Modern medicine is amazing but can be damn expensive. Same conditions years ago meant death. Now you have a choice, everything for a little more time or just go and your family is enhanced by your departure.
Your call.

I'd like to see a Dave Ramsey go though her mess.

She's getting full SS and working, but she has bills.

Reading for GD is hard. Even into the second sentence. Plan all you want. Cancer will eat up hundreds of thousands real quick.

How did she vote? That determines my concern.

Cancer will not eat up serious money, unless you allow it to.

Meh, I would say the unions invested the money.....like in stocks and stuff until some idiot on the board blew the money and the funds were gone......

In the 80's you could have put the money in a savings account or CD's and done decent but after 2008 the money wouldn't make anything and stocks is the primary investment vehicle when physical assets are not an option.

ETA...beat

GD is full of misanthropes who like to be Edge Lord/Internet Tough Guy.

You voted for it... you got it.

That sounds about like my plan c.

Hmmm.... doesn't look like a boomer.

Definitely divorce, especially late in life - and medical bills.  If you have a small business, changes in your industry outside your control can also have a massive impact.

Spot on!
I remember when I got a new job back in '94 and signed up for the 401K program.
They told me that only around 20-25% of people were in the 401K program.
My jaw hit the floor, but if new vehicles and all of that other crap are what you want, then go for it.
Don't come crying to me late in life because you didn't look down the road, but only to the end of the hood.

Yep.

I make more now than I did before I retired, and have no need to touch my retirement savings.

Planning ahead is key.

The Smith & Wesson retirement plan will become very popular.

@Jacon

Exactly how did I do this? I suffered most of my life, was blamed for everything in my so called family, lived way below my means for 60 out of 62 years of life. I have lost everything due to others' interference and I have rebuilt from scratch more than once and never once received help from anyone. So how in the hell did I hurt you little one? I was too busy trying not to drown to sit around and whine about what I didn't provide for myself. And now, I've taken early retirement, partial SS benefits and living off of what I managed to put together and you think I had anything to do with your pathetic life?? There's your problem, you never learned how to take care of yourself and you think it's my problem or fault. Continue to whine while you continue to fail, that's all you and your generation seem to do, feel free to prove me wrong. As far as me, I'm taking my money that I now have and leaving to go chase island girls for the rest of my days and will leave nothing for your weak generation. It's up to you to survive and if you fail, you are the cause.

Quit being weak.

I read that.  Pensions disappear.  Social security doesn't pay enough.  Both true.

I'm not discounting the cost of medical bills.   But I see no mention, of retirement savings.    And that's typical.  

HR manager isn't floor sweeper or burger flipper...  It pays okay.  If you do the usually baby boomer thing, which is take every check and spend it,with no regard for tomorrow,you get to work forever.  It's kind of simple.  Decisions made in 1995, 2005, 2015 will strongly influence your live in 2025.

The way it has been forever. Retirement was rare and pensions are only about 90 years
old. Things are going back to normal due to globalism.

No matter how much money we pump into the system, there is a limit on the % of people we can support being retired unless major productivity increases happen. A declining population requires that a a smaller percentage of a generation will be able to retire, or they will have to retire later in life. Good idea to plan accordingly.

I have always contributed to a 401k, even when it hurt.   In addition I put $100 a month in a mutual fund.  

Now that I'm older I put my annual COLA increase directly into my 401k.  

At 53, I now have around $350,000 in retirement investments.  I have a house worth ~ $450,000 and it is nearly paid off.  

I'm hoping that by the time I'm 59, my investments will be worth close to $500,000-$600,000 and my house will be paid off.  At that point I would certainly contemplate early retirement.  

For me, retiring at 62 is an absolute and I almost view it as a failure.

Live within your means, save even when it hurts, stop accumulating credit card debt, make and stick to a budget.

Actually the problem is better healthcare.  We didn't use to have these problems because people died.  Pick one.

Cadillac cancer policy from Aflac for my wife and kids and myself cost me $130 a month. More than worth it considering our family histories of childhood and adult cancer diagnoses.

Why aren't his kids paying their own college loans?

This

When I decided to join my dad had mentioned to me that the medical benefits of a .mil retirement were perhaps the best aspect of doing 20. I listened but being young and indestructible I really didn't think too much on it. Like a lot of. things he told me he was right.  Having Tricare for life, along with VA medical, is one hell of an advantage.

One of the other aspects of my dad, having lived through the Great Depression, was that he was a very prudent investor. My parents were well educated and lived very well but they could have been filthy rich….or they could have been dead broke like a lot of these people mentioned in that article due to greed.  So that instinct, of being prudent and to minimize greed in investing carried over to me.

When the dot com bubble burst I was hardly effected. I lost maybe 20%…not more that a small correction really for my portfolio.  I had friends that were wiped out…enlisted guys who were worth millions. Friends that a few months earlier had been bragging that they were considering getting out of the Service so they could day trade full time. That all changed in almost a blink of an eye.

When I retired from the .mil a few years after the dot com meltdown and moved to the MacDill area of FL I saw the tangible proof.  There was a Home Depot in Ruskin FL, near Sun City which is large retirement community for well-off retirees.

As with this article the entire store was staffed with folks in their 70's and 80's who had lost everything due to their greed of investing. Talk about a bad attitude. I stopped going there because of how pissy these employees were. They'd just stand around and talk in little groups and get angry if you asked for help.  

Making 100% returns year after year is great until it's not…and then you're working at Home-depot and eating Raman noodles.

Saw the same thing at MacDill with plenty of ex LTC's and COL's working in a cubicle with a bad attitude because they were multi millionaires a few years earlier getting drunk and playing golf 3 times a week.  Now they were a flunky making $90k if they were lucky. Still not bad money considering their .mil retirement was north of $50k year at the time.

The problem, in addition to greed, was one of lifestyle. They all seemed to drive late model high end trucks and live in $500K+ homes…with mortgages and truck payments to match. So here they were….working for some retired enlisted guy.

So I'll tell you guys what I tell my kids. Save like a mother fucker when you're young. Compounding interest is real. Invest but be prudent. Take risk in the market but do your homework and don't be greedy.  Live below your means and make that a habit and protect your health.  

There's no magic to this formula.

Because Bill is stupid.

I waited till 70 to start taking SS.
Not sure if that was the right decision.
Investment guy said it was like making a guaranteed 8% every year by waiting.

People really think Boomers "Did this" How so? I'm no Boomer but how can you blame Boomers for existing in the climate created by the masters of the universe? What tangible steps would Boomers have had to take to not "Do this"?

Investment guy is stupid. Take it early, don't need it, toss it in a ROTH, CD, MM or whatever. That 8% is a bullshit thing.

Or take it, use it, save YOUR retirement money until you HAVE to use it or pass it on to your family/heirs. You aren't passing your SS on to anyone but some welfare mooch who never worked 3 months straight in their life.

If I had cancer, we'd just get a divorce.
I know a woman who had cancer several times, was crying about bills destroying her family finances.
I suggested get a divorce and her eye about popped out of her head. I don't get it.
Let a government contract dictate a situation like this? Stupidity.

He's right…after you make it to about 79.  Before that it's a loss, after that it's a gain.  

The question always is what is the money needed for, how will you enjoy your "excess" money and at what age would you like to "enjoy" it?  I'm going on 66 and took SS at 62. For me it's just another stream of "fun" money..e.g. I shoot on average 4 cases of pistol a month and travel across the country 2-3 times a year. SS money defers a lot of that.  Will I do that when I'm 80?  Maybe but not sure.  

The other factor is that SS was never a key component of my retirement strategy. I planned early on that it may not be there so now that it is I have some extra to play with.




Great points.

I never take the "boomer did this" comments personally. Young people are scared and frustrated so they lash out at whatever Gollum is available.   The world is changing rapidly and not for the best it seems so I do understand these fears.

The question is what do you do with this fear? Do you run in small circles and shout "Eeeeeahhhhh" or do you do something about it?  What actions you take will define you.

You gotta play the game.  

At her place in time,. She's gotta do a reverse Tootsie.

Check all them boxes on title 9,7, adnauseum

Slay Borricuas all day!  

All of these stories are based upon bad decision making. ZFG for these idiots.

I’ve work with a number of guys that retired in their 50’s. Several have stacked a million or more plus a decent pension with health benefits. It’s not unobtainable. You might be a bit broken and you can’t screw up much.

70 y/o and guaranteed sounds very optimistic.    

I don't take it personally since I'm far from a boomer, it's just hilariously misguided. The younger the generation, the more they play the victim. Hard to blame them really, they're just products of social engineering, and it's working beautifully.

For those that like to listen and learn here, if you're young, start stacking bills in multiple investment accounts. I'm not gonna tell you how to do it because you need to research options so you understand things and what suits you best. Don't blame anyone else but yourself for not planning on getting older. It's inevitable but for some reason people like to bury their head in the sand.

You can invest in a 401k/b thru an employer. Contribute as much as you can. Compounding interest is a thing.

Start a Roth IRA. Max it out if you can.

For those worried about medical costs being an issue when you're older, open an HSA if you can. Normally requires you to be on a high deductible plan. If you're young and healthy you can pay a low premium and take the high deductible hit in case you have an emergency. Treat it like a catastrophic plan but yearly check ups should be 100 percent covered. Max this if possible.

Both Roth and HSA have lower max contributions so you can hit these easier.

You can also invest you HSA money typically thru your provider. Those gains aren't taxed if you continue to use them towards health costs, which you will almost certainly have at an older age.

If you can afford it, pay all your medical costs when you're young out of your own pocket, glasses, contacts, dental cleaning etc. Record these costs in your HSA account. You can then reimburse yourself tax free in case you need emergency money while your HSA investment accounts continues to compound gains.

A lot of this info i learned right here on arfcom and have since followed up on they my own research. I'm in my early 40s and my net worth is over a mil even after a divorce and I've never made 6 figures.

Thank Richard Nixon for decoupling the dollar from the gold standard and committing us to 5 decades of the dollar losing its value.

This is all fine and dandy but to add to it - Start your own business instead of working for the man. Forget wasting student loan $/ %/ debt unless you are specifically going to be a doctor, lawyer or something that definitively requires a specific degree.

That's a fact.  

Race, ethnicity, social status, ageism, sexuality, and so on are just components.


They did us fractured, tribal and hating each other for the plan to work….and apparently it's working.

The Federal Reserve Note does what the FRN was designed to do it. It's liquid, it's a bubble of air and it's nothing.
When someone owes you 2 million, you don't actually know what they owe you. You can't define it. It was meant to be undefined. If you can't define it in the metric (or some other) system, it doesn't exist.

Greenspan said something to the effect of:

The Soc Security will never default on its payments. OTOH, we can't guarantee the purchasing power of these payments.

His usual doublespeak designed to confuse.

If you slaughter the sacred cow, living in US that is, retirement abroad is the only thing that makes sense. Financial sense.  move to an island and live on 1/10 to 1/4 of what you spend now. It depends on how western you want to be. Running car and AC or live like the local, commute on a bike.

Retirement abroad is  a thing and has been a thing for a long time now.

At least 30 years.

it's almost as if there are more than 1 of them and both can be true.

Do you have any pictures of your trophy wife or 10” cock?

Well, it wouldn't be an economics thread without a gold bug showing up.

I have a vendor colleague who is getting close to retirement. He’s been paying into the pension system at the company he’s spent a lifetime working for. They recently made changes to the program and he says he’s out a ton of money. I don’t know how that works, but he’s pretty despondent.