Can I afford to be in the stock market in my situation? (moving, mother-in-law)
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.
Our expenses are minimal for the most part based on our revenue. I would guess we spend on day to day expenses around $5,000 a month.
Property Taxes $500
Food $400
Entertainment $500
Clothing $250
Health Insurance premiums -- medicare $156 (wife) individual policy $675 (mine)
co-pays and deductibles on Health $250 per month "average"
Auto insurance/auto expenses/gas $300
Utilities $650
Life Insurance $350
Other/Household/etc $500
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?
We cashed our insurance ad prepaid funerals and cemetery plots since we have no kids at home
We closed our personal bank to our kids (In other words, they are on their own.) We will not hurt our retirement by taking money our now to help them (Other than TRUE EMERGENCIES!) Your kids and grandkids are NOT YOUR LIABILITIES!
You can be in market, BUT SEE A PROFESSIONAL FINANCIAL ADVISER!!!!!!
Are you upset that you don't have savings? Are you upset that they are on a forum?? (if that's the case, you shouldn't be here either) Or, are you just upset???
Some people really think that the OPs situation is a guaranteed situation of success, because they project their own life on their income. The OP is in very good shape, and their question is a valid first world problem. It’s not life or death, eat or pay rent to make ends meet kind of problem, it is still a “been saving my life whole life, now I have to withdraw and want to maximize” question. Many people believe in retirement any sort of risk for their savings is unacceptable.
These forums are never the place to discuss numbers. There are far better forums for discussing actual numbers. The crowd here is very mixed and many have no interest in anything financial and look at those who do as bragging. They are more interested in how poorly everyone is doing rather than how well .
Other forums like the early retirement forum are geared for success and discussing numbers is the norm .
Some people really think that the OPs situation is a guaranteed situation of success, because they project their own life on their income. The OP is in very good shape, and their question is a valid first world problem. It’s not life or death, eat or pay rent to make ends meet kind of problem, it is still a “been saving my life whole life, now I have to withdraw and want to maximize” question. Many people believe in retirement any sort of risk for their savings is unacceptable.
I fully understand the OP and it is just normal life questioning at the level they have spent THEIR life living. They didn't get to where they are without successfully steering down the road of life and a self check now is both prudent and well warranted. As I have noted previously we were on a five year review schedule but with increasing age and a much different market environment that review rate is accelerated.
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?
Understanding your situation and question, let me try to steer the discussion in a related direction. Perhaps the salient question isn't your equity/bond allocation but as some have suggested in the diversity and allocation within each stocks and bonds. Not all 65/35 allocations are the same risk and return can vary greatly.
A 65/35 allocation with the stocks being all in growth funds and the bonds all in high yield is very different than one consisting of value funds and or a broad market index fund combined with a bond index fund.
Or just throwing it all in a balanced fund like Wellington, Fid Balanced etc etc.
So what do you consider your risk/return allocation to be?
Not sure C - D forum is where I would seek out retirement planning advice.
It was at one time a great place full of experience and aspiration. Much of that is long gone. Was great for me and many others but then again I started well over a decade ago in here.
I think the only risk I am a bit concerned about would be if both of us ended up needing nursing home care at the same time. That would start draining our savings rapidly as the cost would be above our normal monthly income (upwards of 2-3,000 dollars more per month) I am guessing, who knows what that cost may be in the future. I know that most nursing home care usually runs about 3-6 months on average. We have history in our family where my mother-in-law spent 8 years in a nursing home and that would be financially damaging if that happened with just one of us, can't imagine if both of us would be in that situation.
If only one of us is living and needs nursing home care I think the income would cover the cost. Unfortunately, because of our cancer status (both of us) it is very unlikely we would be able to get LTC insurance at this time.
As far as risk/return allocation . . . well not that I am very versed in that idea or have a highly educated understanding of that personally so have to punt somewhat. We are not overly concerned about the risk of our investments. I look at it this way, if we lose 50% of the value of our other accounts we still will be ok. Maybe not happy or thrilled but not keeping me awake at night kind of thing. I believe we are diversified enough that chances of more loss than that is highly unlikely. I believe our pensions are strong and safe in our case and hopefully social security will continue to be.
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.
