Posted on 05/31/2020 7:10:02 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
Last night’s horror might be the “severe national hardship” that brings about the change. The mood in the country has changed toward ‘the black community’ and their endless excuses for black criminal psychopaths.
I remember her. That went over like a lead balloon. But that was a saner era.
I stopped listening to “the experts” after 2008, too. In both 2001 and 2008 I had a bad feeling about things, but they said stay the course, so I stayed the course and, well, you know what happened. This January I had a bad feeling about things, and since I had enough money to retire I decided it was time to exit the market. One thing I have learned is that if you pay attention to what is going on, your “spidey sense” will give you a pretty good idea of where things are going.
There is always the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Thomas-Stanley/dp/0671015206
The easiest way is to give folks a choice between keeping their 401/IRA and taking Social Security - basically a $ for $ reduction of the SS payment for the imputed retirement fund payment. It will take longer than an outright seizure, but will end up with the same result over a period of time. And it should work as a double whammy. Without the automatic increases in investments, the market will decline.
I think how much someone saves for retirement entirely depends upon what they want to do once they retire. For example, if someone wants to travel the world, take exotic vacations, maintain a huge home and so on, yes, they’re going to need a bunch.
On the flip side, using myself as an example, I have no debt. Zero, Notta, Nothing.
I collect SS and can pay my bills, put money in my pocket for the month and still put $525 a month in the bank.
I used my savings to buy a high end used 5th wheel and put it in a very nice rv park in Florida. For my lot rent of $805, I get internet, cable tv, 1000kw hours of electric, water and curbside 7 day a week garbage pickup.
I also paid cash for a used F350 as a tow vehicle for the 5th wheel and paid cash for a nice golf cart to tool around in. I also took a job at the campground, not because I needed it, but it gives me something to do. Everything I earn from that job goes into the bank.
I don’t want to travel. I’ve traveled the world twice in previous jobs installing and maintaining Nortel telephone switches. There is literally no place in the world I’d want to go I haven’t already been.
I get my healthcase through the VA and what I’d owe them after a major event is given to Medicare to pay. What they don’t, I pay the difference. Luckily, I’m in good health for my age with no significant health problems aside from thyroid and hbp.
I have savings and the amount goes up each month.
In short, I have far less than $144k in savings, but I’m single, live alone and am extremely comfortable.
Nice.
But you didn’t really retire, you changed jobs.
Not of retirement age, barely H.S. educated..
Sitting with ~ $1 mil in savings...
Will ‘blow’ ~ $600-700k on a place in the Lower Keys soon..
Because life is to be lived...
No Brinks Truck behind the Hearse...
I only use an investment advisor for a small portion of my retirement funds from a former employer. Interestingly, HE occasionally calls ME for financial advice. Go figure.
Dave Ramsey would approve of what you are doing although he would add
1.Be sure to have a low burn rate and live and spend well within your means.
2.Be generous.
With the IRA/401(k), people do own the after-tax portion of these lifelong savings accounts. It is the accumulated product of their labors. For the government to come along and suggest that they might be allowed to keep it if they chose to give up something else of value, suggests that the government really owns the savings and are allowing the saver to keep it with conditions.
With social security, people believe they are entitled to it because they paid into it for their entire working lives. In the backs of their minds they know it's a Ponzi scheme relying on future "investors" to pay for the current payees, and that there's no "lockbox" with their name on it holding their share of the money.
So, any government plan that assumes a controlling interest in someone's 401(k)/IRA is outright theft. It punishes the saver and rewards the retiree who converted the savings into real assets, such as houses, vehicles, and investment real estate.
It seems to me that means testing future social security payments is the only way to go. Whether said means testing is based on RMD amounts or net worth is another matter.
-PJ
I do think the fear level and anxiety is rising in the suburbs. They’ve seen seen how quickly violence can spread. Its starting to get real for them.
No boss, no rules, no alarm, no commute, no dress code, no clock to punch, no deadlines, no co-workers, no one to tell me what to do, no work week or weekends, vacation anytime. Maybe you call that a job but I call it enjoying my retirement.
Do I have chores and other things to do? Sure. But you have to have things to do and stay busy. Just because I have some cows doesn't mean I have another job.
If you want to retire and do something else, fine, but I'm as retired as it gets. Sitting on the porch rocking all day with nothing to do, is the quickest road to dying there is.
Same for all other homeowners.
Maybe that's what's waking the middle class up. We would lose everything. Thugs burn our homes down and we'd have to pay to have the rubble removed.
The corrupt liberal press is presenting this as if there are two groups... one that believes police officers should be able to murder citizens by putting a knee on their throats and the other group that that's against it. That's nuts.
NO ONE believer murder is acceptable. Cops don't believe that type of murder is acceptable. NO ONE. The liberal press is lying to project a moral equivalency that doesn't exist.
If you stayed the course and kept investing regularly through the downturns without panic-selling and taking money out of the market at the low points, then you have done extremely well over the past 20 years. The paper loss only becomes an actual or 'realized' loss when you sell. If you kept buying without selling from 2001 until now, you should be pretty-well set financially.
I don’t disagree. I’m doing what I love too. But it is still work.
“Never liked IRA’s or 401k’s...Have not had one since the late 80’s..”
I loved mine as I was in the 35% tax bracket. When I retired at age 56 I lived off the sale of my house and $1200 a month from a rental home.
When I hit 59 1/2 I started withdrawing from my 401K/IRA, because my income was so low I paid $0 income tax on the dispersions. Still take some and roll-over to Roths.
I pay near 43% of every dollar I make to the state...and the Feds.
It is what it is....
Everything we do in life, by definition, is "work", whether it's at a job, in retirement or just playing. It's all work.
But I haven't had a "job" in over a decade.
Personally, I don’t see a way to stop them. They will have the sheer numbers.
Who could possibly emerge on our side with the same fearlessness as President Trump’s?
Even if we were able to find and cultivate leaders on our team, we can’t escape the pendulum effect. I’ve lived long enough now that I can see it’s a thing. President Trump has taken us on a hard swing to Constitutionality and individual liberties. Think about the next swing the other way.
I’m becoming resigned to having to live out old age in a foreign country.
President Trump was wrapping up a typical harangue by the Fake Newsers, grilling him about taking HCQ. You would think the President had announced that he was dropping LSD.
You know how they like to ask the same question seven times, just changing the words around. President Trump was trying to walk away. I don’t recall what the dumbass question was. The President got to a point about whether all of us should be taking it. His remarks were totally off-hand. He said, without thinking about it, (paraphrasing): *People will have to make up their own minds about that.*
Yaaaaaassssss! That was it. Right there. That one line completely defined the difference between Us and Them.
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