What was your retirement financial strategy and how has that worked out for you? (55, weather)

[leastprime]

Long straddle strategy worked as planned in property, annuities, and trading accounts.
At first, retirement was a borderline poverty situation. Really. No lie.
Good fate has been with us and now we are very secure.
Even able to control future RMD's and probably leave a legacy.
Be flexible my friends and explore all possible paths until you are certain.

[BBCjunkie]

I never really had "a plan." I did open a traditional IRA when they first became available but I only contributed to it sporadically. Never worked for any company that offered a pension or a 401K. Was a SAHM between the ages of 32 and 49. Frankly, as a younger woman I just assumed that my retirement would be "funded" by a combination of Social Security and wherever my husband was financially. There was no reason to think that things would change for the worse and so I had no "plan" other than to just let life take its course. That may sound stupid, or worse, but I'm being honest here. Many girls of our generation were raised with the exact same mindset: get married, become a wife and mother, and your husband will take care of you until you die. If he dies first, there will be some kind of income from life insurance or a pension or whatever. Many of us never thought beyond that scenario. We were never encouraged to, because after all, "that was just the way it was."

So my only income is Social Security as a surviving spouse which, purely because of my late ex-husband's income level, is higher than the national average but still several hundred dollars per month short of the max. I had to liquidate my IRA in the early 2000s to pay for medical expenses that were not covered by any insurance (at the time I was not working and thus could not borrow.) Luckily I own my home free and clear and have no debt but that is pure luck. If I'd made better spending decisions during my 40s and 50s and even early 60s I would have more $$ now than I do. There is a real possibility that I will outlive the savings that I have but if that starts happening I can either take a reverse mortgage line of credit OR ask my son (who is doing very well financially) for help. I'll make that decision if/when the time comes because it's way too late to do anything else about it now.

[Moonwalkr]

May your retirement be full of Bull. Market, that is.

[jrkliny]

My retirement planning started with the realization that many years of a job with high stress and long working hours had worn me out. It did not take a lot of planning to realize that our retirement income and savings would not be sufficient to continue living in the same house in a high cost of living area.

So retirement began by selling the house and taking off as full time RV travelers. The plan was to live off of half the equity of the house for a few years and then resettle in a lower cost of living area. RV travel was really low cost by comparison to the former cost of living. In addition the stock market was recovering from the great recession. The previous nestegg and the home equity did well. After a couple of years we returned to our high COL area and a year after that bought another house. We mortgaged the house and kept our previous home equity working for us in investments.

[rocafeller05]

Lol.

So did it work out for you guys at the end?

Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat

We had a unique financial strategy.

I would research our options, make recommendations to the spouse and he would ignore them in favor of doing whatever the bees in his head told him to do.

[Submariner]

My "retirement strategy" was I served 20 years on Active Duty in the US Navy, and I got their small pension.

Along the way, we bought Multi-Family-Residences [Tri-plexes, Four-plexes, Five-plexes] and we built up a lot of equity. So when I retired we used that equity to buy our retirement home. Where we have established an organic farm.

I have been retired for 18 years, we recently bought a Commerical mixed-use building that we are remodeling. When it is completed it will have fourteen tenants.

[gentlearts]

Our retirement strategy was that our very lucrative business would remain so, and we’d have a million $$ invested. However, the recession killed that idea.

So what we did at retirement was to downsize, take a mortgage, put half down for a lower payment, and keep the rest growing.

I’d say we are relatively poor retirees, because we have no pension, so when we can no longer maintain a house, and hubby can’t or doesn’t want to work part time, we will cash out of the house, and have to start using the nest egg until it runs out.

As I’ve said before, we don’t want for anything important, but if you need luxury cars and lavish vacations in order to be happy, you will need a lot more than we do. Every December, we look at ways to reduce expenses, since our income remains pretty stagnant. This year we found ways to reduce our monthly expenses by $300.

[mathjak107]

One thing I want to mention is that in retirement not only is cutting costs a good idea , but growing income through investing is key too .

Cutting costs only looks like growing income until there is nothing left to cut and expenses keep rising ...one is not a replacement for the other

[Teacher Terry]

Between having 3 kids young and then going to college I had a late start. I decided to spend my career with the state because of the pension. Not rich but it worked out.

[katharsis]

Such a wide variety of answers!! Thank you all so much. (I am in awe.)