At 77 He Prepares Burgers Earning in 1 Week His Former Hourly Wage

[daylatedollarshort]

I think you hit the nail on the head daylate.

If you think about it, all a person really needs to live per month is $300 for food, $50 for their share of utilities, $200 for medical, and around $400 for housing (1 room in a 4bd house). That is a $950 a month budget.

Funny, when most of us are planning on $40K to $80K a year in retirement.

Our kids' friends who didn't go to college, or are out but not making STEM career money, seem to live okay like that. They don't live in poverty, and that is even in a very high COL area.

One way they cut back is by having 3 - 4 roommates and maybe an economy or older car. One group lives with 5 roommates together in an upscale house with an indoor pool.

The low end wage ones aren't jetting off to Paris for the weekend, but they seem to have fun and enough money for free or low cost activities like pizza parties, camping trips, arranging car pools to visit friends in other cities, and days at the beach.

Maybe Yahoo finance would better serve the general public by publishing articles on how some people manage to live well on SS type incomes, instead of all the scare stories.

 

[haha]

All young people need for a nice life is plenty sex and no supervision. Lots of middle aged people around Seattle live this group way too, and even some families. (Groups, not necessarily the sex thing.) I haven't lived in a group home since I was in my 20s-very early 30s. It was mostly but not entirely fun then. As we get older, often other people do not look as good to us as they did when we were young. (And vice versa.)

I know many day to day things are more fun if you have company to do them, especially things like going shopping, house cleaning, yard cleanup, etc. Modern industrial life is inherently lonely, and though we might resist it if we had to step back we might be better off. But it is hard to tame the jealousy monster, and that is another issue for most of us. Meals and food security and kitchen and bathroom cleanliness is another frequent sticking point. Another one is dope. Since this can get your door broken down, you need some clear and enforced prohibitions on this.

I talk to the young people who clerk at Trader Joe. Manyof them live groupwise, and seem to do OK. I also knew quite a few younger people when I was regularly dancing. Many of them lived in group homes, sometimes organized around an interest in some genre of dancing (and thus tended to be in older homes with hardwood floors.) It mostly works and it sometimes doesn't. There is a lot of turnover, moving in and out, breakups, hissy fits and pouts. At least cell phones have mostly solved the arguments over who called Minneapolis last month and talked for 2 hours.

Ha

 

[Sarah in SC]

I agree with Ha here. I just spent 50 days in 168 square feet with up to 13 other people, and you get to know each other really really well. Even when it dropped to just 9 of us, it was an exercise in manners and civility. I'd say I craved private space than the 20-somethings did. But at the end, I quite missed all of them, and wandering around by myself in my spacious home seemed kinda lonely.

 

[Andre1969]

I could see living in a space with other retirees at some point being a reasonable way to reduce costs and look out for each other. Probably friends instead of family, but I could imagine it being a good thing-and a lot better than working at 77 over a grill. My dad at 71 loves teaching, but he wouldn't enjoy a low-status job in the least.

This came up in conversation just the other day with one of my friends. I was out biking on a trail, saw a house for sale I really liked, and looked it up. It was expensive, but seemed like a lot of house for the money, and in an area I like. I joked with my friend about going in together on it. I could muster a good down payment, but not the income. My friend has a good income, but no down payment.

It's a big enough house that we wouldn't be stumbling over each other. Only problem though, is that my friend is a neat freak, and I'm not, so it would sort of be like Oscar and Felix on the "Odd Couple"...well, maybe not *that* extreme...

Also, going in on a business deal like that could have bad consequences and potentially ruin a friendship. Still, I'd be willing to at least have roommates in my old age. Hell, I have roommates right now, at the age of 43! It works out pretty well, although the current house is pretty small so there can be skirmishes here and there...