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School me on investing...

Discussion in 'General' started by noles19, Nov 8, 2017.

  1. GRH

    GRH Well-Known Member

    I have neighbors and an aunt going thru this right now. All are in their 80's and had retirement accounts and/or pensions. Both burned thru $210k in no time. Take into account they made their money in the 60's-70's when salaries were $6-10k/year, so while that sum doesn't seem like alot by today's standards it's quite a bit by theirs. Both had their accounts drained and houses sold before Medicaid kicked in. Now they sit in a nursing home drooling on themselves. Great way to go out.
    There's a 5 year lookback too in case someone tries to drain off the funds.
     
  2. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    I understand all that - but 400 is a huge amount for most every plan I looked at - especially since medicare pays for a chunk of it directly to the insurance company.
     
  3. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    So sorry I used the wrong term. Doesn't change my point.

    But as usual the argument is ridiculous. Your estimates are great for you and the money you have. They are however not something everyone must consider - especially if they don't have the money you do. There are different realities based on what you want. The bare minimum needs are a totally different world and a hell of a lot cheaper. I will never retire, can't afford it. When I get to the point of not being physically able to work it'll be a moot point but there are places where I can live out what's left for no cash out of my pocket.
     
  4. Mongo

    Mongo Administrator

    Most people in that timeframe never expected to make it to 80 either.

    Neither did Evelynes mother which is why she lived with us until she died. Of course while that is an option for a lot of older people, no one seems to want to consider it, they'd rather see them blow all their money...

    Anyway, point still stands, it it not remotely a necessity to spend your retirement on an old folks home.
     
  5. beac83

    beac83 "My safeword is bananna"

    Absolutely. My plans for retirement do not include living in a broken down trailer and digging roots out of the hills for extra cash.
    Nor do they include sitting on the porch at Miss Gary's Home for the Aged all day.

    In retirement, most of us plan to more or less maintain as much as possible the standards of living we had while working. If we have planned well, and are fortunate to maintain our health, we may achieve that. For most, we don't get to maintain the level we had, and we settle for less, to make do with the resources we have available.

    Additionally, things change during retirement. If you retire at 70, you may live 15-20+ years in retirement. After 80, you are more likely to be sick or infirm, less likely to drive or travel independently, and more likely to need assisted living situations, either with relatives (if you have any surviving) or in a institutional setting. So the allocation of dollars changes as you move through the stages of retirement.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2017
  6. GRH

    GRH Well-Known Member

    I don't disagree but I doubt most people in nursing homes thought that they would end up in one either.
     
  7. TurboBlew

    TurboBlew Registers Abusers

    pretty sure most places make you sign over ALL your assets before youre taken in!
    If given the choice between surrendering my life savings to a health care facility vs going to a State Home...
    Ill go with choice C... none of the above! State run homes are the things nightmares are made of.
     
  8. GRH

    GRH Well-Known Member

    I'm thinking C is going to a trackday and not letting off the throttle at the end of a long straightaway
     
    badmoon692008 likes this.
  9. Boman Forklift

    Boman Forklift Well-Known Member


    I'm going through this right now with my mother-in-law. I hate that I'm trying hard to save up and build some wealth to have a decent retirement and maybe even pass down to my kids and there is a good chance that the huge cost of medical will bleed away everything saved in the later years.
     
  10. auminer

    auminer Renaissance Redneck

    Shit, I'm barely scrapin' by at over $10K/month.
     
  11. auminer

    auminer Renaissance Redneck

    Don't be so sure. As we live (actually, SURVIVE) longer, more and more of us will need home nursing care at least some of the time.
     
  12. dtalbott

    dtalbott Driving somewhere, hauling something.

    Sarcasm?
     
  13. Probably not. It is amazing how your lifestyle changes and what you can end up needing to “survive”.

    In all honesty, I was way too immature and irresponsible (and had too good credit) to handle my salary when I started in the oilfield. I was very good at my job and got 5 promotions within 3 years of being out of college.

    I hate to admit it, but there was a time that it took right at $16k a month just to pay my monthly bills...before I even ate.

    I finally woke up. I stopped buying shit, paid everything off (including student loans), eliminated all my credit card debt, and changed my ways.

    As of right now I haven’t had a credit card in 8 years. If I can’t pay cash, it can wait. I don’t play (race) on credit. I could walk away right now and would have $0 residual debt from racing.
     
  14. dtalbott

    dtalbott Driving somewhere, hauling something.

    I have a wife going for her doctorate, three kids (one at UVA already aiming at Duke or Harvard med school), and our joint income is roughly $6k a month.

    Y'all live in a different world.
     
  15. Trust me, I’m not proud of any of it. I was so stupid. I was too young to handle it. I went from making $60/week in college, to that, almost overnight.

    I still kick myself in the balls for how I handled things those years. I had fun and had a lot of toys, but damn...I could have easily knocked 10-15 years off my retirement date if I hadn’t been such an asshat. :mad:
     
  16. dtalbott

    dtalbott Driving somewhere, hauling something.

    What's a retirement date? See? You even use words that aren't in my vocabulary.
     
    Phl218 and Banditracer like this.
  17. auminer

    auminer Renaissance Redneck

    Somewhat.

    We could cut... but the lifestyle to which we've chosen to become accustomed demands several thousand/month. 6K wouldn't do it.

    My wife and I both recall a time when we literally did not have 50 cents in our possession with which to buy a cocacola from a vending machine. I'm not talking 50 SPARE cents..... I'm talking 50 cents period.
     
  18. BTW, I just wanted to say that this is awesome. Very impressive Sir. Well done to you and your family.
     
  19. Sweatypants

    Sweatypants I am so smart! S-M-R-T... I mean S-M-A-R-T!

    i watched my mom transfer funds, and get past the 5 year look back on her mother, but it was a relatively small sum of money. even still... it was nice not to let the gov't just eat it all away before medicaid took over in her final years so something could be passed on. but, you still see a lot of people too paranoid to give up control of their money, even if it means losing it, OR flip side... you see stories all the time of shithead middle-aged children that take that money saying they'll safe guard it, then go crazy renovating their house and buying new cars before their parent is even in the ground. i guess it takes some amount of trust and self-control on both ends, which is weird talking about flesh and blood, but also not surprising given my current uncle-grandma will debacle.
     
  20. Been there. When I got started I lived in a super tiny 1 bedroom apartment. Technically, you couldn’t even really call it a “bedroom”. You could stand in one spot, point in different directions and just be like “that’s the kitchen/living room/bedroom/dining area. :crackup:

    It was basically just one room with a mattress laying on the floor (no frame or headboard, just a mattress), a 19” TV sitting on a plastic table/shelf looking thing I found in the dumpster behind Big Lots, and a plastic patio chair to sit in.

    I lived off ramen noodles and just drank water from the sink. I had to take a train and bus to work because my car was torn up and I couldn’t afford to fix it.

    Sometimes I wonder how early I’d be able to retire if my lifestyle/expenditures never changed even though I got a good job.

    But then I never would have raced, and that would suck. :)
     

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