Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Retirement
 [Register]
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.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
View Poll Results: Is $32K a year enough for a single retiree to live comfortably?
Yes 158 79.00%
No 42 21.00%
Voters: 200. You may not vote on this poll

Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 08-29-2016, 01:14 PM
 
639 posts, read 1,068,069 times
Reputation: 825

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner View Post
I am well aware that there are specific areas of high COL. I have lived in high COL area before.

The majority of the nation is not such. If you randomly toss a dart at the map you will likely land on a spot of low COL.
That might be of comfort to those who wish to retire to the middle of a cornfield or the side of a mountain. But such places would be considered highly undesirable places to retire for most people.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-29-2016, 01:17 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,319 posts, read 61,132,370 times
Reputation: 30249
Quote:
Originally Posted by Genghis View Post
That might be of comfort to those who wish to retire to the middle of a cornfield or the side of a mountain. But such places would be considered highly undesirable places to retire for most people.
Are you actually in such a fantasy state that you think all non-urban land is cornfield or mountains?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 01:26 PM
 
17,317 posts, read 11,176,390 times
Reputation: 40732
Quote:
Originally Posted by Genghis View Post
That might be of comfort to those who wish to retire to the middle of a cornfield or the side of a mountain. But such places would be considered highly undesirable places to retire for most people.
Must have taken a class in elitism 101
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 01:30 PM
 
189 posts, read 300,529 times
Reputation: 373
It seems to me that what you really want to know is whether the plans you're making will suffice for future conditions. If you consider how drastically things have changed in the last 30 years, even a fraction of that amount in the next 30 years would result in conditions that none of us could possibly imagine. Will we even be using money (i.e., cash)? Will anyone still own a house or be able to buy one? I think your retirement is so far in the future that it's impossible to know what conditions will exist then.

That being said, a good strategy is just to use your common sense and save a reasonable amount, while not denying yourself all of life's paltry pleasures.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 01:56 PM
 
Location: Central NY
5,946 posts, read 5,096,542 times
Reputation: 16881
Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner View Post
"even if you technically could live off of 32K"

I earn $17,760/year. We live in a town where the average household income is $20k/year.

Our children are grown and we own our house [arguably the largest and highest value house in our township].

People do support families on $25k/year in our town.

There is no "even if you technically could live off of 32K".

You rich folk are slamming a lot of other people with your rich attitudes.

When I retired we were able to move away from high COL areas, out to a low COL area. We moved out from an apartment, into a 4800 sq ft house on 150 acres with 1/4 mile river frontage.


I totally agree with you. I think the reason that happens is that they have never had to live with less money. Or if they did, it was in the beginning of their work lives.

It is all well and fine if your life has gone smoothly, no bumps or hiccups to deal with. But many of us (me) took some real "hits" in my income when I was in my early 50s. Being downsized from a large company, which resulted in a lot of unemployment and needing to draw from savings/retirement money are not something I had planned to have happen. Many of us lost out on really nice pensions because our ages weren't "right." I did get a pension but a lot lower than had I worked till retirement age. I finally did get another good job and was there for nine years until another downsizing occurred and my co-worker were forced out. By that time I was 64 and finding another decent job was not promising.

With a lot less money and very high health insurance costs, life changed radically. Did I like it? No. But I needed to learn how to accept it and make it work.

Acceptance is the key to a lot of things.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 02:16 PM
 
17,317 posts, read 11,176,390 times
Reputation: 40732
Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner View Post
"even if you technically could live off of 32K"

I earn $17,760/year. We live in a town where the average household income is $20k/year.

Our children are grown and we own our house [arguably the largest and highest value house in our township].

People do support families on $25k/year in our town.

There is no "even if you technically could live off of 32K".

You rich folk are slamming a lot of other people with your rich attitudes.





When I retired we were able to move away from high COL areas, out to a low COL area. We moved out from an apartment, into a 4800 sq ft house on 150 acres with 1/4 mile river frontage.
A few people on here see being of moderate means not much different than having a contagious fatal disease. It's usually the same people that put down small towns, talk about "fly over areas", or refer to people in the back of concerts as "poor people".
It's not ok to be a racist, homophobic, or sexist, but it's just fine to make people who don't have a lot of extra money feel like crap. Bigotry isn't tolerated except when it comes to money. That's what I've learned from this forum.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 03:14 PM
 
1,436 posts, read 1,466,462 times
Reputation: 1804
I think it could be tough, but depends on your lifestyle, health, and where you live.
If you have a small place and paid off when you retire that could help.
Small HOA dues, small taxes, eat simply, that would help.
If you could live in a place with no car that would help more.
One question I would ask you is why retirement?
Could you live on it today?
If not why not?
Some expenses may go up in retirement, some may go down.
Probably medical/dental goes up in retirement.
Things like buying clothes for work....go down....maybe dry cleaning expense goes down.
Eating lunch with co-workers goes down.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 03:23 PM
 
639 posts, read 1,068,069 times
Reputation: 825
Quote:
Originally Posted by Submariner View Post
Are you actually in such a fantasy state that you think all non-urban land is cornfield or mountains?
No, I'm saying if you take a random point in the United States, such as using a dart on a map, you are likely to hit farmland or mountains, because that's the vast majority of the land area of the continental US (I guess you might want to add desert to that.)

The point is, for some people, living in a remote area is a big negative. This would include people whose family is in a specific metropolitan area, or elderly people who can no longer drive and don't want to be utterly isolated. It's not elitism to want a tolerable lifestyle, and for some people a tolerable lifestyle cannot be achieved in a remote rural area.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 03:28 PM
 
639 posts, read 1,068,069 times
Reputation: 825
Quote:
Originally Posted by marino760 View Post
A few people on here see being of moderate means not much different than having a contagious fatal disease. It's usually the same people that put down small towns, talk about "fly over areas", or refer to people in the back of concerts as "poor people".
It's not ok to be a racist, homophobic, or sexist, but it's just fine to make people who don't have a lot of extra money feel like crap. Bigotry isn't tolerated except when it comes to money. That's what I've learned from this forum.
It's not bigotry to be able to make the choice of not being poor in retirement. Yes, it is unfair that many people don't have the option to live well in retirement. But if you work hard and do well in life, it's not arrogance or elitism to want to live a nice life in retirement. I do not believe very many people would voluntarily live poorly in retirement out of consideration for the less fortunate. I agree the system should change, so that such a large fraction of the population does not have to be poor in their later years. (And neither of the two current candidates for president is going to change this). But if you are able to, I really think you should not feel guilty for living well in your later years, if you earned your money fairly. And you have the right to ask yourself, will 32K be enough?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2016, 03:58 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,319 posts, read 61,132,370 times
Reputation: 30249
Quote:
Originally Posted by NYgal1542 View Post
I totally agree with you. I think the reason that happens is that they have never had to live with less money. Or if they did, it was in the beginning of their work lives.

It is all well and fine if your life has gone smoothly, no bumps or hiccups to deal with. But many of us (me) took some real "hits" in my income when I was in my early 50s. Being downsized from a large company, which resulted in a lot of unemployment and needing to draw from savings/retirement money are not something I had planned to have happen. Many of us lost out on really nice pensions because our ages weren't "right." I did get a pension but a lot lower than had I worked till retirement age. I finally did get another good job and was there for nine years until another downsizing occurred and my co-worker were forced out. By that time I was 64 and finding another decent job was not promising.

With a lot less money and very high health insurance costs, life changed radically. Did I like it? No. But I needed to learn how to accept it and make it work.

Acceptance is the key to a lot of things.
I have never had terribly high income. I did 4 years in college and 20 years on Active Duty in the Navy. My W2 salary never peaked over $60k/year. We were both certified budget counselors, tax preparers and we both did tax-planning. Within 4 years of being married we managed to fully shelter all of our income, which allowed us to stop paying into Income Taxation. Which makes your budget feel like to just got an extra 30% boost.

For 20 years every home we bought was an apartment complex, giving us additional cash flow and additional write-offs. We were licensed foster / adopt parents in three states, which also give us additional cash flow and deductions. We peaked grossing a bit over $80k/year, but obviously never paid a penny of income taxes. I retired at 42.

We sold three apartment buildings, bought forest land and built a farm, in an extremely low COL region. We kept one set of apartments just for back-up capital. But the 2008 crash caused us to lose it and go through bankruptcy.

Now a few years later, we have saved up enough that we have been shopping to buy another apartment building. We meet with a realtor Tuesday.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
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.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Retirement
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top