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Old 08-27-2014, 08:08 AM   #41
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Originally Posted by Andre1969 View Post
I'm in a bit of a similar situation, and have to admit I feel a bit guilty about it. My grandmother, at the age of 90, is really getting old and feeble. We had to put her in the emergency room a week ago, because she was really out of it, and couldn't walk or even sit up. She's at a rehab place now, and slowly getting better.

My uncle lives with her, but he's not in the best health, himself. Goes to dialysis 3 times per week. He's 62, but not really a "healthy" 62. If I was to retire right now, I know I'd be on call almost 24/7, and it would make me miserable. I don't mind helping out with taking them to doctor's appointments and such, making sure Grandmom takes her pills at breakfast time on the days my uncle is at dialysis, and so on. But if I was on call all the time, I know I'd end up feeling trapped.

Also, I live right across the street from them, so I don't think I'd be able to retire on the downlow. Unless I made sure to leave the house all the time. Or at least, hide the car! So, for the time being at least, I figure I might as well keep w*rking. it's an easy, low-stress job for the most part, close to home, and they're flexible with my hours. In fact, if Grandmom does come back home and needs more regular surveillance, I could get away with taking off on Tuesday and Thursday mornings to watch her while my uncle is in dialysis. But I just fear that once I do retire, then I'll start getting all the "Well you don't have anything to do, you can help out..." sort of requests almost non-stop.
My in-laws had the assets available for assisted living and nursing care. Realistically, once anyone needs nursing care you are not doing them any favors by taking care of them unless they want a less comfortable life and an earlier death.

Assisted living is another story. When someone needs to make sure they've taken their meds and provide ongoing assistance with daily living, someone has to take over or you're just waiting for the inevitable disaster. We moved FIL into a decent assisted living facility that was easily affordable where he stayed for a couple of years before he needed memory care (Alzheimer's) and then skilled nursing. That sort of care was not anything I was willing to do and definitely not for the nominal 6 years it took him to finally pass away.

My SIL thought we should take over for FIL. She, of course, was too busy and lived out-of-state but she saw us as the perfect caregivers.

It sounds like you have a temporary patch with your uncle but it sounds like it will be a race to see which one falls apart first. I suggest you get proactive about looking for a place for both of them. Get other siblings involved. Go for a durable power of attorney and living wills. I'm assuming these things aren't in place now. Don't go into an elder care situation without having the paperwork clean. You could find yourself in court to get permission for everything either one needs. Houston is famous for its careful protection of the infirmed until the lawyers have drained all of the assets from an estate. After that, anyone can take over without supervision.
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Old 08-27-2014, 10:34 AM   #42
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$120k minus one year of pension payments foregone.
Right, good point.

When I add up our pensions, lower SS and income taxes, ACA subsidies, college financial aid we now qualify for the kids, tax credits we now qualify for, job and commute costs, DH's portion of hobby job income he can do part-time from home, and expenses reductions we could implement with DH home, we actually came out ahead with him not working a full time megacorp job.

We were late to the ER game so we had a lot of superfluous expenses we were able to cut and not miss with DH home. We had time to go over every line item in the budget. DH learned to cook, do the taxes, go around with a kill a watt, we now just get gas at Costco with a 2% cash back card, etc.

Added up that all actually saved us more money than having him work another year or two. Every $10K we cut off our annual expenses was $500K we didn't need to fund over a 50 year retirement. We'd not been careful with our expenses before in part due to a lack of time, so the cost cutting on stuff we did not miss like getting rid of the landline, raising insurance deductibles, cooking more from scratch, eating less carry out other expenses along those lines was huge for us. We made a list of a few hundred little things like that we could do to save on recurring expenses and just knock off a few each week. It has been several years and we still aren't done with the list!
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Old 08-28-2014, 05:37 PM   #43
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I liked having worked past when I could have retired. I had enough in 2008 then didn't have enough so kept working. No pension so just life savings to count on. The last few years allowed me to collect much more money from work plus have more money from investments. 2013 my mom died leaving me 110K and my investments grew 153K so over quarter of a million on top of my over funded retirement. I retired in January, got another 60K from mom's estate and my investments have grown 65K ytd. So now I have over twice as much as I thought I needed, markets can fall 50% or more and I won't worry at all. I also reached 65 to get Medicare and 66 to collect SS on my late ex's record so don't have those worries. I could have retired at 60 or maybe less but waited until almost 66. The last few years at work were easy my boss wanted me to stay and knew I could leave so I got huge raises and bonuses and nobody told me what to do. My last boss asked me if there was anything that she could say to get me to stay and I said no, I am tired of putting on shoes to come to work. Today I still haven't put on shoes, I like retirement but not sorry I waited.
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Old 08-28-2014, 08:49 PM   #44
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And while I admire Jacob at ERE, I doubt many of us would want to live as cheaply as he does. Find your own comfort level.

I thought he took a full time job as a quant?
Yes, he is employed full-time. Although to be fair, even when ERE was his exclusive focus it was a "retirement" combined with building an internet audience.
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Old 08-29-2014, 06:31 AM   #45
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Your life expectancy at 58 is 23 years according the SS administration.
Figure out how much more money you'll earn on the higher pension vs getting the lower pension for an extra year or so. Divide that amount by 24 years life expectancy. Or if you want to trivialize it by how many starbucks or movie tickets per day etc.

But it also depends on how much your job really sucks.. If it is truly bad than it is a no brainier, if you are ambivalent,then maybe you should stick around, cause I am sure you kids would appreciate the extra money.
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