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Old 06-13-2018, 12:36 PM
 
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
10,348 posts, read 7,938,733 times
Reputation: 27742

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Quote:
Originally Posted by NYgal1542 View Post
Regarding pensions, haven't some of them "disappeared" over the years?

I seem to remember something like that happening. Companies run out of money.
It certain can happen. Even more common is pension benefits being reduced (for the same reason - the company just can't afford to maintain the original pension benefits any longer).

Quote:
I don't think anything comes with a guarantee.
Absolutely right, for anything other than death and taxes. We all just have to do the best we can.
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Old 06-13-2018, 12:45 PM
 
Location: Philadelphia/South Jersey area
3,677 posts, read 2,550,918 times
Reputation: 12467
Just an FYI
When I use the term "hate" it's in an Urban colloquial. Like the slang, "Don't be a hater " probably envy/snideness. Not true hate
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Old 06-13-2018, 12:59 PM
 
Location: SoCal
6,419 posts, read 11,572,225 times
Reputation: 7098
"Everybody knows" that America has a classless society. And "everybody knows" that they, themselves are middle class.

There'll be a class system wherever two animals of the same species interact. It's no different with humans.
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Old 06-13-2018, 01:06 PM
 
Location: Charleston, SC
2,525 posts, read 1,935,125 times
Reputation: 4968
I've seen some of the vitriol flowing both ways between the Haves and Have Nots. I can overlook most of that, and there are some posters that I put on "Ignore" because, just because. If you think this section is full of it.....you should visit the Personal Finance section of C-D. Talk about Bragadocio !!

I read the Retirement Forum to find new ideas and also to reality check our own situation. Recently there's not been too much in the way of new ideas, and every reality check shows us that we're on the right track.

eliza -- what are some of the other retirement websites that you visit ??
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Old 06-13-2018, 01:20 PM
 
Location: NC Piedmont
4,023 posts, read 3,789,421 times
Reputation: 6550
As others have pointed out, this is not a personal financial forum. It is a forum about all aspects of retirement, which I think includes that state of retirement today for most of the population, the way that's trending and what possible solutions might be if/since it is trending poorly. Sometimes others post message after message saying they don't care as if it is only okay to discuss subjects they find interesting or relevant to their personal retirement. Rather than ignoring the threads, they keep interjecting their opinions that there should be no such threads. So it does seem like there is a class of people who think they run the forum.
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Old 06-13-2018, 01:31 PM
 
15,864 posts, read 6,944,867 times
Reputation: 8520
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldgardener View Post
Are you referring to a recent post from someone asking if a certain amount of money and a certain situation (decent pension, no bills, etc.) was good enough to retire on? If so, it was obviously a good enough situation to retire on, and so someone accused them of bragging. That kind of post does seem like bragging because the only apparent reason for them to ask if it is "good enough" is to point out what a good job they did in planning their retirement.



I wasn't involved in that post, but it did appear to me that the OP was bragging. I see that kind of post around here once in a while. (BTW, I do have a decent pension and no bills, am not living on my SS check; I don't ask for advice about my good pension and lack of bills because no advice is needed, obviously.)



Some of those posts are simply chest thumping, not actually asking for advice.
How can one have NO bills? Credit cards? Utilities?
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Old 06-13-2018, 01:37 PM
 
Location: NC
9,355 posts, read 14,014,289 times
Reputation: 20872
As long as it is legal, it doesn't matter where your money comes from. But there are so many different sources.

Pensions, Soc Sec, and some annuities are amounts that you cannot change.

Investments are dependent on making mostly wise choices, but those can still be affected by external events.

Everyone is exposed to inflation, sometimes deflation. On average in US inflation can drop the value of today's money by one half in 30 yrs.

Everyone has a tax situation unique to themselves. We benefit by stable rules and requirements, but those can be changed without our ok

Some people expect an inheritance, others not.

Some people have back-up sources of funds (relatives, jobs, hard assets like jewelry, oil wells, and kids who will help if needed).

I am guessing that is why there is no one size fits all way of predicting a financial future. Some people just have more options than others, but few are totally set with no risk. I guess that is what creates this 'class' system impression.
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Old 06-13-2018, 01:51 PM
 
Location: RVA
2,766 posts, read 2,073,266 times
Reputation: 6638
Typically when someone says “no bills”, they mean no mortgage (which in his case was redundant), or rent, no car payment and no credit card balance carryover. Everyone has utility and tax bills in the US, and must feed themselves, so there are always grocery bills unless they are a self sustaining farmer. Then there are other bills associated with that. But again, that poster was projecting his specific life on the OP, being already retired and collecting SS. But he accuses the OP of obviously bragging because he asked if people thought that amount, and his projected savings (10 years from now, and 5 years before Medicare,) would be enough. On a retirement forum. A bit of silliness IMHO.
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Old 06-13-2018, 01:55 PM
 
Location: The beautiful Rogue Valley, Oregon
7,785 posts, read 18,780,877 times
Reputation: 10783
I don't pay much attention to the financial threads because they don't interest me (FWIW - we have our savings, our various 401Ks, a cashed-out early retirement fund, his SS, my SS when I turn 65 and a small inheritance). We do a few side jobs in our "retirement," nothing full-time and nothing regularly scheduled.

I'm not looking for financial advice, particularly not when it is geared toward someone's specific situation. That isn't - at all - what I read this forum for. I've perused the financial forums here a few times and decided that they weren't anything I was looking for, either.

I do sometimes read the "where should I relocate" threads and roll my eyes when the number one desired trait is that SS not be taxed. There are a lot of ways you pay for living wherever you do and if your SS isn't taxed, odds are that it made up for in some other tax.
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Old 06-13-2018, 02:38 PM
 
4,031 posts, read 2,109,800 times
Reputation: 10960
I don't think people look at the entire picture before making snap judgments. It can range from whether a person is bragging to whether they are reckless with their money, if they are unnecessarily crying the blues, etc. There are so many scenarios about how a person got to his or her current financial state. Not everyone who retires early was making a fortune. I myself am a case in point--never made more than $50,000, even with master's degree (in human services). My husband as well. So how did we retire at 52 without any pensions when people who earn much more can't retire ten or even twenty years later?

1. We didn't have kids.
2. We started to save and invest our money in our early twenties.
3. Investing at one time was pretty easy---days of great gains in Fidelity mutual funds.
4. Always lived in much less housing than we could afford---typically a 1,000 square foot condo.
5. Stopped traveling twenty years ago because of elder care obligations and then realized we actually preferred staying at home.


And the major factor was always living below our means, not just in housing, but everything. I may be the only woman around who has never gotten a professional manicure/pedicure. Who cuts her own hair and doesn't color it. Who has never owned a designer handbag or had more than about five pairs of shoes. Who has never had a maid service clean my own. Whose idea of living large is a $25 dinner for the two of us at an ethnic restaurant. Who doesn't go to the movies and just waits to see a film on Netflix.

But if I posted my net worth, people would be envious and some may be resentful about it---but wouldn't realize the sacrifices I made to get to early retirement. Nor would they realize that they have been having fun (or at least think it is paving the road to happiness) to buy more stuff than I ever did. It's just different strokes for different folks. Do you sacrifice for the future/security or live life for the present as if tomorrow many never come, since it is not guaranteed?

And for those who are envious about the early retirement, I always reply that it was only the second-best scenario The best case would have been loving my job so much and earning so much money that they would have had to carry me out in my nineties kicking and screaming because I wanted to stay. But $50,000 for a job that was incredibly stressful and which I grew to hate was pretty easy to walk away from when I realized that I was earning more in interest income than I was making in my job.

I do consider myself to do be a fairly unique situation and not in a "class." Don't consider myself upper class. Don't think there are really classes here so much as different perspectives, lifestyles, spending and saving patterns.
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