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My grandmother elected to start collecting SS at age 62.
She lived to 91, and said she wised she'd waited till 65.
This is by no means in disrespect to your grandma and her decision or her regret. It's just and example of another person's choices in life.
My mom was just the opposite. She began working during the Great Depression, stopped for awhile when she had kids and resumed after she felt they could manage while she went back to work. My dad always told her, her decision.
She retired at age 62 and lived to age 94. She never regretted her retirement age.
My point being everyone is different. Everyone's choices and reasons for those choices are different. Sometimes they work out sometimes they don't. It's very sad about the OP's brother and we all wish it had turned out better for him but things are going to happen the way they will happen. I just don't see where blame can be pinned on any one single choice or source. Life is more complicated than that.
BTW, he could have had a different medical event - a stroke. And that bit of money could have made the difference between a decent facility for his remaining years and rehab or a crappy one.
As stated on your other thread, nobody is guaranteed equal outcomes.
And it's doubtful that the man SOLELY relied on Fidelity's "advice". He made an informed choice, I'm sure based on HIS priorities.
Maybe you're confused about someone complaining about work and not really despising it as much as you think.
Last edited by runswithscissors; 03-27-2016 at 09:03 AM..
fidelity's advice is only based on getting you the maximum amount of money and it is only suggested that you do it their way . ultimately it is up to you to be in the drivers seat .
we don't know what transpired between the brother and adviser . perhaps based on the income he wanted to draw and the allocations if any to the market he wanted to make the chances of success may have been slim . we do not know his criteria
if things were doable even if the brother saved another 20k a year the extra 100k would likely not be a deal breaker based on what it could generate .
there is more to this story then we are getting or the poster knows
Last edited by mathjak107; 03-27-2016 at 09:16 AM..
I'm 59 and plan on retiring at 60. Will work part-time if I can find something low stress, easy, for the money which I'll need and because I know I'll tend to become a hermit and married to my couch.
I do agonize about it being too early. But then I skim the CNN news site and freak at all the people who die in their 50s and early 60s. This is at least weekly. Then I read the at least monthly articles about how single people with no social network always die much earlier than every one else (that's me). So apparently I'm not going to live as long as everyone else.
Then I agonize some more, I don't spend a lot but then again when I do run into a problem or something I want I'm not used to worrying about it and will throw money at it.
I've done some pre-retirement health screening. Got a lung cancer screening which found a nodule. Could be nothing, could be something.
IDK its a constant see saw but I just can't stand work anymore; the windowless building, the annoying people and twisted bureaucracy, the beginnings of feeling incompetent because of the constantly multiplying number of computer accesses and web accounts and certificates and trying to keep them all going and remember it all ..... so....I'm going.
I hope to use my 401k to supplement pension to get me as far as I can stand past 62 to increase SS before I take it. I'll make that decision when I get there.
My brother hated his job but followed the financial experts who said he should wait until he was 67 before he retired and collect social security. The experts said he needed at least a million in investment and retirement accounts or he could not retire. He was just short of that figure so he decided to wait and collect more money.
The years between his 62nd and 67th birthday were tough. He hated working and his employer was always trying to get him to quit. It was tough on his mind body and spirit. Finally he reached age 67 and formally retired. A few months later he died suddenly of a massive heart attack.
If only he did not follow those silly experts, maybe he would still be alive today or at least his last five years would have been better!
It's called "The future" and none of us are permitted to see it. He did what was right (In a financial sense) but in a personal sense, he screwed himself...I offer my condolences to your loss, but this was a choice to make and he made it.
Ran. Ran. Ran. Well, sometimes the stairs slowed as people came in from other floors, but in my memory, those first ten flights or so I am flying down in a spiral, my feet not touching the stairs, dragging my friend and yelling RUN!!
OMG! That is so frightening. I am so glad you made it out. And you saved your friend. You are my hero.
This is just another example of why social security should not exist. It should be privatized. Let people plan for their own retirements. If they want to run out of money at 70 and end up homeless, that should be their choice. If they want to work until they are 75 and only take 2% of their retirement fund out each year to ensure they can be financially stable until 120, then so be it.
Government should be there to solve problems that individuals can't... like deal with wars, stop illness epidemics, etc. Let me take care of myself and my family. I don't need the government for that.
This is just another example of why social security should not exist. It should be privatized. Let people plan for their own retirements. If they want to run out of money at 70 and end up homeless, that should be their choice. If they want to work until they are 75 and only take 2% of their retirement fund out each year to ensure they can be financially stable until 120, then so be it.
Government should be there to solve problems that individuals can't... like deal with wars, stop illness epidemics, etc. Let me take care of myself and my family. I don't need the government for that.
I don't need the government for that either. But large numbers of destitute, homeless old people do affect us because our tax money would be used to help them in one way or another. Of course if you posit that government should do nothing about destitute, homeless old people, then you can sustain your argument on a logical level. On the whole (on a societal level), the forced retirement savings of the Social Security system has worked pretty well over the many decades it has been in existence.
It seems much easier to SEE all the people who died right after retiring than it is to see the people quietly living in poverty on a tiny fixed income that could have been a bit larger by waiting to take SS. Someone dying of a heart attack a month after getting their first SS check is much more dramatic and unfortunately a better news story than an older widow living on her own with no family left to help or advocate for her. We all have to make our choices based on the best advice and personal information we have and for some of us we'll choose wrong, no doubt about it. Maybe the last bad decision but people make bad decisions (or really just incorrect decisions known only after the fact) all the time.
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