Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Have you done any real contingency planning? By that I mean things like "what if I am unable to work past 62?" I am curious about this because all I have is insurance in case I die and a rough idea of how we might scrape by on a tight budget. I don't know exactly what the draw on savings and/or SS would be in different scenarios other than what I plan to do. Curious about how others approach this.
EDIT TO ADD - People already in retrement can certainly vote for whether they did or not and relating stories of things that we might have to adapt for that aren't even on the radar could certainly be helpful...
Last edited by ReachTheBeach; 04-08-2016 at 12:42 PM..
I did not take the poll because none of the choice applies to me.
I only had a rough plan with no insurance BUT a very good idea of how we could adapt. I'd say that we were very well prepared. Based on our life experience and lessons learned from our parents, we know that we are very resilient, flexible and adaptable. Being resourceful is also a great help to cope with life vicissitudes.
My job turned to fecal matter a year before I retired. So no, my plan went out the window-which was to work an additional two years. Mrs5150 insisted that I retire 6 months earlier than I did as she saw that I was miserable. But boy, my health is better and am much happier. Retired at 66, so am doing OK income-wise. It wasn't worth the extra money to wait two more years. My former coworkers tell me things have gotten a bit worse since I retired.
I think my plan is rock solid. Unfortunately we can not predict the future. There are times when I honestly feel like I'm the only 57 year old in the world who wishes he was 65. If I could get there with no hiccups, have my investments appreciate at a fairly conservative figure of say 5%, be eligible for SS and Medicare and otherwise be financially independent and not so reliant on this job I"d be a much happier person.
But then again I get so angry at myself for not enjoying what I have now instead of worrying about what hasn't even happened yet.
Things can easily go downhill with your body being 65 or a little older, .
I disagree, unless you made bad choices with lifestyle, habits or got unluckily with genes.
When I was a Social Worker, I dealt with a lot of people who were lucky to be alive at 65 due to smoking, drinking, drugs and lack of proper exercise/nutrition! With everyone I know as friends, friends of friends and acquaintances, very few under the age of 80 have any real health issues. But maybe it has to do with the CA lifestyle.
But yea, at 66 I am not as strong and fit as I was at 46.
I was always loosely planning by insisting we live on one salary vs both and ensuring a high rate of savings, but it wasn't until about 40 that I started planning more specifics. I had the opportunity due to a restructuring to take a buy out and an early retirement. I had a pension and would have immediately been able to take a reduced pension, but when I ran all the scenarios, I wasn't comfortable with the reductions I might have had to make in my lifestyle then or in the future.
Bottom line, I would have been leaving to much money on the table so I stayed.
After that, I started paying more attention to planning details about retirement and back up plans as well as back up plans to the back up plans. I pretty much operate that way with most things, just hadn't gotten around to it yet with more long term things.
For those nearing retirement, where I see people making mistakes is not planning sufficiently with regard to what happens when the first spouse dies either shortly before or shortly after retirement and especially if the death of a spouse results in a significant reduction to income. And, this is especially important if there's an age difference where the surviving spouse will not be able to collect SS.
So, I made sure we were covered on that front. I cant picture what I want my life to look like if I'm the surviving spouse and not sure I will be able to plan that in detail until/unless it happens, but I know that whichever one of us survives we are financially covered for as long as it takes us to decide how we want to rearrange our lives.
For those a good distance away, other than not saving enough, the biggest mistake I think people make is not looking ahead to the tax bite on different scenarios.
I think it also pays not just to plan financially, but as you get close to retiring you need to seriously challenge whatever dreams you have of retirement.
For example, I thought for years I wanted to retire to the Outer Banks of NC. Then a 2 wk vacation were we had to evacuate for a hurricane. A three week vacation offseason where the first two weeks were glorious fall/Indian summer weather and the 3rd week was flat out blustery raw winter in a place that resembled a ghost town and half the restaurants were closed for the season. Not for me in retirement lol.
Then I thought snowbirding from NY to FL or somewhere else south might be nice. I realized pretty quickly that I don't want to be packing up my life every 6 months and switching places.
Next I thought buying a home in Fl and buying a second home at the beach would be nice. But, then I really owned 2 houses having lucked into a really nice house for the price where I still could have bought something at the beach. However, at the same time I still owned my NY house because we hadn't retired/sold it yet. I found out real quick I was not cut out to deal with the hassles or costs for 2 houses even if I could afford it. And, why buy a second home, when its cheaper to rent one for however long I want to go to the beach. Not to mention, once we actually moved to our retirement home we met people who had beach homes that offered them up free or for the price of a cleaning service to clean behind ourselves.
So while lots of people move to houses on the coast and love it, for me it turns out that I love the coast best when its a special thing and not an everday thing.
So, the moral of the story is, whatever your retirement dreams are, sanity check them.
Good plan and easily adaptable.
If by insurance you mean life insurance, no.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
