keeps the economy operating the way those segments would like it to operate (i.e., for their benefit, not ours). If everyone got wise to the game, the economy those segments know and love would collapse.

If you reach 85 and find yourself entirely dependent on assorted forms of welfare and charity - well, so what? I am surrounded by unemployed and not-interested-in-working 30, 40 and 50-year-olds who are entirely dependent on assorted forms of welfare and charity, and their lives actually don't look much different from mine.

Yes, any of us could die 6 months into retirement, but we could likewise have died 6 months after birth or 6 months after marriage or 6 months after making our first hole in one - does anyone plan his or her life on the basis of this fact? I plan to review my retirement situation every 5 years to make sure I am in reasonable shape for the next 5 years, but I am not obsessing about whether I will have enough to maintain my present lifestyle at 96 or might die 2 years into my 5-year plan and leave money on the table for my wife and stepdaughter that I might have blown on golf vacations if I had known what was coming.
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Old 12-09-2015, 08:20 AM   #45
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DH and I both grew up in large families where money was carefully watched and often tight. We didn't go on vacations, do extra-curriculars that cost money, go out to eat, etc.

Today we live a somewhat modest lifestyle given our net worth and income. However, I feel like I'm living in luxury! We can send our DD to a good school, go out to eat when we want (it only ends up being a couple times a month, just because it's easier/healthier to cook at home) and not have to worry about juggling bills every month.

I just can't imagine spending gobs of cash to make our lives better, when they are already so great. I'm not sure what we should be spending money on. A bigger house is just more space we don't need that would have to be cleaned. And it seems wasteful to trade in perfectly good cars or buy clothes when we already have plenty in our closets.

We would like to pass money on to DD, especially if she has children (maybe for a house down payment, college funds, etc.). If we end up having a lot of excess money, I could also see gifting money to my nieces and nephews and supporting charitable causes.
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Old 12-09-2015, 08:27 AM   #46
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I realize this is not directly to the OP's question but I gotta tell this somewhat sad story about my father. He died at 91, and was in reasonably good health for all but the last year. He and his wife (my mom died many years ago) had a comfortable and overall happy retirement.
My father was beyond-passionate about art. He worked in blue collar jobs to raise his family, but painted and restored damaged art pieces in his retirement. He always wanted to go to Italy but felt it was too expensive.
A few years ago DW and I went to Italy, and we both fell in love with it, especially Florence. I actually cried at one point, thinking about my Dad and how he would have been in absolute Heaven had he made the trip and seen what we had seen there. He didn't die broke or too rich, but this was money he should have spent.
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Old 12-09-2015, 08:30 AM   #47
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My father died early at the age of 73, and his few years of retirement were not all that great due to complications from kidney failure. But through his working years he and my mother did quite a bit of domestic and overseas traveling. Had he waited for retirement, he would have missed out.
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Old 12-09-2015, 08:38 AM   #48
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LOL, I'm by nature a pretty conservative person, outside of a few "vices". at my current spending level firecalc has me leaving 3 mil bucks to some one if I croak at 90. may have to get that Portuguese pool boy.
Get two, they're cheap!
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Old 12-09-2015, 01:42 PM   #49
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I just can't imagine spending gobs of cash to make our lives better, when they are already so great. I'm not sure what we should be spending money on. A bigger house is just more space we don't need that would have to be cleaned. And it seems wasteful to trade in perfectly good cars or buy clothes when we already have plenty in our closets.
That's about where we are too. A round-the-world cruise was never a goal and even if we won one in a drawing or something I'm not sure we'd even want it.

We have more than either of us had growing up so from our perspective we're doing fine. My pickup truck is 12 years old and has 94k miles on it and everything works, so what would a new one do that this one doesn't? For a pickup 94k is just broken in. We can go out to eat a couple/three times a month if we want, which most times we don't, and so on.

Although DW did nag encourage me to buy new jeans recently because the old ones had holes in them. But they were only little holes so I wasn't in a hurry, waited for a sale.
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Old 12-09-2015, 01:49 PM   #50
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Although DW did nag encourage me to buy new jeans recently because the old ones had holes in them. But they were only little holes so I wasn't in a hurry, waited for a sale.
No way I would throw away a pair of jeans that is well fit and broken in simply because of some holes. Enter the iron-on patches from Walmart. That will give them at least another 75,000 miles.

And by the way, I only have one pair of jeans. I have more khaki pants and shorts.

PS. And if you happen to win a world cruise ticket, I will trade you for a pair of new jeans.

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Old 12-09-2015, 01:53 PM   #51
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Hey, my Mom used to iron those patches on the knees of my jeans when I wore holes in them!
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Old 12-09-2015, 02:05 PM   #52
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Hey, my Mom used to iron those patches on the knees of my jeans when I wore holes in them!
I ironed one on yesterday, on my $50 LL Bean fleece jeans.
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Old 12-09-2015, 02:22 PM   #53
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I think my grandmother, who just passed away in May at the age of 91, struck a happy medium between too much and not enough.

Granddad had retired in 1971, at the age of 55, and Grandmom was 47 at the time. She was working full time, but it seemed like she still got plenty of time off for them to go on vacations and such. It was never anything ultra-expensive...just camping using either a car and small trailer, or pickup with a slide in camper. She also lived close to home...so close she'd come home for lunch to watch "The Young and the Restless", so in a lot of ways, it might have felt like being semi-retired.

She retired from the federal gov't at the end of 1980, at the age of 56, but went back to work doing medical record stuff on an on-call basis. They let her work as much or as little as she wanted, so I remember them still taking a lot of trips. One of my fondest memories was an 8-week cross-country camping trip they took me on in 1982, when I was 12.

Granddad got diagnosed with lung cancer in late 1989, at the age of 73, and died quickly, gone by April of 1990. He was pretty healthy right up until those last few months, so I figure that Grandmom and Granddad did get about 18-19 years of semi-retirement together.

Grandmom finally quit working when she turned 70 in 1994. Her eyesight got too bad for her to drive (macular degeneration), so when she turned 75 she had to give it up, and that's when she seemed to slip a lot further. Still she did a lot of stuff with family, friends, etc.

In 2010, she got a blood clot, and then went anemic. She was 86 at the time, and that's when she seemed to really go down hill. By this time I was living across the street from her, and my uncle had been living with her since around 1993, so she wasn't totally alone. But 2010 was when she was far gone enough that I had to start making her breakfast and lunch on days that my uncle wasn't around, and he'd handle the other days, as well as dinner.

Last year, when she was about 90 1/2, she got too bad to be on her own, and had to go in the emergency room. At that point, she had amassed about $350,000. Plus, the house was paid off. She was probably bringing in about $40K per year between retirement, SS, and survivors benefits from Granddad.

Initially, we presumed that she would come home, but be wheelchair bound, so we had the bathroom re-done to be handicap accessible, and had a walk-in tub installed. I think that was about $14,000. Alas, she only came home for a few hours, and that was when she had gotten well enough to be moved from a rehabilitation facility to an assisted living place. My Mom and uncle moved her, and they stopped off at the house for lunch.

She made it about 2 months or so in the assisted living place before getting really bad again, and going back into the emergency room. Then moved to a nursing facility where she had 24/7 care, and she was there about 5 months before finally passing away. Between her insurance and Medicare, it picked up the tab from the first time she went in the emergeny room, as well as the rehab place. The assisted living place was only about $2800 per month. The second emergency room visit was covered as well, and then I think Medicare covered the first 30 days of the nursing facility. Then it went to something like $150 per day, with some assistance from Medicare. But that was destined to run out, and then it would be about $10-12,000 per month.

I remember we had to make two of those big $10-12K payments, but we got half of the second one back as she died mid-month.

I think the funeral was around $12,000, and once everything was settled, Grandmom's estate still had about $300,000 left. Plus the house. I guess $300K sounds like a lot, and it was money she could have used to enjoy herself more when she was younger. But, she could have also run up some serious medical bills toward the end of her life as well, so I'm glad that cushion was there. At $10-12K per month, if she had held on it could have depleted those funds in about 2-2.5 years.
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Old 12-09-2015, 02:33 PM   #54
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Aunt and uncle of mine...They partied their whole life like there was no tomorrow...Raised four kids, traveled, blah, blah, blah... Middle class family in the 60s/70s. My father (aunt's brother), on the other hand, lived like a miser, never went anywhere and watched TV on the couch for 20 years after retiring. He lived until he was 74 and had no fun to speak of, which he could have afforded, if only a little here and there. While he was still working he constantly bitched about how his sister (my aunt) and her husband were not going to have any money for retirement.
My aunt and uncle both died in their late 50s, within a few years of each other (breast cancer for her, lung cancer for him). They seemed happy and seemed to pass with no regrets. My father, on the other hand, could not point to much happiness.
Which life would you want?
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Old 12-09-2015, 02:41 PM   #55
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Running_man. I love your father story. Simple life and contentment.


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Me too. Great story.


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Old 12-09-2015, 04:24 PM   #56
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I could do both ... been traveling much 30s to early 50s (now). Will continue to travel to 60, and then 60s to 85 or 90 just watch TV on the couch. I probably don't want to live beyond 90.

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Aunt and uncle of mine...They partied their whole life like there was no tomorrow...Raised four kids, traveled, blah, blah, blah... Middle class family in the 60s/70s. My father (aunt's brother), on the other hand, lived like a miser, never went anywhere and watched TV on the couch for 20 years after retiring. He lived until he was 74 and had no fun to speak of, which he could have afforded, if only a little here and there. While he was still working he constantly bitched about how his sister (my aunt) and her husband were not going to have any money for retirement.
My aunt and uncle both died in their late 50s, within a few years of each other (breast cancer for her, lung cancer for him). They seemed happy and seemed to pass with no regrets. My father, on the other hand, could not point to much happiness.
Which life would you want?


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Old 12-09-2015, 04:45 PM   #57
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I think there is some middle ground between the sit at home crowd piling up the money and spending to run out of money at 90 but worrying about living to be 100. We get a lot of free (or very low cost) credit card travel points, restaurant gift cards and event tickets with ideas from the various deal sites. We are not this extreme, but there is a blog where someone accumulated a million miles in travel points in one month. Money is really more of a means to an end but if that end is travel, dining out and attending cultural events there are other ways to do a lot for free or very inexpensively these days.
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Old 12-09-2015, 06:39 PM   #58
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Aunt and uncle of mine...They partied their whole life like there was no tomorrow...Raised four kids, traveled, blah, blah, blah... Middle class family in the 60s/70s. My father (aunt's brother), on the other hand, lived like a miser, never went anywhere and watched TV on the couch for 20 years after retiring. He lived until he was 74 and had no fun to speak of, which he could have afforded, if only a little here and there. While he was still working he constantly bitched about how his sister (my aunt) and her husband were not going to have any money for retirement.
My aunt and uncle both died in their late 50s, within a few years of each other (breast cancer for her, lung cancer for him). They seemed happy and seemed to pass with no regrets. My father, on the other hand, could not point to much happiness.
Which life would you want?
Some people are homebodies and are very content to live a simple but fulfilling life. Did you know he was unhappy or are you saying because he did not party and have so called fun that he must have been unhappy? I have know several people like your aunt and uncle who are no longer here simply because they partied too much and died from the effects of imbibing too much. The most recent one I know died of liver cancer.

I like to relax sometimes and have simple fun - folks over to dinner, a good book, playing the piano, the occasional get togethers for dinner and a few trips ever so often. I am very contented with my life but for some on the outside, they may think I am not having enough fun. Sometimes too much fun exhaust me.
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Old 12-09-2015, 06:54 PM   #59
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Once we had the financial resources the only determining factor was how many 'good' years we had left. For us, that meant how many years could we reasonably expect good health and have the ability to travel independently and as often as we wanted. Life expectancy was not the goal post for us.

I went at 58. A friend and colleague went until he hit 65. He dropped dead a year later. Never did take his family, grandchildren etc. on that cruise he had been planning. He always wanted to work that extra year or at least until he got a golden handshake.
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Old 12-09-2015, 07:43 PM   #60
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I have a friend that retired from a major company at 55 due to outsourcing of his department. He took his pension in a lump sum and then invested it in dot com stocks. After losing a big chunk of his retirement and being a poor money manager, he and his wife are living on Social Security and she is working part time for her play money. They live in a smaller but still comfortable home, have decent vehicles to drive and eat out regularly at inexpensive places. So, despite pooping off their retirement money, they still have a comfortable but modest retirement. Even those that are unwise still seem to get by okay. Since I am more conservative, plan better and have multiple sources of retirement income. Between that and being a regular reader here on the forum, where could I possibly go wrong?
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