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Hello fellow 40's. 46 here soon to be 47 married with one 4 yr old and another one on the way. I have made it a point in life to learn from my past mistakes financially and not do it again. That said , we are gainfully employed, right on track with developing our emergency fund, paying off debt and saving for our non working days so well known as retirement. I don't like to use the word "comfortable" due to feeling the need to be ready to adjust, cause life happens along the way.
Hubby's 40th birthday is early next year and our youngest will be 10. We are comfortable:
-We fully max out his 401k, his and hers roth IRAs, pay into 529's and send extra towards the house.
-We visit a Mexican resort town every Christmas to see the in-laws and take 1-2 regional weekend trips during the year.
-We have a nice condo in an affluent neighborhood in of one of the country's most beautiful and economically prosperous cities.
We are incredibly blessed in many ways.
Downsides:
-Moving for economics means we live very far away from family and we barely have any connection any more.. less and less every year. My kids don't really know what it's like to have aunts, uncles, cousins or grandparents.
-We're on our own to figure out every problem and can't depend on anyone to help out when things are going crazy. It makes us more anxious and paranoid and less secure about our future.
Late forties. One child starting college, one in high school, one in middle school. No major financial worries ourselves, but I am concerned about extended family members.
Late forties. One child starting college, one in high school, one in middle school. No major financial worries ourselves, but I am concerned about extended family members.
Great point.
I'm wondering how many of us worry about elderly family members (parents) who may need our care, and that would change our financial situation if those family members are in poor financial straits and cannot fend for themselves.
I'm wondering how many of us worry about elderly family members (parents) who may need our care, and that would change our financial situation if those family members are in poor financial straits and cannot fend for themselves.
We might have to take her in eventually, which I would actually like, but she just hasn't planned for anything at all, so it's pressure on him and his siblings and extended family.
When my husband and I were in our late 40s we were "living the good life". Both of us had professional jobs. We had enough money to take a "once in a life time" family vacation to Hawaii as well as an annual winter vacation to visit relatives out of state in Florida. Our kids were 16 and 12, and while we did not have all of the money saved for their college education we had enough for the first year or two. We did not have a lot saved for our retirement but my husband's career was really taking off and in his line of work the salary increases often got bigger and bigger in your 50s and 60s so we planned to save for retirement after our kids were out of college and out of the home. We had season tickets to the repertory theater and went to the symphony, opera and professional plays several times a year. Yes, we were "on top of the world".
Then my husband lost his job and was unemployed for almost two years. We used up all of our savings and went into debt. He finally had to take a different, non professional job which only paid about 1/4 of his previous employment and did not have any potential for advancement. While we did not realize it at the time he had a type of unusual, slowly progressing brain damage plus the start of other serious health problems. Whereas my job used to be more for the "icing on the cake" finances I now became the main breadwinner. Our old luxuries were gone, no vacations, no theater tickets, nothing.
It got worse. When he was 52 my husband developed cancer and nearly died (several times). Even though he had disability insurance, because of the lower income from his job and since we had not recovered from his period of unemployment, and we had a child in college it was another financial disaster. Thankfully he recovered but it was a very difficult 14 months.
Then it got worse. My health problems increased to the point where I had to take early retirement at age 57. My pension was less than half of my salary and I was far too young for SS and did not qualify for SSDI. And we had two children in college at the time.
But, it got worse. My husband's brain damage and other health issues had gotten so severe that he could not work any more, at any job in any capacity whatsoever.
And, the nightmare continues.
My point, is that (as my mother always said) "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched". My husband had always planned to work, in his high paying profession, until he turned 70 and ended up not even being able to handle any job at all at age 58. In spite of my serious health problems I needed to return to work full time, plus get a part time job, plus get extra money through short term "gigs" like babysitting on the weekend to pay the bills. In addition, I need to provide caregiving for my spouse, who can not be left alone for long periods of time (we mainly manage because he spends most of the day sleeping while I am at my full time job and is awake at night while I am sleeping. If he needs help at night he can wake me up).
I anticipate needing to work at least fulltime until I am 72 and our (refinanced) mortgage is finally paid off or until I die, whatever comes first (and frankly, some days I wish it will be death). I am already trying to anticipate how I can manage to successfully be a substitute teacher while using a cane or being in a wheelchair from my severe rheumatoid arthritis. We are also considering other alternative living & housing arrangements instead of staying in our small condo.
We were "living the good life" in our 40s and now not so much. On the bright side, both of our children have college degrees, we did not lose our home (although, we needed to take second mortgages several times) and we can afford to buy food to eat. All pluses.
BTW, it may even get worse. The memory units, in nursing homes, in my area cost about $5,000 to $6,000 a month. The doctors say that my husband may be able to be cared for at home for the next few years, or even the next decade, or he may take a dramatic change for the worse and need to be placed in a full time locked memory unit at any time, even tomorrow. Or he may die from his other severe health problems before he needs to go into a memory unit. We will have to wait to see what happens.
Last edited by germaine2626; 08-08-2015 at 03:07 PM..
We were "living the good life" in our 40s and now not so much.[/color][/b] On the bright side, both of our children have college degrees, we did not lose our home (although, we needed to take second mortgages several times) and we can afford to buy food to eat. All pluses.
Thank you for sharing this poignant perspective.
The way I read it, was that you enjoyed a very high quality of life, which was a factor in not being able to save as much as you may have had to, because you didn't anticipate catastrophic events like job loss and health catastrophes happening. Most of us think we're planning for the best by way of life insurance but we don't have "job security/job insurance" these days.
If you had a paid off mortgage and a better funded retirement (whatever that # maybe... I know "better funded" is subjective but lets arbitrarily say it's $500K-$750K at the time you were late 40s), do you think you would have been able to handle these different burdens with more ease than otherwise? In other words, the mortgage was a big expense that needed the income.
About to cross in to the 40s with two young kids...5 and 6. Right now we save a lot, so there isn't a much left over. We max out our 401k, have two homes (owe about $300K combined), contribute to 529s, and have our life insurance policies. The mortgage on our main home will be paid off in 8 years. I make 6 figures and my husband will starting in October. So we are fortunate to have very good paying jobs.
I foresee us having to help his mom financially in the near future, so the pay raise for him is coming at a good time.
My wife and I are still in our 30s with no kids. We are comfortable fully funding our retirement/investments to meet our projected goals, maintain an active lifestyle traveling for various runs and taking our two major vacations a year.
We were "living the good life" in our 40s and now not so much. On the bright side, both of our children have college degrees, we did not lose our home (although, we needed to take second mortgages several times) and we can afford to buy food to eat. All pluses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jstriding
Thank you for sharing this poignant perspective.
The way I read it, was that you enjoyed a very high quality of life, which was a factor in not being able to save as much as you may have had to, because you didn't anticipate catastrophic events like job loss and health catastrophes happening. Most of us think we're planning for the best by way of life insurance but we don't have "job security/job insurance" these days.
If you had a paid off mortgage and a better funded retirement (whatever that # maybe... I know "better funded" is subjective but lets arbitrarily say it's $500K-$750K at the time you were late 40s), do you think you would have been able to handle these different burdens with more ease than otherwise? In other words, the mortgage was a big expense that needed the income.
We actually have a very modest condo, not a large home. The mortgage has been paid off, or nearly paid off, twice already. I really doubt that having a better funded retirement plan would really have made that big a difference (and better funded would have, at the most, been $100,000 to $150,000) as my husband and I did not finish paying off all of our student loans from college until we were in our early to mid 30s (both of us paid for all of our graduate school education by ourselves and almost all of our undergraduate education by ourselves, as well) and really could not afford to save for retirement before all of our college loans were paid off. Now, if our parents had been wealthy and had paid for our college educations (even just our undergraduate degrees) we would have off to a much, much better financial start as a married couple. But, that did not happen so we had to deal with what we had.
To add more information, part of our financial problems involved helping our children with their college expenses. This was before we knew the full extent of my husband's health problems and my health problems. Obviously, in retrospect, it was a mistake to help our children as much as we did but we could not see into the future.
There were also some expenses involving care of our elderly parents. Plus a serious health issue with one of our children, which caused additional financial problems. Plus other expensive medical issues that I did not list. So there were even more problems that I wrote in my first post.
My point was just because you think that you are doing fine when you are in your 40s, A LOT can change in just a few years. And, it may not be just one catastrophe, but multiple catastrophes, with future catastrophes looming on the horizon. When we weathered one storm, such as my husband losing his job and being unemployed for almost two years, we thought everything would be OK. Then he almost died from cancer, and we again suffered significant financial losses, but we thought everything would be OK. Then I was forced to take early retirement due to my severe health problems, but we thought everything would be OK. Then, our child had health problems, then my husband became permanently disabled, then this and then that, and then this other thing, etc. etc.
Just do not become complacent as your life can change in an instant. And, it can change again and again and again and not for the best.
Last edited by germaine2626; 08-08-2015 at 10:10 PM..
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