Posted on 02/13/2014 9:40:50 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Over the course of their 60-year marriage, Bernard “Bernie” Karpinkski and his wife, Violet, took few chances when it came to their retirement.
“From the time we were married, we started saving,” says Bernie, 89, who lives in Pueblo, Colorado. “We lived much more conservatively than most people. We had three cars our entire lives and drove them until they had close to 200,000 miles on them before we bought another. We didn’t buy our second home until we had enough saved to pay cash.”
While their friends moved into bigger homes, took vacations and put their life on plastic, Bernie and Violet used a 50/50 income split — they lived off of Bernie’s income as an electrician and put every dollar Violet earned from her job as an office secretary in the bank.
“We lived conservatively and saved for our retirement years so we could travel,” Bernie told Yahoo Finance.
They succeeded but things didn’t work out quite as planned. Not long after Bernie punched out of work for the last time, Violet was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. After more than a decade helping her battle the disease along with a slew of other medical issues, Bernie had no choice but to move her to an assisted living center in 2011.
"Social Security and my pension didn't begin to take care of the cost," he said. Medicare wouldn't cover her expenses either. So instead of cruise ships and hotel stays, Bernie poured their life savings into a $6,700/month room in the center’s dedicated Alzheimer’s wing. "It was only because of our savings that I could do it."
Retired and broke
More than 90% of people over age 65 currently receive Social Security benefits, without which a surprisingly large number of seniors would be destitute.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Holy Hell... and then some.
Well I wouldn’t blame this on Progressivism. Quite frankly, between inflation, longer life spans, and the huge cost involved in the last few years of life, there are few good answers. The only realistic answer is that, given expanding life spans, people work longer.
so Jose'comes here and needs extensive cancer treatment and WE pay for it....of course we can't also pay for a hard working citizen's wife who needs care...
read yesterday that WE are paying for free dialysis for hundreds and hundreds of illegals in one hospital in California....just one hospital....
SS and the income tax were IMO implied contracts between the govt and its tax paying citizens: you pay all your life....you will have decent roads and our country will be protected and you will have health care and some money when you're older...but now, we find they were empty promises....and people who never paid a cent get the same as we who have paid always...
Fact is, the liberals don’t care about this guy: he is white, old, and will be dead soon. They only care about younger, non-whites who they see as the future. In short, people (legal or illegal) who will have lots of kids and constitute a new voting pattern for the next few 50-75 years. Those old white people are just means to their end.
Face it—its not our country anymore.
Oh sure....Everyone is hiring the MILLIONS of people who are now over 60....At least they are finally discovering the sultans of scam who are rotten to core with corruption in D.C., have looted nearly everything including SS.
Hiring those over 60? Total 100% BS.
Since the money was NEVER intended to be spent in the general treasury... I blame every politician that voted to spend a dime of it.
Are you kidding? All the kings men working for government retire in their 50s...Cops in CA are retiring at $75,000 per year with top shelf gold plated benefits....Many others in corrupt gov at all levels, rake in much more...
When the cracks open up and this whole thing goes belly up, it will be a site to behold...
I can only hope, the con's of corruption in government, who've looted and all but destroyed this country, are somehow held responsible.
There are a whole lotta people in his boat. More every day with the rush of retiring baby boomers.
The Elizabeth Warren plan to raise SS benefits by eliminating the income cap on SS taxes is a done deal IMO.
It will be so popular nobody will be able to stop it.
$6,700/mo.? Seems a little steep.
But one cannot help but feel for these people. The lifestyle they decided to forego while their friends lived it up (more or less) and now this.
How about a SS tariff on all imported goods? If these jobs were done in America, both the employers and employees would be paying into SS. Now they come in tax free and there aren’t enough American workers to fund the SS system.
If I outlive my wife I will move to Mexico or some other South American company and live in a closet. That will be my only choice. We can’t live here without both paychecks. If she outlives me I don’t know what she’ll do.
Then again, there will probably be an age limit to enter those countries south of the border.
Inflation is a huge part of the problem, they say the average person retiring this year at age 62 will draw $1992. monthly which is below the official poverty level. I am 69 and $1992. a month is an income I never saw from full time work until I was nearly forty and running my own business. It is far above the minimum wage for a forty hour job. It is well over half of the total salary I was paid for three years active duty in the US Navy. I recall when you could buy a new VW rabbit and have enough left to buy 2500 gallons of gasoline for it with $1992. My parents did not lay out that much for electricity in the first 18 years of my life before I left to go into the Navy. Now I spend more than that on electric service in 8 months. My parents died 19 years ago, they were collecting about $1500. a month between them in their last years and were living on that with no problem and BANKING their other retirement income. Inflation is far, far worse than the feds will admit. I can say for a certainty that since I was born in 1944 there was a time when two married people would have been happy to have an income of $1992. A YEAR between the two of them in this area.
Inflation is a dog isn’t it?
“The only realistic answer is that, given expanding life spans, people work longer.”
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Working longer is not very realistic unless a person is in reasonably good health and has some kind of profession he can work on his own and even that is becoming more and more difficult. A REALLY realistic answer is to die younger. That is the only option the government is not trying to block. One thing is fairly certain, the option of living off the taxpayers for years and years is not going to be available much longer.
It’s not just illegals that get everything,it’s refugees.
Russians came pouring into my area in the mid 80s. Because they were refugees,not immigrants,they were put at the top of the waiting list for senior housing and Section 8 apartments.
Our local newspaper has a Russian section and “Russian spoken here” is common in ads and signage.
The WWII vets were just kicked aside to make room for these people.
Also there is The Somali refugee invasion of Maine.
The politicians don’t care about us.
.
I'd add ZIRP to that.
Correction:
One thing is fairly certain, the option of government living off and looting the taxpayers for years and years is not going to be available much longer.
That's why that A*****E Obastard "borrowed" a trillion$ to fund a new welfare program for his permanently indolent voter base...
He warned us!
"Our time has come!"
And the dumbest among us reelected him!
Idiocracy lives!
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