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I retired 25 years ago. I set aside as much as I could, without excessively eroding he opportunities to do the things I'm (in retrospect) thankful that I did.
The goal is not to fix an amount in mind and deprive yourself in order to reach it. The goal is to establish attainable life goals, achieve the ones that are important to you, and live frugally enough to pay for what you need and save what you can, and reduce nonproductive waste to near zero. .
i saw today on tv washington dc is the most expensive place to raise a family followed by
long island
westchester
nyc
we came in 2nd place as living in the 2nd most expensive place in the country .
I would be willing to bet that Boston, Honolulu, and San Francisco are very, very close behind, in no particular order. And I am fairly certain that Los Angeles and San Diego are in the top dozen.
in the 1990's 1 out of 4 retirees who moved out of state went to florida . today fewer and fewer retirees are moving far . florida now gets only 1 out 7 retirees .
less than 2% even cross state lines anymore .
The 2% quote is a litttttle hard to believe. I'm one of the 2 percenters I guess!!
I planned on retiring in 4 years at the age of 59.5. My number factors in taking SS at age 62. I've lived neither frugally nor on the high side. Plain old luck resulted in a few good real estate purchases that helped me reach my number.
Unfortunately, last month I was diagnosed with a treatable but incurable disease that may require retirement earlier than expected and comes with an extremely high cost of annual treatment. I'm still in a state of shock so haven't looked at the medical policy to see what percentage, if any, I would be responsible for.
For some reason this scenario never crossed my mind. Just the possibility of growing old and maybe needing somebody to come in daily to help around the house.
I even had 2 backup plans that included working part-time for a few years if necessary. Time to get the eraser out and come up with a different backup plan that factors in an inability to work even part-time.
I'm 63 and every retirement calculator I've found says I can retire now and have enough to reach 90. I'm still going to wait until 66 so the SS kicks in, I've got $ 2,700/mo coming. Better safe than sorry and I like my work anyway.
I planned on retiring in 4 years at the age of 59.5. My number factors in taking SS at age 62. I've lived neither frugally nor on the high side. Plain old luck resulted in a few good real estate purchases that helped me reach my number.
Unfortunately, last month I was diagnosed with a treatable but incurable disease that may require retirement earlier than expected and comes with an extremely high cost of annual treatment. I'm still in a state of shock so haven't looked at the medical policy to see what percentage, if any, I would be responsible for.
For some reason this scenario never crossed my mind. Just the possibility of growing old and maybe needing somebody to come in daily to help around the house.
I even had 2 backup plans that included working part-time for a few years if necessary. Time to get the eraser out and come up with a different backup plan that factors in an inability to work even part-time.
I am very sorry to hear about your disease. It does change the plan. We never thought my husband would get laid off at almost 61. I planned and planned and checked the retirement calculators and when to take SS. So, this threw a big wrench in our plans as well. It's almost like GPS. Y'know, when you go on a different road than they say and you hear "re-routing, re-routing"...well, that's what we have to do!!
As far as your medical treatment and the high cost...I am still in shock over what we pay a year in just health insurance. Never did I think in all my planning that it would surpass what we ever paid even in a mortgage!
I have 2 plans. My job is almost certain to go away in 2-3 years and it's also likely that I will have a short period of unemployment and then take significantly less than what I make now. So I have the "7 years of the same" plan, which is probably a fantasy, and the "3 years same and 4 years reduced" plan. Both will work okay but I am likely to do winter warm trips in a trailer in the second scenario. I am more than okay with that.
My wife and I will both have pensions of about $3300 a month and social security of about 1600 a month taken at 62. All of which have inflation adjustments and a pension that continues on for the survivor. So hopefully $9800 a month is enough of an income stream to live comfortably.
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