my dad retired at 56 with over a 100k in the bank in the 50's
he and mom who never worked after marriage lived off the interest
and flipping cars like 356's jag's fascel's and mark II Lincolns
and a few houses and raw land deals too

just interest income grew the 100k to 240k by the time mom died
no stocks or other paper just CDs

but at current rates you can't do that anymore
I retired at 49 a month before I turned 50 in 2000
but I can't make the accounts grow in the current low rates
and high cost of living we now have like the parents did

so SS at 62 next spring is going to happen
in addition to the state pension that in fla ain't much today

I'd check that if you can.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1321634148.jpg

No offence, but IMHO as a source, it's pretty vague

If you can find me the option for powered windows, in the Online configuration on
Mercedes-Benz Deutschland - Personenwagen , i guess it would be more convincing.

(i looked, i did not find).

I re-fi'd my house last year from 4.625% to 3.50%, kept the same 7 years on the note, lowered by payment by about $500/month and plow that savings back into the mortgage to try and get it paid off in closer to 6 years. I want to be mortgage free a few years before I "retire".

Putting money in a Roth IRA if your starting out is a good way to go. If your older like me (57) not so much.

There is the age old question of"how much $ do you need to retire?". The answer to that is that you dont know. There are too many variables such as, how old before you pass on, do you need long term care, does your house reduce in value, has your stock portfolio melted down?

On the positive side the more $ you have the better! Duh! To get that way, be debt free before u retire. Diversify. Dont have all your money in real estate or stocks. Beware of people selling investment products- they make money on sales but are the underlying products any good?There is no magic solution. Be knowledgeable about money, investments.It is not only about how much $ you make, but also much u spend. If both u and your partner are similar in spending ie. hopefully not much, then it makes for a happier retirement. There is a middle road somewhere though!That is my 5 cents worth.
Cheers

For those of you whose retirement plan is to essentially just keep on working, a bit of unsolicited advice: you best have a plan B.

I know way to many of my peers (lets say 55-70) over the past 5 years who:

1. Lost their jobs, were unable to find anything and lived off their IRA/401Ks until they could file for SS and are still in dire straights financially.

2. Lost their jobs and eventually found similar work but at greatly reduced salary and benefits.
Note: most of these were well educated white collar workers who never thought this could happen to them.

3. Had health issues (i.e. my BIL's wife (age 56) was just diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. This is the one area you have very little control over for the most part and there are absolutely no guarantees on this one.

For those of you who are contributing to IRA's/401Ks, pray for another great bull market like we had for most of the 1980's and 90's. Another decade like this last one or the 1970's and you're just treading water at best.

Everyone should read this post 2 or 3 times. There is a lot more that 5 cents worth in this.

My German isn't that good and you may very well be correct, not enough to start WWIII over.

I hesitate to post here because of the potential for getting this thread tossed to PARF but I think one of the most important factoids here is the earnings profile of American families. While there are a small handful or half-handful of families out of 100 that are making very comfortable money allowing seven figure lifetime savings or even more, the majority of families are are living on subsistence-level incomes. Some of my conservative friends like to say "they should have worked harder, then they could have earned more" but I don't see how 90% of Americans could earn comfortable-level (70K+) incomes simultaneously. Sure, there are winners in our society. And there are losers. It's just not set up to allow an entire society of winners.

I guess we all should go into music publishing. Retire at 30.

retire, many people ask me that question and my response is " no, my truck does not need to be re-tired ". I have also told people that " I have been semi-retired now for 30 yrs, I don't work too much but I will work the rest of my life".

For me this works, for you maybe not.

Yrs ago I had patients get all excited telling me they were retiring with 350K in the bank, now 15 yrs later they are taking out a reverse mortgage and treading lightly. I have seen too many people outlive their retirement, so it made sense to me to maybe work longer so outliving the funds would never happen, afterall, I have 3 children to think about and its always nice to leave them a golden nugget.

Could I pull the plug now, absolutely, do I want too, nope. At 63, I enjoy going to work, love helping people out, give alot of free service away, take time off when I want and for the most part do what I want. Yes, there are limits but nothing I can't live with.

To me not working is scary, I guess since I have been self employed most of my life, I have expected that steady stream of funds flowing thru the doors and the only way that happens is to work, the old fashion way.

How many people have you seem that retire and 6 months later are pushing up daisies???? There seem to be plenty of you that beat these odds but there are plenty out there that haven't.

You have but one life, enjoy it to the max and before you know it, poof, its gone.

Next.

How about Medical ???

I have a friend at work who could afford to retire comfortably at 60 (savings, house paid for etc..), but he will not because medical care for his spouse would be murder between retirement day and medicare kicking in. He quoted some brutal numbers to me...

For those of you thinking they can retire early, what's your plan re:medical ? Will that plan still work 20y from now? Seems to me medical costs are climbing way faster than my income !

My wife and I both retired at 50. We are able to stay on my wifes medical plan as long as we pay the cost, we pay $1130 per month. Like everything else we just budget for it.

Ive been retired now for 5 years and its great! I stopped by my old office yesterday to have lunch with the guys and just check up. Its nice to visit, but I sure don't miss it. I was a construction manager for a Highway and Bridge construction co. All highway work in the St. Louis area had to be done at night. County work was done in the daytime. So for years I was literally working day and night. I figured if I didn't retire early I would never make it to retirement anyway. The job paid well but you really had no life outside of it. Now life is good.

I've been looking for some sort of calculator that would give me that number for a long time. Turbo Tax offered to do that for me many years ago, but I haven't been able to find anything that would do that. If you know how, let me know. I suspect it's a fallacy. I'm not sure how it could work (except maybe if you're in a low tax bracket). If you're in a 25% tax bracket, and you put $5000 in an IRA, that reduces your tax liability by $1250. I just don't see how you can get those two things to be equal even with the other payroll deductions that get added in.

Save for college? My folks didn't give me a dime for college. They told us they expected us to go, and as adults who could vote, drink, and sign contracts, they expected us to pay for it. I was the only one of the siblings not smart enough to get scholarships. If it wasn't for guaranteed student loans I would have been in college & working two jobs for 10 years.
I told my stepson the same thing. He worked it out for the first couple of years, and got scholarships to pay for the rest, right through his Phd.
I don't see it as a parent's responsibility to pay for a kid's college education.

Man, stopping work with only $350K banked seems like a very scary proposition, at least at any reasonably young age (65 or less).

You could easily live another 20 years. How is $350K going to come even close to supporting you for that long, much less supporting you and a spouse?

For 20 years, that's $17,500 per year. Not much.

AND, that doesn't even include the really scary things, like devaluation of the dollar and inflation. 10 years from now that $350K will be worth $250K, if you're lucky.

And, there's nowhere really to earn any decent interest on that money in a safe way. At best, you might be able to come close to matching inflation. Maybe.

I don't understand how people think that number can work.

There is no more magic in interest anymore.

All those old articles on retirement, etc., from even a few years ago, they are funny, they all are based on presumed interest of 8% or 10%, solid and paid every single year for 40 years straight. With never a year of "negative" interest (i.e. losses on the portfolio).

The reality is a lot harder than that.

I think that social security will eventually be weighted. So regardless of how much you put into it, you wont get benefits unless you need it. So screw it. I am spending all my money now and let Uncle Sam support me when I am back in diapers.

McLovin, I agree. But lets take Supe's position that some just can't save anything. If you plug into this link Savings Calculator - Financial Calculators from Dinkytown.net

You can calculate that if you put $1/day away for 30 years at 2% you'd have $16,000 at the end. Plug in $2/day and you end up with $30,000. More than the original article posted about not even 7% of those surveyed had $25,000 stuck away. My point from the start was you can save, if you put your mind to it. I can't believe a family of four making $50K or $70K/year can't actually put $2/day away.

If that's true, smart investors would put away $1/day twice - maybe $1 at breakfast and $1 at dinnertime - and get $32,000 vs the $30,000 you'd get for putting back $2.

Savings/Retirement......
 

When I was about 30 (I'm 63 now) I had the opportunity to buy a piece of commercial property. The rent from the property almost but not quite covered the bank note, taxes, insurance and repairs. So, for about 20 years I had to "kick in" some extra cash each month. However, once the bank note was paid off, the rent from the building paid for my son's college and left a little more to boot. The property that appraised at $75k in 1978 is now worth about $600k and is paid for! The purpose of this story is not to say "look what I did", but rather to encourage the younger folks out there to look for opportunities for long term investments. It might seem to be a drag, but the movie or beer money that you are giving up at the moment can/will be a lifesaver later on in your life. Also, the one investment that you should never pass up is if your employer offers 401k matching or the opportunity to buy company stock at an employee discount. I have heard people that I worked with say that they could not afford to put 4% or 6% of their salary into a 401k and/or that they did not know anything about the stock market and would not even consider buying the company stock even though they would be making an instant 10% or so profit! Of course, today, it might make more sense to invest in hard currency like gold or silver than in paper stocks.

Depends on how the money is compounded. The calculator I used assumed you put $30/day away on a monthly basis. If the interest was compounded daily and you deposited daily it would be more.

Dumb stupid co-worker thought it was some way for the company to steal his money, messed up in the head a lot of guys are thinking companies are just trying to screw them. My company is trying to take care of its employees. Oh well, some just don't get it.

putting $ into company stock....
 

Sounds good on paper but in reality it has not worked for me and a friend of mine. One company I worked for, I had to have a certain portion of my salary put into co. stock. It eventually became worthless as the co. did not make any money.The co. was taken over for next to nothing hence the shares were virtually worthless. The friend of mine bought shares in his company. The company went broke and his shares became worthless. The president of the company started up another company under another name and the same line of business. I am sure this happens a lot. If you work for a company and buy shares in it, you are putting all your eggs in one basket. It might work for some but not everybody because not all businesses survive.

The only way company stock is attractive is if you get options, otherwise stay clear of that IMO.

If you get say a 10% or 15% discount off of the current price of company stock, and you work for a good company (good numbers, longevity, etc) and you keep your ear to the ground, you can do OK, as long as you aren't putting too many of your eggs in that basket. For me, it would be a small percent.

Even then, there's some amount of crap shoot luck involved. I'm sure the Enron folks thought that they worked for a good company.

Something else to remember that lots of folks seem to forget about. I believe it's recommended for folks to alter their investment strategy as they age and get closer or into retirement. Assuming you actually have some money put away, as you age, shouldn't you be moving that money from more volatile investments to more stable investments? IE, shouldn't you be converting money in stocks to something else if you're retired. It's not like the last 10-15 years has the market cornered on volatility. The market has gone up and down before.

Do you support a family? I too could live on 40% of my income and retire at 55 if I did not have two dependants...

I will never be able to retire.....

I think that investing in retirement involves a lot more than investing money. It involves investing in ones own health, as well as investing in spiritual enlightenment, so that that one can be at peace in the present, not ruining it by worrying about the future. Happiness is somewhat dependent on material conditions, but peace is not. It is all about getting free from your ego that tells you what material things you need to have to be happy. As far as health is concerned, most illnesses originate from energy imbalances, inner conflicts, weakened immune systems, etc...not something that the health industry likes to hear or advertise.

Despite a complete financial wipe out in my late-30s (aka a divorce), we have no mortgage, no car payments, some bank stock (CDN ;) ) some bullion & a decent nest egg of cash (not earning enough). Still not comfy retirement level, though.

My body is starting to slowly retire & I really wonder if I can keep up my pace much longer. We are starting to talk about semi-retirement in 5 + years. We will probably end up as snowbirds because of the health care costs associated with a move to Warm, USA.

We decided 10 years ago not to leave travel until we retire. I have seen too many old decrepit people on tours tottering slowly around the ruins in Europe that obviously did. No thank you. This certainly bites a bit into our savings potential each year but in a justifiable way imho.

Ian

Umm, did you read the first post?

I think people are doing a pretty good job with not worrying about the future.

93% of people are sure a lot more spiritually enlightened in that way than I am.

I just hope to retire before the gov't takes control of my private savings.

I occasionally grab a bite to eat with my dad and one of his ex co-workers. Old guy has over 30 investment properties and he and his wife's goal was to accumulate a millions worth for each of their five kids before they travelled. Dad says the only travelling she ever did was to Duke for chemo treatments before she died :( ....freakin' sad if ya ask me.

ps: I like these lines from two favorite bands: "Making money you can't spend, ain't what being dead's about", and "Ya can't take it with ya when ya go". Time is finite but one can ALWAYS make more money...

Not worrying about the future and not planning for the future are two totally different things.

Totally different?

I don't think so.

Lifestyle choices are the biggest factor in when you will retire.

That is a big part of it.....but biggest, I think not. Sure, if you're going to have to live without food & shelter, that would make it the biggest....but just think of peaceful you would be after you stopped shivering.:rolleyes:

I can only speak for myself but my biggest reason was getting tired (fed up) with going to work 40 hours a week for 40 odd years.....not a bad job at all, just having to be there gets to ya. It's easy to say "I'm gonna work till I'm 80", doing it is another thing. When I got past 65 even I noticed I was slowing down badly & my health wasn't getting any better.....in fact, I was surprised I made it to 65 but worked till I was 66.

After running the river banks for the month of September, I was in better shape (mentally & physically) than I had been for years. I shoud'a retired sooner.:D

That is because the point I was trying to make went way over your head. Nevermind, I have no need to explain.

I retired at 55 in 2006. At the time I was expecting to work until at least 65. I was working as a High School auto shop teacher and enjoyed the work a great deal . I was forced into retirement by a knee injury. I couldn,t stand for long periods for several months. my employer wanted to put me in a regular classroom so I chose to retire. I had about a 40% drop in pay but a coresponding drop in expenses of about 30%. It turns out I was going to work for about $85 per week. I supplement my income with 2 rental properties I bought in the late 80's ( instead of stocks and cash savings).and healthcare isn,t an issue here in Canada. I did tap the rental equity a couple times (new cars etc) but still have some equity.Thank goodness the real estate market never exploded here. I should have saved more but also could have saved less.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

I looked at the SS model when I was about 17 and just started paying in, and said to myself "Self, this isn't going to be sustainable". That was 40 years ago, and I still haven't changed my opinion.

Live within your means, stick SOMETHING away for a rainy day and retirement. What is the worst that could happen? The gubmit could nationalize your accounts or let inflation make it worthless. They only thing you will have missed out on were that you could have spent it on hookers and blow, and you'd still have nothing to show for it, except maybe an STD and dementia.