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To really get ahead today, you’ve got to have one very good income, or two good incomes and live reasonably. It is very challenging to impossible to save a significant amount of money on one average income when you have kids.
Yes, I agree.
We've made it more and more financially impossible for people to have kids. Personally, I think it's that way by design.
that 800k may have the purchasing power of 400k or less here vs say alabama or mississippi.
so trying to say how much is enough for all lifestyles and locations is just a lot of nonsense when people do it .
lifestyles are all over the map and what may be acceptable to one person may be unacceptable to another as far as location and the life of what it buys .
if all we had was 800k doubt i would have retired when we did , where we did .
it would likely mean watching every expense , sweating the unexpected expenses and having a pretty big lack of choices.
lower incomes do better here as they can qualify for lots of lower income benefits and perks.
i would never tell anyone how much is enough.
plus the difference between your time frame being the worst out come and the best outcome can be the money running out in half the time .
so you may need a lot more then you have , to draw the same income under the worst outcome scenarios
Agreed.
The other piece of it is rents and home prices have skyrocketed everywhere, even in lower cost areas. It's easy to pay $1k a month for a studio or 1BR apartment in formerly average or below average cost areas.
Yeah - I noticed that. Only spends $20K? I'd love to see his budget.
That is pretty much the situation of an uncle. Especially the line about the clothes, I totally see the resemblance there. I think a majority of what he wears was given to him by family members as gifts.
I have seen his budget and its less than 20k a year. You'd think a single guy having a Costco membership is silly but he only eats what he buys there, so its like $1/meal. He bought a car 6 years ago and still regrets it saying he should have bought a used one and just taken his bike more often. People living to such insane levels really do that stuff, they bring up financial decisions forever.
I tell him all the time you can retire now and he responds I plan on living until 90. SS is going to pay more than his costs and he's got lifetime medical coverage from work service. Talking financial sense into him makes no sense, he's got a mindset that isn't going to change and I think there are many just like him.
Well, the bottom line is it's pretty much impossible to die and spend your last dollar the day you die. You either have too much or not enough. I've seen what "not enough" looks like when you get old and I don't like it. So I'm opting for "too much" if I can manage it.
What does too little look like for someone who actually puts money away and tries to have something for retirement? I'm doubting its a horrible outcome unless you run out of money at say 60 and can't work any longer. I saw one of my parents go through it at the end. The State basically took what little assets they had and in return put them into low cost housing which was a set share of their SS check. Once my father went downhill with his health condition he was put into a state care facility and then hospitals and hospice care. I didn't see anything he didn't get because of running out of money. My stepmother had squandered much of the money due to vices but their life was far from difficult at the end. They never asked for money nor needed it.
That's the part these articles never seem to talk about. Yes inflation can be an issue and no one can be sure of SS payments decades into the future but people tend to spend less each year as they age. What 75 year old spends more or feels frustrated with their inability to spend more? About all I can think of is maybe they wish they could help out their kids or grandkids more. Long term care is something to think about but thats a burden you put on your family. If they can't support you then you are at the mercy of the State's programs but lets be realistic here. If you are sick and its now down to keeping you alive as long as practicable, are you going to lay there and think dammit I should have worked another 2 years and bought that LTC plan so I had a better nursing home option? I don't think its going to cross your mind. And even if you aren't in LTC facility, why wouldn't you just live with what you have at hand?
And lastly, lets remember all these articles are slanted towards the investment industry. They are the ones who want you to believe you should have millions in retirement. They are the ones who want you to think SS is not going to be there so buy what we are selling today "just in case".
Well, the bottom line is it's pretty much impossible to die and spend your last dollar the day you die. You either have too much or not enough. I've seen what "not enough" looks like when you get old and I don't like it. So I'm opting for "too much" if I can manage it.
Not if you're in a nursing home and live long enough. Rates are so astronomically high that all you have to do is not die quickly and they'll get it. My MIL was paying $174,000 a year her last year. A million won't last six years at that rate and I'm guessing it's getting more expensive every month that passes.
What does too little look like for someone who actually puts money away and tries to have something for retirement? I'm doubting its a horrible outcome unless you run out of money at say 60 and can't work any longer. I saw one of my parents go through it at the end. The State basically took what little assets they had and in return put them into low cost housing which was a set share of their SS check. Once my father went downhill with his health condition he was put into a state care facility and then hospitals and hospice care. I didn't see anything he didn't get because of running out of money. My stepmother had squandered much of the money due to vices but their life was far from difficult at the end. They never asked for money nor needed it.
That's the part these articles never seem to talk about. Yes inflation can be an issue and no one can be sure of SS payments decades into the future but people tend to spend less each year as they age. What 75 year old spends more or feels frustrated with their inability to spend more? About all I can think of is maybe they wish they could help out their kids or grandkids more. Long term care is something to think about but thats a burden you put on your family. If they can't support you then you are at the mercy of the State's programs but lets be realistic here. If you are sick and its now down to keeping you alive as long as practicable, are you going to lay there and think dammit I should have worked another 2 years and bought that LTC plan so I had a better nursing home option? I don't think its going to cross your mind. And even if you aren't in LTC facility, why wouldn't you just live with what you have at hand?
And lastly, lets remember all these articles are slanted towards the investment industry. They are the ones who want you to believe you should have millions in retirement. They are the ones who want you to think SS is not going to be there so buy what we are selling today "just in case".
If you want to use the government as your backstop, be my guest. But not me. I don't think the future is going to look like the past.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 03-26-2023 at 07:35 AM..
Not if you're in a nursing home and live long enough. Rates are so astronomically high that all you have to do is not die quickly and they'll get it. My MIL was paying $174,000 a year her last year. A million won't last six years at that rate and I'm guessing it's getting more expensive every month that passes.
As I said, you either die with too much or not enough. The above qualifies as the not enough category.
The one guy with a 20k annual budget isn't living, he's slowly dieing. I'm frugal, but I couldn't live life not traveling a bit or treating myself to a nice meal in a restaurant once in a while. You have to enjoy the little things in life otherwise what's the point?
I'm 43 but shooting for an early retirement. I was lucky to buy a SFH in 2009 and now it only has a 42k mortgage at 1.875%. lt's my only debt and with housing costs controlled, I think I'll have more than enough with just my pension. If social security is still around, that'll be beer money.
The wildcard is my kids college costs. I put money aside but with rising colleges costs will it be enough? Well I'm funding my retirement foremost to anything else.
The one guy with a 20k annual budget isn't living, he's slowly dying. I'm frugal, but I couldn't live life not traveling a bit or treating myself to a nice meal in a restaurant once in a while. You have to enjoy the little things in life otherwise what's the point?
I'm 43 but shooting for an early retirement. I was lucky to buy a SFH in 2009 and now it only has a 42k mortgage at 1.875%. lt's my only debt and with housing costs controlled, I think I'll have more than enough with just my pension. If social security is still around, that'll be beer money.
The wildcard is my kids college costs. I put money aside but with rising colleges costs will it be enough? Well I'm funding my retirement foremost to anything else.
We're in complete agreement on not letting the government be your backstop.
Whether the guy who only spends 20k a year is slowly dying or not is hard to say. It really depends on something that's lacking in many parts of the United States--Community. When you are part of a community, then you have a potluck where all your friends come over, so you don't need to spend money going out to dinner (just one example). Some people love travel and others don't. There's also a personality aspect to it. Introverts tend to not need as many friends and as much external stimulation as extroverts.
I have a friend who retired at 58 with a pension, a paid off house, and a 7 figure 401k quite a few years ago. He's been slowly dying ever since, unfortunately. It's largely because he didn't find that sense of community or sense of purpose for himself.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 03-26-2023 at 08:47 AM..
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