I would just have to squeeze it all in on the weekends if I was working. Or write checks for someone else to do it, so I am saving money doing it myself.
A lot of this is for my rentals, I don’t foresee that stuff going away when I retire. I’ll just have more time to do it.
The advantage to being ‘rich enough’ is to hire what you don’t want to do with rentals, and to have someone competent to handle your properties when you want to take a vacation or do some traveling. H is handy but has no desire to be a landlord. My vision is to be able to be comfortable on our disbursement plan from nest egg. However will have quite a bit of transitioning to do with sprucing up of home to downsize and then making the downsize accommodations work. Want to travel some, but not a huge pressing priority.
I imagine at some point I will write checks for everything. It would cost me around $1500 to get this apartment painted, and it’s pretty easy work, so I will save myself the money. But as long as I can physically do it, why not?
Having backup is important because stuff always seems to happen while we are away. When we were in New Zealand, an elderly tenant fell out of bed and couldn’t get up. She managed to call 911, and they kicked the door in to get to her. It was a huge pain to try to deal with that from 10,000 miles away.
Congratulations on the new job! Cheers!
I heard on the radio today that the volumes of market activity actually had the stock market suspend trading on 4 days over the last two weeks.
Hope all are hanging in!
SS avg payments are $13K/yr ($1100/mo). 1 in 3 have no retirement savings or pensions.
Key things are to have focus on retirement monies, sacrifice, intentional on budgeting and building up some retirement, even if ‘late’. Better having some money than no money.
Just got Oct Kiplinger’s - some great articles. One that interested me was a two page “Renting the RV Life”. Some good investing articles. Next time I see our financial advisor I am going to ask him about dividend growth funds. Two page article about making LTC affordable (I think the insurance companies have the upper hand on this product - YIKES on a quoted Genworth policy for a healthy 55 year old man for a 5% compounding $200/day for 5 years product). I think most people will be forced to ‘self insure’ for LTC if they don’t hold a policy already.
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State governments didn’t pay FICA either for many jobs, so I have a lot of gaps in my employment history wages as well. Oh well, it is what it is.
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If half of your H’s SS is more, wouldn’t you get that?
@notrichenough, congrats on the job. We have a couple of rental properties that ShawWife takes care of, but she has shifted from doing to organizing others to do.
@SOSConcern, I’ve got my kids working on retirement savings now. We’ve hired both and put the max in Roth IRAs. Now ShawD is working and is using the 401k or Simple IRA (not sure). I’ve suggested to both 10% of salary automatically skimmed off. ShawSon is not working, but should be very well-paid if he takes a job post-grad school – but is more likely to set up another startup during his last year (he will complete both MS Data Science and MBA in the 2016-7 academic year).
@SOSConcern, we just returned from the Bay area and toured a houseboat whose owners retired two years ago. They rent it out for 6-7 months a year and drive an RV or pull an Airstream for 6-7 months. No home other than the houseboat. I looked at LTC policies a while ago. Self-insuring seemed the way to go then. Plus Canada (see below).
@dstark, spent a few days in the Bay Area last week and some time in Western Canada over the summer. My wife is really interested in the Canada idea. Have to look at the Sunshine Coast of BC. Alas, it looks like the ACL graft I had done 15 years ago came out (probably while hiking in the Canadian Rockies). That would put a crimp in my Canadian plans (and life plans) as I love being in the mountains. Anyway, it looks like we will try a few months in the Bay Area. Found a studio for my wife. Now will need to rent a place to live.
@shawbridge houseboat sounds interesting. we plan on exploring Canada in the coming year after retirement sets in. where is your favorite places and do you use an RV? we have friends who love Banff.
Don’t use an RV. I love Canmore, AB and am also going to explore Squamish, BC. Vancouver is very nice but VERY expensive. We’d have to sell our house here to buy something there.
@shawbridge, Trying not to deviate too much from the thread - but quick question, have you tried to bring a dog to Canada for a visit from the USA? And what do you need in documents?
A wonderful thing in our retirement planning is that we have ‘gold standard’ LTC ins policies at affordable pricing (we have unlimited years, unlimited max payout - policies like this are no longer available and anything close is un-affordable). Got the policies 13 years ago. Had 10 yr fixed rate, and just are having our 3rd phase in increased payment, but then should be ‘level pricing’ for quite a while. Original policy premium was a little over $1000/yr each; current premium about $2000/year for each policy - H and I are both the same age and got the best pricing with excellent health at sign up. I couldn’t buy a policy now as a cancer survivor.
The Genworth policy for a healthy 55 year old man for a 5% compounding $200/day for 5 years product from my recollection was about $5600/year…IMHO if one can have a separate fund to put away money for the potential of LTC costs and self insure. That way you can pay for specifically what you want when you need it without paying in a ton of money to an insurance company that is going to be very stingy with meeting ADL (activities of daily living) criteria.
Our policies are 5% compounding based on $150/day from 13 years ago, unlimited years/unlimited payout. It has bought us peace of mind.
Still hope to stay healthy and never use!
I guess I was wishfully thinking our home would be paid off when H retires in 6 years. Payments for 8 years. All the more reason for me to get back to work; looking/applying. Will be networking at some continuing ed - next one is the 25th. It would be better for me to get some income in so I can start working on the house cash flowing the work. Maybe by the time H retires, we have everything worked out. It would be nice for him to keep working until the house is paid off. Will see how the investments do.
Do need to also be thinking about retirement cash flow, but the main thing for us now is to hopefully get some more income in, slowly get the house more fixed up, get the kids through college (we are on the low maintenance part of that, since they are in apts and are drawing off their scholarships and own accounts funded by us and a boost from two small grandma’s life insurance policy split between the grandchildren). One student graduating May 2016, and the other is a college sophomore. Hoping all 3 cars hold up for another year (one is iffy but shouldn’t be based on what all we replaced on it!). Have an inherited piece of FL land that hopefully will sell soon - our refrigerator needs replacing (seals are not very strong) - I will be happy to replace but with that ‘found money’ unless the refrigerator goes to be an emergency purchase.
A younger single friend has been able to do wonderfully on weight loss. Yah for her. So much tougher with being older and on medication that makes it even harder…
The good news is our 401k is up from 1/1 and from 9/1; had shifted more money into large cap stock (growth) in August 11/12 - JP Morgan Growth Advantage R5 (JGVRX) - (before the roller coaster and the Fri 8/21 and Mon 8/24 drops). That was the fund in our portfolio choices that has consistently performed well. Looked at the breakdown, and YTD through 9/15 it has appreciated 8.27%. So glad I moved the money! Still trying to see what the other two equity funds we are in will be doing, but have more money in the funds that are doing the best out of our choices. Still want to gain back the almost $40,000 lost since the roller coaster period/losses 8/21 and 8/24. Hope that is not greedy thinking…
There is peace of mind when you get to the retirement finish line and have done well with being healthy, having enough money, having home/travel worked out. We are still a work in progress…
I bought LTC thanks to reading CC five years ago. I’m glad I did because it’s cheap and I made sure I included the inflation amount when I selected the day value, so no termination due to inflation rate. In today’s money, it might have gone up 3 folds. I’m still not sick that I will qualify for new policy but the cost was significantly cheaper than if I have to purchase the same policy today.
Edit to add I only limited the policy for 3 or 5 years if IIRC. From my research the average use of LTC was in this band. But this is supplement to self insured and not replacing it.
We have no LTC insurance. My wife doesn’t want LTC. (it’s not the insurance she objects to, She doesn’t want longterm care) We have had 3 friends pass away this past year and a half after long illnesses. All 3 had hospital treatment at various times but all 3 died at home with assistance from hospice in their home.
LTC pays for home health care.
The majority of cases are that once you need LTC (need help with at least two activities of daily living, or have Alzheimers/Dementia or other that makes one considered qualified for LTC), avg life span is maybe 3 years. However what if one has a declining condition that they live much, much longer? LTC insurance gives options for good care at home, or in very nice assisted living.
Women normally outlive their husbands (75% of the time). H has big family longevity. Even as a cancer survivor, I hope to outlive H 
One of the best thing people can do is stay as healthy as possible - regular exercise, keep weight and other things in check. For the best quality of life.
@rockymountainhigh, ShawWife is allergic to dogs, so no experience. We go there several times a year. People do take them on planes (not good for ShawWife). They pretend they are service dogs.
@dstark, I am seeing a doctor on Friday and will figure out if I can have the surgery again. I would prefer it as I really love hiking.
On LTC, the policies I saw all had caps that suggest self-insuring wasn’t much different than paying the premiums. That may not have been true years ago.