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Many of us don't have nearly enough to retire without social security and for some it is their fault (I raise my hand), for some they couldn't save enough and for others bad things happen (Madoff).
If you raised a family you know it wasn't always easy and for many saving the equivalent of $500 a month can be difficult.
Starting at age 30 and saving $500 per month increasing with inflation only provides inflation adjusted equivalent of just $1,802 per month for 30 years. That is not enough for two people. It's not enough for one when you consider 10% of that will be eaten up with average property taxes alone.
When I was single in my 20's I had the morals of an alley cat and even if I really wanted to I could not have saved because I didn't make that much.
This is why I got to work until 70 and at least part time after that if I am able. I know two guys in my field that is still working one at 85 and one at 83.
Then came the time I could have saved but didn't opting instead to own an airplane. For those of you who fly it's a Piper Arrow, PA28-200R. Airplanes are salty making boats look cheap by comparison but if I had to do it all over again I would do the same exact thing. If you've ever left the coast of Florida early in the morning heading 300 miles southeast to Long Island and a week long vacation you know what I mean. Stella Maris Resort, it's kind of low key and definitely out of the way .
There isn't any scheduled air service you so you either fly your own plane or boat to get there. I figure the plane cost me $1,500 a month but there isn't enough money to have me trade the experience.
There has to be more life than just "saving for retirement". I am not advocating being a total idiot but you got to live too.
In one respect I am the luckiest guy in the world. I love my job, I've always liked what I do and at 62 I can say the saddest day in my life will be when I can no longer work. I am left alone and while I work for a company I don't have any bosses, at least in the traditional sense. Just the idea of having a boss makes me feel belligerent and want to fight. What people call work related stress I am pretty sure I've never had. With my wife's retirement, along with my social security I will collect at 70, we'll have way more than we need to live on and there's no reason I couldn't save my entire gross paycheck for five years. My thinking is this would atone for my alley cat years. If I wanted to I know I could work 2 or 3 days a week if I wanted to and even if I got paid half it would still be a lot considering.
Fellow aviator right here. Definitively know what you're talking about. My only advice to you would be to dump certificated aircraft and go with experimental. Much better bang for the buck. Nothing wrong with the trusty PA-28R-200, but between that retractable gear and the CS prop, and the insurance hike for the former, you could save a bundle on an experimental with fixed gear and still cruise faster. My current long term goal is to get into an RV-6A (not a four place, that's my tradeoff for speed obviously) and start flying myself and the wife everywhere fast, really fast. And it's acro rated too for when the wife is not on-board and I feel like venting.
Back to the topic, yes I could save that money, but I wouldn't want to. Heck if I could hit the lotto today I'd go straight to that and quit my job, turns out I define my self-worth by what I do when I'm NOT at work, as opposed to the rest of the live-to-work crowd. Of course I'm a young guy and make jack squat for money, so a ratted out Cessna 150, that's worth less than the average 5 year old minivan out there, keeps me company until I can afford to start cruising this country at 150 knots.
At any rate, your post struck gold with me. Because that's exactly how I feel about my life as a Gen Y, confronting the brave new world of disappearing pensions and the new American standard of life that will be characterized by scarcity and "either/OR" choices. I don't want to bitterly live my young active productive life on the bleachers just so I can finally "afford" my self-actualization at the age of 70 and die the next day. Who wants to be the proverbial 70 year old overcompensating skydiver with terminal cancer? Not this guy. That's what the conventional american mantra of retirement strikes me as, and it's retarded.
I too did the number crunching and came to the realization that we're all hosed. The median household can't afford to retire to 75% of their full throttle income (which would have averaged out to their 40s income power), which means 50% of the country is hosed. That's a big chunk of people to dismiss. And if "affording" retirement means biting your lip all your life just so you can afford your infirm days, then retirement is not a valuable pursuit in the first place. Might as well go for gusto in the middle. This is what those who approach life with the flawed assumptions they taught at college micro-econ don't get. People don't lose the demand to have a life just because they can't afford one. They pursue it anyways, even if they have to steal it. I find no moral objection to this pursuit.
I was born low middle class and wouldn't mind dying somewhat dispossessed , if I get to self-actualize when I'm 35 in lieu of 75.How can I even pretend to face the proposition of raising children when I can't look them in the eye with a straight face and tell them life's worth pursuing while I'm not even content in my present condition 'cause I'm waiting 'til I can "afford" life so that I can start affording life?!? What better way to resent them than to pursue the idea of life, and retirement, in such a way. Nah, I rather tell them to:
1) love God above yourself and seek his Redemption in all you do
2)Recognize your hardships
3)life's GREY (i.e. not fair or absolutist )
4)pursue life with passion
5) daddy doesn't have a pension so in-state schooling for you unless you want to pursue it yourself
6) live under your means on the big three (housing, education and healthcare)
7) enjoy your youth without abandon,
oh....and I'm taking your mother to the bahamas on our airplane this weekend, be back on monday and don't burn the house down.
I honestly find that a more genuine answer to this question and to this broke-a.. life than quibbling over 2 percent points on some ponzi scheme 401K that's pushed on by the machine as the mater salvatori incarnate of the retire-hopeful. I may be under 30 but I can tell a Disney movie when I hear one. The conventional wisdom of retirement and the compounding interest power of the square root of chump change 50K account balance is one big disney movie.
Like nicet4 said, pry that yoke from my cold dead hands. I could care less where and in what financial condition death catches up to me.
I have never worked so won't get SS. I have 500k saved is that enough? I am 51 years old. I am now disabled and don't get any social security because I was a stay at home mom. My husband works but... I want to know if I would make it if I could not depend on him.
Disappointing that OP probably never came back to get his/her answer.
so a ratted out Cessna 150, that's worth less than the average 5 year old minivan out there, keeps me company until I can afford to start cruising this country at 150 knots.
Ratted out C-150 that costs less than a 5 year old minivan? Even ratted out maybe the cost of 3 or 4 5 year old minivans. Airplanes are salty beasts they are.
I used to fly a lot on business but today it is all personal pleasure so how fast I get there doesn't really matter anymore. My ideal would be a C-150 with long range tanks since most of my time I am by myself and my wife is a lightweight.
Quote:
At any rate, your post struck gold with me. Because that's exactly how I feel about my life as a Gen Y, confronting the brave new world of disappearing pensions and the new American standard of life that will be characterized by scarcity and "either/OR" choices. I don't want to bitterly live my young active productive life on the bleachers just so I can finally "afford" my self-actualization at the age of 70 and die the next day. Who wants to be the proverbial 70 year old overcompensating skydiver with terminal cancer? Not this guy. That's what the conventional American mantra of retirement strikes me as, and it's retarded.
I think the best way to handle retirement is not to handle it at all unless you are into something where retirement is mandatory. Who knows what is needed for retirement today they're starting to talk about cutting social security and I am not going to sit around and worry about what a bunch of idiot clowns that got us into this mess in Washington may or may not do. Tell ya what, if a congressman is reading this let me say I will trust them to screw it up whatever they do.
Things can happen so you can't work. Physical things.
If I get arthritis in my hands, I cannot open the tiny pill containers at my job (hundreds a day, sometimes). I've already wrecked my back being assaulted by patients. Some people have had hips or knees go, and therefore aren't too likely to be able to safely walk up and down the halls all night, checking on people. One RN I know was on Coumadin for stroke and got punched in the face. People get cancer. Lots of people.
And of course, there's not always a job for someone who wants or needs one. I think it's a failed "plan" to assume one will work forever out of necessity. Now, out of desire, a whole 'nother story.
Ratted out C-150 that costs less than a 5 year old minivan? Even ratted out maybe the cost of 3 or 4 5 year old minivans. Airplanes are salty beasts they are.
I used to fly a lot on business but today it is all personal pleasure so how fast I get there doesn't really matter anymore. My ideal would be a C-150 with long range tanks since most of my time I am by myself and my wife is a lightweight.
I think the best way to handle retirement is not to handle it at all unless you are into something where retirement is mandatory. Who knows what is needed for retirement today they're starting to talk about cutting social security and I am not going to sit around and worry about what a bunch of idiot clowns that got us into this mess in Washington may or may not do. Tell ya what, if a congressman is reading this let me say I will trust them to screw it up whatever they do.
I hear ya on the expense of GA aviation. Like everything else in our country, it's out of control. I hear ya about going fast anywhere, but I've tried doing cross-countries in the 150 and it's just painful. But just for the sake of reference, I did pay 15K cash for my ratted out spam can last year (2009 money). That's more like ONE 3-year-old minivan, certainly not multiples of it and more importantly, considerably less than a mint condition bass boat, or any boat that carries more than two people. My point regarding experimentals was that I can attain 150kts+ plus acro and two people, and 21st century avionics for 60K current dollars where it would cost me twice that to get the same performance going the certificated route. The operating expense would also be higher on a guaranteed necessity of going RG and CS prop on the certificated sample since these just do not attain the speed profiles RVs have on a FG and FP prop. That difference is HUGE.
Plus I can modify to my heart's content and repair at my convenience and budget, no red tape. That also translates to $. Finally, most of the car-loving peanut gallery out there goes on to finance 50-60K worth of a vehicle that's not worth 50% in five years, so is it really that much of a splurge really? This is an individual question for every person to assess of course.
The C-150 is a diversion to keep me sane, but it doesn't really satisfy my mission profile. Another thing is that I can still sell that ratted out can with the engine all runout (it's close to TBO and I'll prob run it on condition til it dies, but I'm not flying it much at all) and get 10K out of it for just the airworthy hull. So considering my initial investment I can live with losing 5K on it for the benefit of having a contraption I can fly when the moment strikes me (versus the rental hassle) until I can afford my ideal mission profile aircraft . I certainly will not get 66% of my investment back if I had opted to buy a minivan instead...and I can't fly 15K worth of digital zeroes and ones in the online savings account.... The important thing is that for me going forward that will mean undershooting my housing and healthcare expenses, driving my beater, even at the snickering of my peers, in order to self-actualize. I find that an acceptable tradeoff for my household.
My wife understands this, otherwise she would not be my wife. Life is a choice, for all of us.
Operating costs are higher on aircraft for sure, but not always. Aircraft can be flown year-round in most the US, whereas most boat owners are inclined to make boating a seasonal thing, so their operating costs are amortized over a shorter time span yearly and can result in a higher per unit price. But yes, you could find a nice -150 and pay 25K+ for it (why would you want to? depends on the mission).
--break break--
As to your second paragraph, once again spot on. Say I saved every penny I would otherwise throw into my discretionary expenses (part of my self-actualization). I would still fall short of the number required to live to 75% of my peak lifetime yearly income (let's say 100K-110K if I'm lucky). So absent that outcome, the opportunity cost of living for the sake of mere subsistence all my productive life, just to gain a meager ability to afford my infirm days, does not seem like a worthwhile cost. I rather arbitrarily save 10% of whatever number my income is at the moment (knowing it is not enough to 'retire' and making sure i'm self-actualizing in the process), be happy and not feel like putting a bullet through my eye socket, and call it a day. Once I become physically unable to pursue an active lifestyle then screw it, you can pull the plug for all I care
Retirement in 20th century terms is simply not going to be viable for the majority of the 2030+ retire-hopeful crowd. Shrugging our shoulders to this reality is not going to land us in flat smooth runways as a collective. Neither is demanding of the proletariat a lifetime of self-mortification á la Opus Dei,
for that outcome. There's gonna have to be vehicles to appease the underfunded majority. These are not morally bankrupt masses, these are our Country. Absent pensions, these 401Ks and personal savings on an eroded wage base are not gonna cut it. Social constructs are going to have to change to accommodate this shortfall. As I've said before, this isn't econ class, people don't fall off the grid and die quietly just because they can't save $2mil adjusted for inflation by the time they're 60.
Things can happen so you can't work. Physical things.
If I get arthritis in my hands, I cannot open the tiny pill containers at my job (hundreds a day, sometimes). I've already wrecked my back being assaulted by patients. Some people have had hips or knees go, and therefore aren't too likely to be able to safely walk up and down the halls all night, checking on people. One RN I know was on Coumadin for stroke and got punched in the face. People get cancer. Lots of people.
And of course, there's not always a job for someone who wants or needs one. I think it's a failed "plan" to assume one will work forever out of necessity. Now, out of desire, a whole 'nother story.
You're exactly right. What you're missing is the part about people stoically stepping aside and taking their own lives when they no longer can toil. That only happens in microeconomics books at the Disney land college school of business.
It's a catch-22. Most People can't afford to retire. All People can't afford to work until they drop. So that leaves you with only the few that can afford to retire. The rest are going to have to get subsidized. This rhetoric of Caribbean vacations for the idle is social conservative oligarchic BS. We're talking about managing the infirmities of the unproductive, these are not people that are going to be able to go to Jamaica, let alone the doctor, on a monthly basis. But it will have to be subsidized. And by my math you might as well count in on that boat, and I'm only 28. Math don't add up, Jack.
You can't pay me peanuts and expect me to make wine by chalking it up to "compound interest". I ain't Jesus. Savings on peanut wages is just like.........
You're exactly right. What you're missing is the part about people stoically stepping aside and taking their own lives when they no longer can toil. That only happens in microeconomics books at the Disney land college school of business.
It's a catch-22. Most People can't afford to retire. All People can't afford to work until they drop. So that leaves you with only the few that can afford to retire. The rest are going to have to get subsidized. This rhetoric of Caribbean vacations for the idle is social conservative oligarchic BS. We're talking about managing the infirmities of the unproductive, these are not people that are going to be able to go to Jamaica, let alone the doctor, on a monthly basis. But it will have to be subsidized. And by my math you might as well count in on that boat, and I'm only 28. Math don't add up, Jack.
You can't pay me peanuts and expect me to make wine by chalking it up to "compound interest". I ain't Jesus. Savings on peanut wages is just like.........
and a related trend...
“Transfer payments — unemployment, Social Security, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare and other forms of government welfare — grew $231 billion last year to just over $2.1 trillion. Meanwhile, individual taxes shrank $325 billion to $2.1 trillion, slightly less (before rounding) than transfer payments.”
“Transfer payments — unemployment, Social Security, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare and other forms of government welfare — grew $231 billion last year to just over $2.1 trillion. Meanwhile, individual taxes shrank $325 billion to $2.1 trillion, slightly less (before rounding) than transfer payments.”
Congress will view this as "maintaining a healthy balance", with the only solution they know, being to increase taxes to keep up with increasing transfer payments.
My point wasn't that, because people cannot afford to stop working when older and might not be able to work, that younger taxpayers must support everyone. What I meant was, for those people who blithely say, "I'll just work until I die," those people might find a nasty surprise when they can't work (and I'm talking about people now in their 50s, 60s, etc.). What will they do? Whatever they have to do. Move to a cheaper state and and live in a mobile home.
Where my father lives in a nice park in a nice suburb (the only park) they've started to get rid of the old trailer-type mobiles and put in newer, modular-looking double wides, that look like real houses. Currently a new one is for sale for $69K. Can walk to the train to Philadelphia or Atlantic City, walk to most stores, taxi to other stuff.
People will do what they can do or have to do.
I have never worked so won't get SS. I have 500k saved is that enough? I am 51 years old. I am now disabled and don't get any social security because I was a stay at home mom. My husband works but... I want to know if I would make it if I could not depend on him.
I doubt that 500K would last you very long, but then that depends on your life style and if you are still living with your husband, or some other man. Sit down and figure out how much money you need a week and then figure out how long it will last. No one knows how long they are going to live after retirement. Might be a good idea to get a part time job, now.
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too for when the wife is not on-board and I feel like venting.
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The important thing is that for me going forward that will mean undershooting my housing and healthcare expenses, driving my beater, even at the snickering of my peers, in order to self-actualize. I find that an acceptable tradeoff for my household.
Do I have enough...
