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The mortgage may be cheap as far as the interest rate but it's on a much larger base. Debt payments are creeping up to $300,000 over a lifetime for the average American, and I'm sure the majority of that is on a mortgage. Bargain? On another mortgage? I'm not so sure.
Run your own numbers. That's what I did, and the notion of refinancing (for the sixth time) was a flat-out no brainer. I paid less per month on the mortgage and got a bigger tax break. It was free money. There is no downside there.
It would of course be important to note that a new mortgage interest rate would need to be about 1% lower than an existing rate for a refi to make sense. That was not really much of an obstacle for quite a while, but it might be for significant numbers of people these days.
Again, the notion that no one over 60 should have a mortgage is basically just a baseless generalization.
the downside is depending how far in to the old mortgage you were you basically reset the clock back from potentially paying mostly principal to mostly paying interest again .
it is only the fact that you can do better than that mortgage that likely makes it a better choice .
there are very few tax situations spending 3 or 4 dollars in interest to get back one makes sense .
suppose you had two years to go with a 30 year mortgage or even a 15 year mortgage , would refinancing in to another 30 or 15 years worth of interest make sense ?
I have no broad statistics and am personally well funded through investments for retirement but talk with a dozen or so seniors that have no real savings at the gyms I use. Their support come from limited SS, or a variety of modest retirement plans. They make use of Medicaid, Snap, and other support programs. They live in a assorted low cost housing often shared with family or others.
Surprisingly these citizens are able to qualify for elective medical procedures, participate in programs that provide clothing, food, and even some cosmetic dental work that those with just a small percentage more in income from savings cannot budget for.
There is more than one way to survive your senior years, some more comfortable than others, but clearly many things are better than many describe.
I don't know what other dental programs there may be, but I know that Medicaid does NOT pay for cosmetic dental work. Only the bare minimum of what is necessary to resolve a medical-dental problem. Example: A bad tooth will be pulled..no crowns. But it will do fillings.
Don't forget that if they qualify for these food and such programs for the poor, that means they are really poor, and usually have no cash or assets to speak of. The line has to be drawn somewhere. No matter where the line is, there will always be those people right above that line who are in a similar position but don't qualify for the benefits.
Still, it has occurred to me how some could seriously use some help from time to time (buying decent food or health care), but they're not poor enough to get benefits or wealthy enough to pay for what they need.
who's included in the "half". My son is 21, he's an American worker and yes he has less than 10K saved. Should he be panicking? No
What are they measuring as "savings"??? 401K. once again, I have relatives in their early 50's, no they do not have a bunch in their 401K what they do have is 3 NYC rental apartments giving them about 6K a month in free income.
I haven't watched the entire video, i will when I get home but let me say I often view these "doomday" scenario videos with a healthy dose of skepticism. I do like that they are getting the message out to save for retirement.
It's like that golden "million" dollar figure that use to get thrown out, years ago. OH run for the hills if you don't have a million bucks by the time you retire. you'll be eating cat food and living under a bridge.
I'm 57, I'm one of the last of my relatives still working, do they have a million bucks? no, are they eating cat food ? no.
While they are not living la vida loca, they are pretty much moving along nicely, like most folks their major concern is health care but they manage to go on a vacation and dine out a few times.
Serious question. Where I live, cat food in a can costs more than people food. Like Friskies or Kroger’s cat food costs more than canned beans and a loaf of bread. Why is this saying a thing?
why ? because our kids ,our family ,friends ,and grand kids are here .how is that for a reason ? priceless!
not only would i NEVER think of retiring outside the country , we will not move to far out of the area they are all in . we can't stop them from ever leaving but it is not something we would do .
You are in a good financial position. I’m talking about people who are struggling to survive in retirement. These poor old people living off SS in some old falling apart rent controlled dump on the sixth floor of a walk up. That same SS check can go a long way in other parts of the world.
The tech company wasn't a household name, but they were well-known for their oddball hiring practices. I work in IT, but not for a tech company. I think I am the only person on my team under 50.
The thing is that workers in all fields seem to be put "out to pasture" more quickly than ever before and you have fewer years to save before you're ultimately pushed out of the labor force.
Anyone who is in IT better get on the management track by 35, or start planning for an early retirement.
suppose you had two years to go with a 30 year mortgage or even a 15 year mortgage , would refinancing in to another 30 or 15 years worth of interest make sense ? likely not.
Once again, run the numbers for your personal situation. If the numbers for me had not supported doing a refi, I would not have done one. But don't try to make it the tenet of some religion that a mortgage after age 60 is always a bad idea. That's just not the case.
By the way, the typical mortgage does not survive long enough to get anywhere near the point of having just two years worth of payments remaining. People die, they up-size to have kids and down-size to become empty-nesters, they retire and move away, and they simply do a refi or two in order to boost their cash-flow situation. This is how things are in the real world.
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