Beware of some online banks. We opened an account at Capital One 360. Opening was easy. Transferring money was easy. But they had a huge problem when we tried to add a joint owner on the account immediately after opening. We tried online multiple times according to their instructions, and it wouldn’t work. We tried chat room (no help). We tried calling (no help). In fact, after numerous calls, and numerous supervisors, we were given multiple excuses, and some completely conflicting excuses, but no help. I spent numerous hours trying to do something as simple as adding a joint owner with no success. Recently they also had a major data breach of credit-card holders (which we also had). I lost all confidence in them, and as a result am very wary of any online bank.
Discover Bank does not have the highest savings interest rate of all the online banks, but its application process, including adding joint owners, was easy. We already had a much-used Discover card, so it made sense for us to use one really good app to view credit card, checking, and savings. One caveat: keep your individual check deposits to $5000 or lower at one time; otherwise you can wait a long time for the check to clear.
I really like having a brick & mortar place on our island—silly maybe but it makes me happy even if I rarely go there. We have one at PenFed for that reason. I always feel I can go there in person if things get too bogged down electronically.
@HImom, agreed! I still keep some of our money at the local credit union. 
Yeah, it might make it a bit messier for our heirs down the road, but we have cash in multiple accounts and local places so we can get ready access and service mostly with s smile.
I’ve kept an account at our local credit union even though 99% of our activity is through Schwab. I’ve attached venmo and paypal to that credit union account. I’ve not heard horror stories about misuse but it makes me feel better to know that there’s just not that much money in the account so there’s little risk if something did go wrong.
I haven’t been paying attention (to the financial markets). I was aware that the U.S. bond market was rallying, and interest rates were falling, but I didn’t realize that rates throughout much of the world had turned negative and German 10 yr bunds went to a record low -.58% today. This is not good. I have a lot of tbills, 1mo to 3mo. I would sure hate to roll them over at zero… or worse. I might want to roll things out to 2 years.
We had the guys’ UGMAs in a USAA mutual fund years ago. Was unimpressed. Was the only thing we’ve dropped at USAA in 30+ years. We only own one stock, also purchased 30+ years ago. Don’t need a broker for that. Everything else is in DH’s FERS 401K or Vanguard (joint, my IRA, guys’ accounts).
Still have mortgage; we originally had a 30 year, refinanced to a 15 year five years in, and refinanced again seven years ago to pull out 3/4 of a year’s COA after I was no longer able to work. If not for that, our mortgage would have been paid off last year. We’ll still be five years ahead of the original 30 year mortgage when we pay off. Payment is minimal, interest rate is 2.375%. Don’t want to drop a lot of liquid funds to pay it off.
Interesting article:
“Mayeda’s findings showed that the average memory performance for nonworking women between the ages of 60 and 70 declined twice as fast as women who were working. Compared with married mothers in the paid labor force, single mothers out of the workforce for long periods saw their memory faculties decline 83% faster, while married nonworking mothers declined 61% faster. Memory performance for working women remained higher, even if their work history was interrupted for family reasons.”
Read the entire article here:
Just borrowed and read a very sobering book, “55, underemployed and faking normal,” by Elizabeth White. Has some good resources and suggestions, without being Pollyanna-ish.
I found it helpful to stay in various credit unions that we have been part of - one of the ones tied to H’s former work offered the best interest rate on refinancing of our home and very little on closing costs. We did 10 year mortgage with 2.5% interest rate - the best other rates were about 3.25% and higher closing costs. I did find out we need to do some kind of a transaction yearly to keep accounts active - all this computer automation cleaning up records.
We are 26 months and counting to retirement. First thing we will do in retirement is spruce up the house and decide where we do want to live. Our town is in a hot housing market and I do believe it will continue - best public schools in the area with both HSs in the top 10 in the state(with three other public school districts), our home is convenient to everything, houses in our neighborhood are selling strong.
DD1/SIL/GD/GS now don’t live far but may be relocating. DD2 has career moves and doesn’t need us close like we want to be with the grandchildren. DD1/SIL have a lot on their career/graduate education plates - and we do want to be involved with the GC/family and also assist with childcare (short time frames or if the children are ill, and regularly seeing them) and/or with vacations.
Congrats @notrichenough for navigating the college bundle of info/costs/best places for the kids to be, and selling your home. Enjoyed reading the link itemizing the parent college thoughts you had, along with the misconceptions and reality slap in the face on what is really happening.
I have a (probably) nosy question: What percentage of your net worth do you have in your primary residence? I am curious as to how that does or does not factor into the decisions people make regarding when to retire in general and regarding downsizing in particular. What percentage of one’s net worth should one’s home be as they move into retirement? I realize this isn’t a one-size-fits-all question. There are many personal preferences that come into play. I also realize some may be “stuck” because of large appreciations they don’t want to pay taxes on (isn’t the exclusion for gains for couples $500,000?? - not sure). But, in a perfect, non-messy-have-to-think-about-tax-implications world, what percentage of your net worth would you want in your primary residence? Given that, other than appreciation, homes “use” cash rather than generating it.
Our house sale would get us a 2 BR condo in our area. High COL area, but we bought a modest house and stayed there. Proceeds are not enough to buy into a senior CCRC. The vast majority of our net worth is in retirement vehicles (pension, 401K, IRA).
If we had moved up in the real estate market to a bigger house, we’d have more appreciation. OTOH, we had college to pay for. The cheap mortgage enabled that to happen. Would love to move to someplace with a lower COL, but between my medical stuff, DH not planning to retire, and this being a logical landing place for S2, I don’t see us leaving the area, even though MD is lousy for retirees.
I realize our house is technically part of our net worth, but i just think of it as our home/a place to live. I don’t count on the money in our home as a retirement asset, for example. If we sell it, we will need to buy something else.
@Hoggirl , our home is in the single digits percentage of worth. We are in our 60’s. Downsizing we have not considered, as the home is 20 years old and we built it with kids then retirement in mind. Low upkeep and low taxes. Love my home and views. I think that the fact that we built it made it more likable. When you get to choose just about everything in reason it makes a difference.
We have lived in our home for 35 years, have recently upgraded nearly every sq inch, and dont plan to, or need to sell it, in order to be able to fully retire.
It is worth 10X’s + what we paid for it, and our equity stake amounts to about 90% of the homes value. We are lucky, I know.
If push came to shove , the only place we , or I, would move to is a local retirement/long term care facility nearby.
We also don’t consider our house as part of our net worth. We could sell it for 3x what we paid 30 years ago, but with the addition and improvements, our net is a wash. We’ll get out what we put in. No mortgage.
D1 will return to our area after dental school, so we aren’t moving. I’ll go from this house to a continuing care retirement community.
Our home value is less than 10% of our net worth and like others have posted, we don’t factor that into our retirement plan.
Our area has definitely seen less price appreciation than some of you. We just recently got back to pre-2008 levels.
Thanks for the replies re: home value relative to net worth. It’s hard for me to understand how it isn’t part of one’s retirement plan since you have to live somewhere. Even if a home is paid for, it must be maintained, and the type of home, home size, location, lot size (if not in a multi-unit building), etc all factor into one’s expenses which continue in retirement. I was also thinking about the benefit of having more of one’s net worth in a primary residence since that (I believe) isn’t counted toward Medicaid eligility. Thus using the primary residence as a means of asset preservation to be able to pass down something to kids if one had to spend down everything else on one’s care.
Perhaps people think of their home as part of their expenses more than assets (that generate investment income or gains to provide retirement income). Expenses could be:
- For owned home: property tax, maintenance, homeowner insurance, mortgage (if not paid off), homeowner association fee (if applicable).
- For rented home: rent, renter insurance.