Lots of mumbo-jumbo in that article. I think the answer is, “it depends”.
I’ve been using TaxAct for years.
They didn’t do a pre-order this year, and I happened to see an ad for 30% off for cyber Monday. Pretty good, I though.
Until I got to the page, and discovered that the product I need has increased in price from $19 to $55!!! Even with the 30% discount I am paying more than double this year.
They are following the Turbotax model that blew up last year and left egg all over TT’s face.
Unfortunately it would be very painful to switch, so I am stuck. But I am seriously P.O.'ed with these greedy a-holes.
Greedy, indeed. They know they have their users pretty much glued to their product… Went through that with TT.
It has been a while since I posted here. DH has not only hung onto his job, it seems he is on the ‘A’ team with his company for a 4 year contract which is slated to keep him busy (and we are 5 years from retirement); after the first of the year he is going on corporate O/H. Local company facility may not be open in 2 years. Glad we didn’t have to move. Found out a week before my 60th birthday - what a great present. The insurance in addition to income was so key for us.
Something promising on increasing our cash flow is I interviewed for a FT RN position - M - F. Supposed to hear something this week. I started my career in nursing, and perhaps also my sunset career. Sounds like I am competing against one other individual, or they had one to interview after me. My earnings will help with home fix up list, so we can eventually downsize.
DD1’s wedding is on track for next July. She found a great guy, and both families are happy. FSIL’s mother is a lot like me (their comment during our meeting together and getting to know each other).
DD2 has 3 semesters and summer term to finishing an engineering degree, and sounds like she will get a great job offer from her intern company.
I could see the LTC insurance premiums going skyrocket with less than adequate coverage for the cost, saw the situation coming - the policies issued now are so expensive - but it is really hard to determine what risk one has in truly relying on a policy. I saw people avoid LTC insurance by buying in to a retirement community for a while - and because they had cash flow from pensions to them it was problem solved. H and I have ‘golden LTC insurance policies’ - no time limit, built in 5% for inflation/care increased costs - had 10 year guaranteed rates, and had 3 years of price increase but now leveled off again. But as with dealing with long term care, you hope to never need to use it. You qualify by losing activities of daily living…But with the need, H and/or I can get in-home care round the clock w/o going into a long term facility. As DDs step further into adulthood, and we get into retirement and perhaps health care issues, can enlighten them so they can be advocates for H and I in our old age.
My advice is to keep very close watch on one’s health and try to have a good health care system. This is a consideration on where to live in retirement.
DH’s aunt and uncle have a lot of travel between their places - and to me it is not a retirement picture for us. They have been retired for over 12 years now, and are in good health.
We have done better educating our kids on the ins and outs of some things, but have also not faced some of the obstacles our parents have had.
It is all about reading the situation at hand (and in the near future) and navigating for optimal situation - with hopes of happy life.
If it’s not a short term treasury bill or FDIC insured deposit or currency, it is not cash. This was one of the hardest lessons of the financial crisis of 2008/2009 - not so long ago! Not just individuals, but corporations with presumably market savy treasurers lost a lot of money on so-called “cash” equivalents that turned out not to be. Just today I moved some short term investments from a commercial paper type product to an account where I will probably buy Tbills and wait and see if rates go up. They gave me a checkbook, and paid me 1.5%, but I never considered it cash.
@SOSConcern - Best of luck on the getting the RN job!
This popped up on my facebook feed. See what ya’all think:
Reads like an advertisement to me.
The fund is the Vanguard Retirement Savings Trust II, it’s considered a, “Conservative savings option that falls between a money market fund and short-term bond fund. It invests largely in investment contracts backed by high-quality, shorter-term securities”. Since inception (15 years ago), it’s average annual performance has been 3.55%, but I think it’s been down as low as about 2% on an annual basis. I don’t think it’s ever gone negative, and pays out dividends monthly. It’s low enough risk for me that I consider it “cash”, but maybe I shouldn’t.
As long as you understand the risks and the fact that you might lose principal and are willing to take that risk, I personally don’t see the harm in using it as a quasi-cash vehicle.
“Reads like an advertisement to me.”
Yes. It looks like a site with basic information, trying to pretend they have a new and different approach to retirement. They make you start an account to look at their calculators. They say that they make their money from advertisers and by connecting users with mortgage companies, financial advisers, immediate-annuity sellers and other financial-services providers.
I played with this calculator for a bit. It’s ok.
The presentation is a bit confusing - it presents “optimistic” and “pessimistic” results, but it is somewhat difficult to see what this really means. And it focuses on “funded retirement” and “adequate lifetime income”, but these terms are not really defined.
And like all of these types of calculators, it is extremely sensitive to certain information. Change your expenses by a few hundred $ per month, and the “funded retirement” date moves by years. This is not realistic IMO.
Haven’t really explored the rest of that site to see what they are selling.
It doesn’t really seem like much risk at all, compared to most investments we have. And since we really aren’t planning on cashing out anything for another 17 years or so, it wouldn’t be a big deal if it lost principal. So far it’s just been kind of brainless, I take money out of the market and park it there, and it pays about $350/month in dividends. My husband does the same thing. Kind of nice, even when my other stuff is tanking, to keep consistently getting those dividends added to the account.
Sounds like you have the right mindset for that type of investment, @busdriver11. I think you are sophisticated enough in your investing to understand your risk/rewards. I think that type of investment becomes problematic for those less sophisticated and knowledgable about investing that don’t realize their principal is in play and who, nonetheless, stretch their risk grabbing for some additional yield in this low interest rate environment.
You give me too much credit, doschicos. I’m not sophisticated, just lackadaisical. However, I think we will have enough of a pension and rental real estate that messing up here and there doesn’t really matter a whole lot. We just stick with reliable Vanguard funds for the most of it, and piddle around with the little stuff.
Yes, when there are sufficient income sources (pension, recall estate rentals,SS, etc), the small stuff is ok to tweak as it won’t be a mainstay of your retirement. Sadly, most folks don’t have multiple income sources in retirement.
Very true, HImom. I’m a little paranoid, figure you have to cover all bases, if you can. You never know what’s going to happen.
It is definitely comforting to have more than one source of income in retirement, such as some pension, some rental income, some SS, and some retirement account. It’s hard to predict what curve balls may come our way in the future, especially as health issues pop up as we age. Health issues can be quite costly, especially when insurance is unpredictable at what is and is NOT covered. Sometimes we need to make modifications or buy medical equipment that is not covered by any policy but makes life much better for us. I see this more and more and patients I work with age.
We have a trustworthy financial adviser IMHO, and he also helps give me some input on our 401k investment choices grattis. More than half of our retirement assets are outside of our financial adviser, but he is earning his keep with what he does earn from our invested assets.
I just saw where there was some information on this web site for people to consider, so I mentioned it on this thread.
Certainly anyone in the investment business is looking to provide information, and earn $$ from services/investments you choose to go into.
I look at a lot of free information. It helps me research and think about things.
I just moved 25% of my retirement fund from stocks to bonds today. Not sure it’s wise or not.