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Nothing about the OP stretches credulity. It's just a solid, well funded retirement. OP didn't say he had a jet, or homes on both coasts, or anything remotely fantasy. He did say his wife has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and I'm sure he wants to make sure that her end of life care is covered financially, and that he will have enough for his own life + EOL care.
Try to differentiate between a post that generalizes, and refers to the CD forum as a whole, and one that is specific. My post was not specific to this particular thread.
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
13,066 posts, read 7,502,913 times
Reputation: 9791
Currently 68/71, We are high cash in the discretionary IRA and taxable account. Most of our IRA's are in GLWB annuities, where we have future protected Income (our pseudo pension). Other assets are rentals that are low leveraged, one is new and the other can be slightly updated but its not dated. They are low maintenance, high depreciation. We have LTCi, 6mn deductible.
Why I am relative high cash because, we don't need to take the various risks in today's Market. A Market crash of 30% wouldn't affect our annuities, in fact I would probably hold them longer because of the Income step-ups. Rents may be reduced but we are not highly leveraged. I do need to sell some of the remaining stock holdings because they are way past my low hold point and they are ADR's. My good stocks I have covered calls on them, profitable. I haven't found good stocks to buy lately. For us, we think there is more downside risk than upside risk. Since the Great Recession, I promised my self- NEVER be too greedy. My personal discretionary trading account is -20% 2018, I am holding some stocks too long. Our Total discretionary is even, 2018.
JMO, You can be in stock/bonds but you don't have to be in stock/bonds. You need to determine what your risk tolerance is, towards the upside or downside? And if you need to ask, then perhaps your risk tolerance to the downside is weak and the your perception to upside is even weaker.
Last edited by leastprime; 09-09-2018 at 12:15 AM..
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
13,066 posts, read 7,502,913 times
Reputation: 9791
As for the Life Insurance. Wait until you figure out what you want to do with stock accounts.
Another few months of paying the premium isn't going to affect your cashflow or retirement assets.
The CD retirement forum is a public blog on the internet. Such as it is, I always see people going out of their way to answer questions or provide advice or perspectives FOR FREE. If what you are reading doesn't sound right to you, don't apply it to your situation.
I wonder how many times people have sought professional advice only to discover they had received very similar advice from one or more retirement thread posters on CD. We will never know, because nobody will ever admit that.
Look at the annuity threads. Some of the insights there are professional quality and can help you make a solid financial decision. There's lots of good information here. Use what you can and lighten up on the rest.
My wife and I are now retired and have almost all our savings in the stock market in various forms. We are ok with this because we feel pretty confident that our pensions and social security are enough for day to day expenses now and in the future.
Pensions -- both total $6,700 a month (after taxes), with a popup feature of about $200 a month increase when the first spouse would die.
Social Security -- $3,300 a month for both after taxes and the current Part B medicare premium and Part D.
The social security would, of course, cut in 1/2 upon the first spouse dying.
Total without touching our savings -- $10,000 take home a month. $8,500 for one surviving spouse.
We have about $800,000 in the stock market, some of which is Roth stock account ($220,000) which currently generates about $900 a month in dividends that we reinvest.
Another 400,000 is in a regular IRA which we also reinvest those dividends.
The last $180,000 is in taxable stocks.
We have some minimal life insurance -- some of which can be cashed out as it was whole life. We are still paying around $300 a month in premiums to keep them active but at our age (nearing 65) I wonder whether we should cancel them and pull the cash out of the policies that have surrender value.
We own our home worth about $300,000. We basically don't have any liabilities EXCEPT for weddings, grandchildren, help with their homes, etc. as that comes up..... being parents to two grown daughters.
Are we ok staying with the stock market?
Yes you are okay in the market with your investments. Nice job on setting yourselves up for success.
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