Poor senior citizens. (anniversary, graduate, married, drugs)

[jasperhobbs]

Originally Posted by slackercruster

OP, well, old is out, young is in. Used to be you could get 7% or 8% interest. Now you are lucky to get 2%. The gov has no use for old people. The sooner they die, the better it is. They import tons of young illegals that work like dogs and can get a steady supply, really endless supply of them. Old people just take up room and resources so they don't like them. Would not surprise me if the self centered dem millennials make it a law that old people must be euthanized...old people contribute to global warming...get rid of them.

Oh boy someone is paranoid

[BBCjunkie]

Originally Posted by rodentraiser

I was the girl of the family. I wasn't going to go to college. I wasn't going to be taught to drive (my mom never learned to drive and my dad kept that as a control feature). I was going to get married and be a housewife. I wonder how many problems my brothers would have had with my dad if he hadn't taught them to drive, refused to consider college with them, or refused to let them be independent.

This described my mom's life (born in 1913, died in the early 1990s) exactly. She had two brothers, one older and one younger. In the Pennsylvania town where she grew up, most girls only completed grade school which in that town was Grade 5. The boys either went to work in the coal mine or went to live with relatives in Johnstown or Pittsburgh so that they could continue to go to school. My grandparents died suddenly when my mom was 16 (brothers then were 18 and 15.) Older brother joined the military, and when my mom was 18 she took the younger brother with her to NY and they lived there until the younger one turned 18 and joined the service until the war was over. My mom worked as a waitress and/or as a salesgirl in a dress shop. Never learned to drive or got any additional schooling past the grade 5 education she'd originally had. She met someone at age 24 and got married; he turned out to be a compulsive gambler and the marriage eventually failed. When she met my dad she thought he was more responsible about money than he turned out to be, but she admitted to me one day when in her late sixties that they simply never had that kind of conversation before marriage.

She did insist that I get a high school diploma because in the 1960s that was the minimum needed to get any kind of job other than flipping burgers. But there was never any pressure for me to go to college, and because my junior high and high school experience was so negative (constantly bullied) I had no desire to extend the school experience any longer than I absolutely had to.

What surprised me was that my son and now-DIL did not have any conversation about their respective outlooks on finances until AFTER they moved in together. It was quite a surprise on both sides, LOL. Turns out that they're on entirely different pages re: how to spend their discretionary income and also re: debt. My DIL has been in constant debt since the age of 18 and considers it normal. My son had zero debt until he bought a house (with 40% down, btw) at age 26... never any student or car loans, carried no credit card balances, nothing. Now I suspect they are both in debt up the wazoo. My son has had to take out loans against his 401K at least twice that I know of. Once was to pay for their wedding and I think the other was to pay for DIL's engagement ring because there was a specific designer kind that she wanted. *sigh*

[BumbleBeeHunter]

Just wanted to say for those opposed to the ACA, it was wonderful for us.
My medical issues were cleared up at age 48. I've worked 35.5 hrs a wk ever since.
Last yr-44.5 hrs a wk.
My company provides free medical benefits & other inexpensive policies- life, ad&d, disability, etc.

I am Native American so discovered the Indian Clinic a year before the ACA took effect
so maybe it was'nt the ACA???
They actually listened to me....and took a holistic approach to my medical issues.
Shorty afterwards, I obtained a job with full medical benefits and the ACA allowed the Indian clinic to bill my insurance.
So though I go there, nothing is on the taxpayers dime.
Very important to me.
And I am now able to donate 20% of my paycheck to the clinic each month (it's a non-profit clinic supported by a tribe)
I am a late bloomer.
Always worked p/t to the best I can..... but it doesn't pay the bills in Calif when medical issues hit.

A productive member of society always has a better life.

Never understood why anyone would not want to work.

We've paid off our credit card bills (for our past medical bills) and now are doing well.

If I can work forever, I will.

The opportunity to keep my job until mid 70's is a blessing. But I don't do physical labor so it's fine.

We've been cycling fairly hardcore on and off since I was in my twenties.

I ride at night.... when there is no or hardly any cars or light.... which hurt my eyes.

My disability is mostly my eyes.

My bet is I can work until 80 yrs old.

So nice to know my home is paid for by age 60, and we will be ok

Not rich.... but not poor either.

My grandparents are siblings and my parents are drug addicts

Try to convince me this doesn't matter. Baloney.

It DOES MATTER. It ruins your ability to work due to invisible disabilities you were born with

Now technology identifies them and helps to clear them up.

Or at least in my case
.

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by Petunia 100

The public pension system must work differently in Texas. In California, you schedule a meeting with a pension fund representative before you choose a retirement date. You have the amount of your monthly pension check in black and white before you retire, so there are no surprises afterwards.

Last I checked, the Social Security Administration either sent or made available online the monthly amounts of SS that individual recipients would get, based on income, years of work and their age when they started taking SS. I seem to recall they used to send this information annually to each recipient either 10, or 5 years ( I can't remember which) before they were eligible for retirement, and while they may not send this information in the mail to people these days, the information is still available online on the SSA website.

I was a state employee for many years and had a defined pension plan, this state also sent information annually showing the anticipated monthly pension amount based on years of service, salary and age of retirement. It's hard for me to imagine a state, or other public employer with a defined pension plan who would NOT provide their employees with this information.

So unless an employee plain disregards the annual statements showing his/her pension information, or never makes the effort to check online or otherwise with an employer to get it, when he/she is planning retirement, it's hard to imagine someone would not be aware of the amounts of those pension payments.

Perhaps the scenario Clemencia mentioned was more a matter of the policeman not connecting the dots between the amounts of the pension he received and the reality of his expenses in retirement

[rmm0484]

Originally Posted by City Guy997S

Its simply bad math for most folks.......overspent, under saved.

RV parks/ nomadic lifestyles will surely expose more poor people living in their car/van/RV because they have to.

The biggest time bomb coming down the line in my opinion:

People hitting retirement with debt from mortgages to student loans to credit cards. Past generations didn't have this debt and were able to retire nicely, baby boomers never got this point and indulged in great lifestyles along the way instead.

Please don't lump all boomers into one category. I worked at several jobs and scrimped for 40 years to make sure I had enough for retirement and sufficient health benefits. Even 30 years or so ago, I had a feeling that health care needed a backup source, so I have medicare and military heathcare, and I could also use US Government heathcare.

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by beer belly

Just flat out, out living the money, and can't keep up with the rising costs.

Cost of Living -1% on Social Security, Military Pensions, Veterans Pensions etc etc sounds like nothing until you have been retired 20 years.

[Harpaint]

The poor seniors I see are mostly widows in their 90's who are outliving their resources. I also see singles and couples who worked low paying jobs all their lives and always rented and scrimped.

[Mikala43]

Originally Posted by JRR

Dang, here I am happy and dumb, retired and with a mortgage. If only I had known.

Yeah, I thought that was an odd statement. We're retired and have a mortgage too.

[Clemencia53]

Originally Posted by Petunia 100

The public pension system must work differently in Texas. In California, you schedule a meeting with a pension fund representative before you choose a retirement date. You have the amount of your monthly pension check in black and white before you retire, so there are no surprises afterwards.

yes - I would hope they would do something like this, so I was surprised when she said this!

[ABQ2015]

Some police officers work a lot of overtime and may make time and a half on overtime. Pension calculations based on salary may not include overtime. You may underestimate the amount of taxes you will pay in retirement. As a single person with a good pension, my taxes will not decrease much in retirement. Some state pension formulas are complicated. I tried to figure out a few state pension formulas based on their websites and could not do it. Many of these websites had you enter your id and password to get your estimate. Wonder how many state employees had signed up to get into the website.

I signed up for online SS statements years ago when they stopped sending paper statements out. Because I did not go into the website for more than six months and therefore did not change my password, I got locked out. I could go into the SS website and get a new password but only when their site was open and from the computer that I registered on. I'm in a western time zone and often worked late or was on business travel so was rarely at my home computer when the SS website was open. Just said the heck with it until I retired. My SS was near the top and was not going to change that much anyway.

Two friends are retired state employees from different states and were never offered retirement courses and got little information on other benefits. However both are highly educated and knew approximately the amount of their pension. Meeting with HR immediately before retirement to get your pension number is a little late in the game. As a federal employee, I was able to attend a retirement course several times in my career and got lots of information on benefits. The federal pension formula is straightforward but the final amount can get complicated with pension survivor benefit reduction, etc. We had a website we could log into that provided pension estimates but it did not always address the complexities of net retirement income. Even some of the engineers were surprised with their final retirement estimates as a result of attending the courses.

My two friends live primarily on SS and pension with a very small 401k. They have not paid off their mortgages but their income fell about 30% upon retirement. They are having to reduce their expenses in retirement.