PandaBear
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2014
- Messages
- 313
[FONT="]I’m not sure my husband and I fit in here, as we are looking at a retirement age of 60. That’s not really early retirement. I am hoping we are okay for retirement, but have always had great anxiety about it as well. Probably because of everything you read in the papers and internet.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We have made good incomes for a while, but haven’t been great at managing money (I know we should have way more saved than we do). I don’t realistically see that changing in the next few years. On the plus side, we do have limited debt (just a mortgage). [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]My husband and I both have pensions, which is somewhat atypical, I think. We plan to both draw pensions with 100% survivor benefits. We have 401K money. My husband is eligible for social security, I am not. We have one child graduating from college this year, one in college with entry level master’s degree required to work and one child in high school (junior). We are paying for their college. We live in a city that is routinely considered in the top 10 of most expensive cities in the country, although our house is not in the high priced range (probably about 750K in value right now, for an almost 1800 square foot 4 bedroom in a middle class neighborhood). I have always worked, but worked part time until about 6 or 7 years ago.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Our facts are as follows, as much as I know right now.[/FONT]
[FONT="]At age 60, my husband can draw a pension at approximately $6375 per year (in fall 2018)[/FONT]
[FONT="]I am 3 ½ years younger and can also draw a pension at age 60, at approximately $4624 per month.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Our current take home income is $13,466 per month. So we do have a pretty big discrepancy. I don’t see our incomes changing dramatically over the next few years. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Currently we fund college and one child’s competitive sport from savings and from our current salaries (about 43K a year from our salaries, the rest from savings). Our kids went to parochial schools and then state colleges. We also have a mortgage of close to $2000 per month, which will be paid off in a couple of years. So I am thinking that can also help to give us more wiggle room in retirement income. I am also not counting all the “extras” from 3 kids-car insurance, cell phones and many other things. So even with retirement expenses, I’ve got to hope our general monthly expenses will be reduced.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We have a million dollars in our 401K’s and IRA’s. We also have just regular savings of maybe $200,000 (not exactly sure) from some inheritances. While my husband has the opportunity for social security, we are not including that in our planning. Anything we get is a bonus. It’s quite possible I will inherit money from my parents, but that’s not something we will plan for. If I had to guess, I would think low 6 figures.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We currently have term life insurance purchased when our kids were young which expires in about 5 years. We are getting pressure from our agent to continue it, or change to whole life. However, we are thinking of just letting it expire. We are thinking it did its job, which was to protect of family in those years of kids being at home and going to school (we maintained enough insurance to pay off the house and provide a financial buffer for the remaining parent) We still have whole life policies that continue to provide term insurance, as well as cash payout which we plan to continue at least for now.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We also have long term care insurance and will continue that.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Unknowns for us right now:[/FONT]
[FONT="]That’s all I can think of at this moment. Thanks for any insight.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We have made good incomes for a while, but haven’t been great at managing money (I know we should have way more saved than we do). I don’t realistically see that changing in the next few years. On the plus side, we do have limited debt (just a mortgage). [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]My husband and I both have pensions, which is somewhat atypical, I think. We plan to both draw pensions with 100% survivor benefits. We have 401K money. My husband is eligible for social security, I am not. We have one child graduating from college this year, one in college with entry level master’s degree required to work and one child in high school (junior). We are paying for their college. We live in a city that is routinely considered in the top 10 of most expensive cities in the country, although our house is not in the high priced range (probably about 750K in value right now, for an almost 1800 square foot 4 bedroom in a middle class neighborhood). I have always worked, but worked part time until about 6 or 7 years ago.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Our facts are as follows, as much as I know right now.[/FONT]
[FONT="]At age 60, my husband can draw a pension at approximately $6375 per year (in fall 2018)[/FONT]
[FONT="]I am 3 ½ years younger and can also draw a pension at age 60, at approximately $4624 per month.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Our current take home income is $13,466 per month. So we do have a pretty big discrepancy. I don’t see our incomes changing dramatically over the next few years. [/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Currently we fund college and one child’s competitive sport from savings and from our current salaries (about 43K a year from our salaries, the rest from savings). Our kids went to parochial schools and then state colleges. We also have a mortgage of close to $2000 per month, which will be paid off in a couple of years. So I am thinking that can also help to give us more wiggle room in retirement income. I am also not counting all the “extras” from 3 kids-car insurance, cell phones and many other things. So even with retirement expenses, I’ve got to hope our general monthly expenses will be reduced.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We have a million dollars in our 401K’s and IRA’s. We also have just regular savings of maybe $200,000 (not exactly sure) from some inheritances. While my husband has the opportunity for social security, we are not including that in our planning. Anything we get is a bonus. It’s quite possible I will inherit money from my parents, but that’s not something we will plan for. If I had to guess, I would think low 6 figures.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We currently have term life insurance purchased when our kids were young which expires in about 5 years. We are getting pressure from our agent to continue it, or change to whole life. However, we are thinking of just letting it expire. We are thinking it did its job, which was to protect of family in those years of kids being at home and going to school (we maintained enough insurance to pay off the house and provide a financial buffer for the remaining parent) We still have whole life policies that continue to provide term insurance, as well as cash payout which we plan to continue at least for now.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]We also have long term care insurance and will continue that.[/FONT]
[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Unknowns for us right now:[/FONT]
- [FONT="]My husband could be laid off. If he is, he’d take retirement right away. Depending on when this would happen, his pension would be reduced by about $5000 per year away from age 65. So if it happened tomorrow, we’d lose about 22K per year. It’s not that it’s likely, but he has survived many layoffs and his department is a lot smaller than a few years ago. [/FONT]
- [FONT="]With an anticipated retirement at 60, I can begin to work part time at age 55. I’d have my yearly salary reduced, but my retirement would accumulate as if I was full time. Something I can consider. [/FONT]
- [FONT="]We definitely would want any kids marrying to have a nice wedding, so I feel we need to set aside 100K for all three. [/FONT]
- [FONT="]We’re not really sure what we’d want to do in retirement. My husband is a golfer and I think would like to be a marshall on a course. The pay is ridiculous around here (just above minimum wage) but you get free golf. I may decide to do volunteer work. I may also need to provide care to my own mom. Often, people in my position go back to the previous workplace and help with projects/training/etc, especially the first couple years transitioning from work to retirement.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]Both of us will want to travel. We own 2 timeshares and will likely end up with one more (from my parents). [/FONT]
- [FONT="]If my kids have their own kids, I hope to be able to be a nanny when the babies are young (the first year). If my kids live out of this area, I am open to temporarily relocating to help them out. Of course, that’s a big unknown. My daughter is already certain she’d want that, but with boys and their wives, who knows If we have our children in the area, I am absolutely open to providing day care when they are young and being the after school nanny when they are in school, if their parents want that help (My mom babysat my kids and was the afterschool nanny, ferrying the kids to activities when I worked, etc)[/FONT]
- [FONT="]In terms of relocating for retirement, that is a huge unknown. I don’t see that happening. But I also wouldn’t rule it out. So much depends on variables that I don’t know as of now…..if our siblings stay in the area, if our kids do, what our health is like.[/FONT]
- [FONT="]My husband’s sister is unemployed and her unemployment is getting close to ending. Not sure how much we will need to help her. Also, her daughter (who is about 20 years older than our kids and 10 years younger than me) has special needs. She works as a transporter at a hospital but isn’t really independent. We want the mom to make sure the house is in a trust so her daughter can’t get manipulated by someone after the mom is gone. We may need to provide some financial support as well.[/FONT]
[FONT="]That’s all I can think of at this moment. Thanks for any insight.[/FONT]