/humor
Regards,
Last year we contacted an estate planning attorney. As a senior citizen and pensioner I have a minor child (God blessed me) and I needed to get a plan in place just in case something happened to her mom and me. It also did the financial planning to make it easier for my wife.
/humor
Regards,
I get my groceries delivered by Walmart. And I have a laundry service that is very reasonable...that picks up, wash, fold and deliver.
My job is to exercise the car once a week. I do cook all the time and try to keep things picked up.
My kids are all over the country...but every morning we play wordle and NYT Connections.
So far, I'm lucky...and a low maintenance senior.
I do still acquire new things...like my Josh Allen poster. Yes!!
Well, all of my family are gone,
BUT I HAVE worked out a 5-step plan for retirement. I think I’ve got this figured out:
1) Marry a rich single woman
2) Marry a rich single woman
3) Marry a rich single woman
4) Failing that, the Rapture
5) Failing that, World War III
bfl
p
Bkmk
Step 1) Outlive them all.
All that and take up hang gliding and motorcycle racing immediately upon a dementia diagnosis.
Maybe preaching the Gospel in Gaza.
I oppose suicide, but going out big by accident while having a blast in your final years sounds great.
2. Most of the investments are in Roth IRA’s — no tax implications until the kids inherit them. Even after that they have 10 years to move the money into their own accounts. We’re converting tax deferred accounts to Roth IRA’s each year, but never enough to put us into the next tax bracket. Eventually all of it will be in Roths.
3. Automatic bill paying. Each one listed in the aforementioned document. Along with login and passwords to each account and each email address used for two-factor verification.
4. Everyone knows what they’ll inherit. No surprises when we die. And if something happens to me first, the wife not only knows about the document, I make her read it once per year to make sure she understands it.
5. Investment withdrawal strategy is just 4% per year. With portfolio invested 75% in equities. So it grows more than inflation (most years) in case we live a long time. That includes enough for us to be in the nursing home for decades, or pay for at home care. By “live a long time” I’m talking about fully retiring at about 58 or 59.
6. Only debts are the house and 1.5 years left on a car. I have trouble with the math on paying off early the debts that have low fixed interest rates. I instead put the excess into our Roth IRA’s and my Roth 401k during my quasi-retirement. The retirement accounts have enough to pay off the house in a day if we have to, but still be enough left to live on.
Common sense approaches. I have a folder I provided to each daughter... Anything happens to the wife or I and everything is listed on what to do including a single phone number and we’re taken care of. Everything’s in a living trust, living wills, all finances laid out, long-term care etc. Well be no financial burden to them ever.
We don’t want them to worry about us. Their priority is their families.
from tide pods to death pods.
That was EXACTLY my response and it should be among one of the first.
I knew a man, Old Man Jim Davis from Mt Crogan SC who when he realized he could no longer take care of himself and would be a burden on others, pulled his 32 caliber lemon squeezer out of his pocket and shot a hole thru his own head.
That’s good advice. It took me and my sister months to go through and get rid of all the accumulated stuff in my mom’s house. What a nightmare!
If anyone ever says, "Money can't buy happiness," shout BALONEY! as loud as you can.
Money can buy plenty of happiness, and not being a burden on your children is one happy thing--for you and them.
Money and its consequent happiness are worth working hard for. I know. I did. I'm happy that I did.
“You know when you’re really old? When your family talks about you in front of you. ‘What are we gonna do with Pop? We have company tonight.’”
-Rodney Dangerfield
My wife and I had to drop our own plans to come and care for her father who is now 97.
He could not live in his own home without our being here.
He has practically lost all of his short-term memory. He is paranoid. He hides his checkbook from us even though my wife has to take care of paying his monthly bills. His sleep habits are completely ridiculous. He will stay up until 3 or 4 AM, constantly flipping through TV channels.
My wife cooks fine meals for the three of us. He often gets up just before she serves dinner and makes his way back to his bedroom, saying he is just going to the bathroom. He goes to bed and does not return until hours after we have eaten.
My wife is a retired Licensed Practical Nurse with years of caring for the elderly but her father treats her like she is still just his know-nothing, YOUNG daughter.
He is incontinent and won’t wear pads. My wife has to fight him to even get him to shower.
He has great trouble walking and must used a wheeled walker around the house.
Getting him into our pickup truck to take him to the doctor is a nightmare.
He is very bitter and grumpy, always bitching about getting older. He mocks any television religious broadcasts and believes and states the Bible is a myth.
He has major hearing problems and will not wear his hearing aids. Any conversation is us shouting and constantly repeating. He can’t remember what we just told him. He cannot see in one eye because of a cataract problem.
My wife constantly demonstrates an abiding love for her father in the nightmare we have now lived for THREE AND A HALF YEARS.
This is not the way we should live our last days. It is tragic and pathetic.
Get the book...”I’m Dead, Now What?” ...and fill it out.
Good thread.
My Dad had both many file cabinets and also crates-worth of less organized papers and such. No way he’d have had time to thin it down unless he started at age 60...
Financially... My wife and I do not see how we can possibly stay in the US after she retires, and she does not want to work after age 65. I burned too many resources trying to care for my Dad and then my Mom. So, we’ll likely move to Philippines after wifey retires, and she has a ton of young relatives there to provide low cost care. When the care fails, if I don’t go quickly, wifey is to put me on a small boat and send me off into open ocean. Maybe a few pills so I don’t feel anything @ the end. :-)