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The only part we disagree in is the part where you say if they don't have much money what else is there for them to do.
my question to you would be than how do they judge how much of that money they can spend a year and not end up with a shopping cart living under the bridge down the road?
regardless of the amount, they need a way to judge just how much can they spend a year if they have intentions of keeping that income going.
they need to know what can they spend from their small savings and for how long, what about inflation adjusting ? what are their odds of keeping that income going through good and bad times, and last how do they have to allocate that small savings to get that income to last.
that is where most of what I educate in comes in to play.
anyone utilizing their savings to generate an income no matter how large that income is or how small has these very issues ,.
it is all about turning whatever you do have into a reliable income stream.
You and I will just have to agree to disagree. Not everyone has savings that can generate income. Some people simply have a little bit of savings stashed away for emergency, not enough to play around with. There are no choices to how much to spend.
There are people who invested and were fine when they had extra money TO invest. Now, maybe due to catastrophic illness, gambling spouse, natural disaster, or whatever, their choices have been taken away. They don't have anything to learn except how to survive on next to nothing. In the old days people with limited incomes could still buy CDs and get a decent guaranteed return and that what people did. It didn't take much educating to know how to buy CDs and ladder them. But now that option is gone so it seems that the only lesson to be learned is frugality. Most people our age learned that a long time ago anyway.
then you missed what I said. I specifically said anyone pulling an income from their savings no matter how big or small and living off that income needs to understand this stuff.
if they are only using it for an emergency fund or not drawing off it to live on than they are not living off their nest egg,.
many retirees supplement social security with whatever steady income they can muster off their savings . it is them I am talking about.
many retirees don't have a lot of money but whatever they can generate and last their lifetime is what they want.
.
there is always something to learn .whether you want to is another story.
True, there is always something to learn but the second sentence is insulting as it is supposedly applying to retired people who apparently don't know anything about handling their own money.
Many retired people know all they need to know about handling money. They've done it just fine all their lives. Maybe they've ended up with not a lot but that is NOT THEIR FAULT. (despite all the insinuations). It's NOT that they need to LEARN how to handle money.
If you don't have a lot of money, there is nothing else to know than what you already know. You've always been frugal so you continue to be frugal. If you were to do as suggested and INVEST, you would be an idiot because you wouldn't be able to pay your rent or your mortgage. You stay afloat, that's the name of the game and there is no way that paying attention and learning something new about money is going to change things. This is called Living on a Fixed Income.
"Why are most Americans in such bad shape financially?" It's in the Retirement Forum so retirees opened it and started reading. It turned out to be a thread bashing the kinds of people who are crazy spenders. It wasn't a helpful or informative thread and it wasn't even about retirees. But retirees opened it and read it and found the hatred to be offensive. It's the kind of thread I see in Politics & Other Controversies--hatred, venom, stereotyping. I stay out of P&OC. Do we really need that sort of thing on the retirement forum too?
All you say is true. We just need to remember this thread started in early 2008 during a much calmer and prosperous time. I was a very early poster and a lot of change and hurt has happened since then. That was a much rosier retirement stage planning or implementing than today. Just think how house rich people still were. I was a spanking new retiree. I remember having just been between houses and having the receipts from the sale sitting in the bank raking in interest and now! Market had just finished a strong run etc etc.
All you say is true. We just need to remember this thread started in early 2008 during a much calmer and prosperous time. I was a very early poster and a lot of change and hurt has happened since then. That was a much rosier retirement stage planning or implementing than today. Just think how house rich people still were. I was a spanking new retiree. I remember having just been between houses and having the receipts from the sale sitting in the bank raking in interest and now! Market had just finished a strong run etc etc.
One thing that no one has talked about yet is the fact that the market has completely recovered since its crash/decline in 2008. How many people panicked and withdrew all of their money as the market hit bottom? If they had left it alone it would have been worth as much or more today than it was in 2008. If they never put their money back in, then they haven't recovered anything.
If you left your money in and still haven't recovered, then you have bad advisors.
This is a side of investing that a lot don't talk about.
All you say is true. We just need to remember this thread started in early 2008 during a much calmer and prosperous time. I was a very early poster and a lot of change and hurt has happened since then. That was a much rosier retirement stage planning or implementing than today. Just think how house rich people still were. I was a spanking new retiree. I remember having just been between houses and having the receipts from the sale sitting in the bank raking in interest and now! Market had just finished a strong run etc etc.
Thank you. Yes, things have changed for a lot of people. I had rolled over my 401K, my cousin had an excellent paying job at Tufts before her illness, and other friends were still married--happily, so they thought. Things are different and many people do not have money to grow more money, just money to get by on.
not everyone needs to live off of their savings to supplement ss. some folks have nice pensions and need very little. other folks have so little they live hand to mouth on ss.
then you have another group which has some savings but does not live off it , they use it for the extras in life.
but then you have a big group who need to live off whatever they have saved and ss.
that is who needs to learn to develop a pensionized income off their savings that is safe , consistant and reliable and will be there for life. that does not happen by the seat of ones pants.
those who do not have a clue as to how to develop this either run out of money before they run out of time or they run out of time and left to much unspent on the table.
you need to find that balance between the 2 and there are ways to do it and thats what we discuss.
Last edited by mathjak107; 09-19-2013 at 04:46 PM..
If we remove the financial topics from the retirement forum, there won't be enough threads left to keep retirement forum alive.
There would be more than enough I'm sure. We are fairly inventive and have all kinds of threads that have little or nothing to do with finance.
And a "Retirement Financial Forum" would be seen permanently at the top, as in a sticky. Maybe replace one of the current stickies, as this one would seem to be of more practical importance.
All that said, the way Retirement is structured is not how I would structure it. As a publications person, I would create a more user-friendly coherent structure, but that's not gonna happen.
It seems to me there are three major areas left here under which most threads fall:
1. Finances as related to retirement, including Social Security issues and retirement planning.
2. Relocation issues - advantages and disadvantages of various states, cities, and areas.
3. Lifestyle issues - activities in retirement, family relationships, etc.
Now NEG wants to remove #1. I say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
In no way did I say remove it. I suggested a separate "Retirement Finance" forum accessed within both the existing Retirement Forum and the existing Investment Forum (a branch forum). If I were designing CD, I would have Retirement Finance, Retirement Relocation, Retirement Recreation and Hobbies, Retirement Chat, Senior Issues, etc. But why make sense. Anyway it's not up to me so no further comment.
it could be a good idea, i would be in favor of that. not everyone is interested in financial stuff and what pertains to retirement really does not belong in the investing forum.
there is a big difference between investing not to grow poorer and to sleep at night vs investing to grow richer.
retirement finances are filled with draw down theory and that has little to do with regular investing.
not everyone needs to live off of their savings to supplement ss. some folks have nice pensions and need very little. other folks have so little they live hand to mouth on ss.
then you have another group which has some savings but does not live off it , they use it for the extras in life.
but then you have a big group who need to live off whatever they have saved and ss.
that is who needs to learn to develop a pensionized income off their savings that is safe , consistant and reliable and will be there for life. that does not happen by the seat of ones pants.
those who do not have a clue as to how to develop this either run out of money before they run out of time or they run out of time and left to much unspent on the table.
you need to find that balance between the 2 and there are ways to do it and thats what we discuss.
Having all related retirement financial info in one place instead of scattered hither and yon between dozens of threads about completely different aspects of retirement would make a whole lot of sense. Then we could track your (and others') advice over time rather than hunting and pecking for it or forgetting what you and others posted when. Seems to me that would be more enjoyable and easily accessible for all of us, and also easier for you as an advisor. And who knows, you could easily adapt that new retirement finance structure into a book authored by you. Or a blog. I just spent an entire afternoon showing experts in their particular field how to structure the books they want to author. That is my area of expertise, so it comes easily to me. Yours is finance, so why not take a more organized approach (am not being critical here, just suggesting).
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