You can find excellent rentals that have top quality bedding and kitchen gear but it takes some looking and asking questions.
When I travel I Want to go out and do stuff. As long as the bed is clean I am good. We only stayed at air bnb once because we couldnāt find a hotel in Iceland that accepts 4 people in one room. I Didnāt want to pay for the second room. So we found and apartment via bnb with 4 bed rooms and it was cheaper than the hotel room. The kids and I were fine but the hubby complained the bedding wasnāt comfortable.
I love to travel and see new places. I love big cities like NYC, Hong Kong and London. As long as the room has a clean bed and a shower I am all in. Everyone is different and that is ok. Those who like to stay close to home and love their own things are no better than those of us who prefer to see all of the world we can.
āYou can find excellent rentals that have top quality bedding and kitchen gear but it takes some looking and asking questions.ā
Havenāt figured out any way to do this. Open to tips !
āWhen I travel I Want to go out and do stuff. As long as the bed is clean I am good. We only stayed at air bnb once because we couldnāt find a hotel in Iceland that accepts 4 people in one room. I Didnāt want to pay for the second room. So we found and apartment via bnb with 4 bed rooms and it was cheaper than the hotel room. The kids and I were fine but the hubby complained the bedding wasnāt comfortable.ā
If the bed isnāt comfortable then I donāt sleep so going out and doing stuff is marred by exhaustion and I have a miserable time. Other people must not have this problem. If i know I have to come back to a room where the shower is going to be cold, it ruins my whole day. Iām just very fussy about this stuff. If it were up to me Iād never leave home and I travel about as nicely as one can First class plane, airport lounges, 5 Star hotels ( which still sometimes seem to run out of hot water) etcā¦ Never been anywhere where Iām not happier the second my foot crosses my threshold. This means much less spending compared to others in our circumstances. I have the means to travel but not the desire.
My problem, if you could call it that, is that I have a tradition pension and it is very difficult for me to determine the savings figure for which I should be aiming. I have high cost years ahead with three that will be in college at the same time so contributions to additional pretax savings will be limited. But I started super early in my mid-20s so my current tally is okā¦I think. I imagine I should pay a private advisor to assess my situation.
My grandfather, who wasnāt alive when I was born, was by all reports an incredibly helpful and handy person. His wish was to be cremated and kept in the trunk of a car for a snowy day, when he could be used to provide traction for slipping tires. My father claimed that the wish was honored, although I have no verification. :neutral:
One shouldnāt be scared of that big number; most people retire with zero (if not debt). However, whatever an appropriate number is for anyone, the miracle of compounding will help you get closer than you think possible, as long as you stay the course and keep investing.
As an advisor, I see the spend down of assets conversation all the time. Just remember than not everyone lives to 100 and wants to leave their kids $X. There are many who want to spend their nest egg wihtout worrying about legacy. Makes a HUGE difference. Having to earn (in interest - gross up, forget about timing for right now) X % to withdraw x% for perpetuity sake is much harder than cutting in to principal. Of course when you cut in to principal, youāll ultimately run out of money, but that may be 30 yrs later (again, not everyone lives to 100).
I assume Iāll pass prior to my spouse due to health and DNA. So we have a staggered approach (wife odesnāt think of it this way but I did it by design). Big enough nest egg to be comfortable for many years during my life (not worried about legacy at all - wait thereās more) then a nest egg equivalent death benefit kicks in for wife (so she gets to do it all over again). SOme will argue the premium could have been invested to create X. Thatās true - maybe. Thereās taxes, market risk, etc. The life insurance is both tax free and GUARANTEED . We have a survivor policy for the kids so my wife wonāt have to worry about leaving extra funds for them. If she does, great, but either way theyāll get a nice sum.
So we didnāt need to create 5M or whatever like many planners recommend. And Dave Ramsey is just flat wrong when it comes to the use of life insurance (which has so much more umph than replacing income when youāre young. Iād be shocked if he doesnāt have a boat load of permanent coverage for estate planning / wealth transfer purposes).
Same - even when i was dirt poor, I was always itching to go places. Back then, going to camping trips was like heaven for me. I would like to think my kidsā love for travel comes from me. Our kids have been to 5 continents, and they flew on their first plane when they were infants. We like to stay with relatives and live like the locals and blend in whenever possible. We eat local street food when possible. Now my kids often joked that if we donāt need a passport, itās not a vacation :-).
We went to japan when my D19 was 11 years old, and she was in charge of all the transportation. She was AMAZING at reading the maps, directions of trains and sub-ways in Tokyo. It was such a maze to me I was soooo confused with so many different lines and train routes and most are in Japanese. But some how she figured it all out and plotted out the most efficient way to get from place to place. Her dad gave some feedback here and there but she was literally in charge of where to go and how to get there when we were in Tokyo. We saw so many Americans and they stuck out like a sore thump lol. She helped them reading the train maps. After that trip I knew that I could drop this girl any where in the world and she would make it home okay. Itās no wonder that she wanted to go to CA for college when she had so many great options closer to home. Oh well.
My guess is the first thing our financial divisor is going to do is tell us to ditch most of our life insurance policies. We have term insurance, and the amount of our coverage gets reduced at certain points, and the premiums go up.
We keep it now because DH is still working.
We both got 30 yr level premium term policies around 25 years ago. When they come up for renewal in 5 years, I expect the premium to go up 6-10x, and we will drop them at that point.
I had a small whole life policy, and the insurance portion got so expensive it started eating into the cash value, and I didnāt want to increase what I was paying, so I just cashed it in.
Why is that?
@notrichenough yesā¦that is what we saw with term life insurance as well. We already cancelled one policy, and my employer one ended when I retired. DH has an employer one and a private term life, and I still have one term life. We only keep them now because we still have one kid in school, and DH is not yet retired. But the premiums are getting higher and higher and the coverage is getting lower and lower. Our premiums didnāt doubleā¦but they increased substantially.
At age 70, all of our policies reduce coverage by 1/2, and the premium continues to increaseā¦
We got rid or all life insurance policies but one. And IIRC I believe that included universal life policies too. I think we cashed them out and moved the money elsewhere. We still have one term policy on DH but when it hits its term date we wonāt renew.
I do think Iāll need less in retirement than I take home now even accounting for an increased lifestyle spending on things like travel and eating out and increased medical costs.
So much of my income now goes towards retirement and college savings, the mortgage and childcare. That will all be gone in retirement.
But, you can only plan so much, so Iām just saving as much as I can and will make do with what I end up with when the time comes.
Never did life insurance although while working my employer provided a decent amount with my benefits. Iām not a big believer in it once you have a certain amount in assets (hence self-insured).
Why do your rates/coverage change on term?
I have way more term than I need at this point, but itās only costing me $300/year so Iāll keep it until it runs outā¦I think there is 12 years left.
We had very limited savings not all that long ago. What we had took a huge hit in the late 2000ās - we stayed the course, and those accounts have recovered. As soon as the kids were out of school, we began saving in earnest, and we can now retire with confidence that we will be okay financially. We do not have a pension, but we have a good amount of savings, no debt and minimal āneeds.ā
Does your H have life insurance thru his work? If so, I can understand the pov to drop life insurance.
With stepped-up basis, leaving assets in a taxable account is also tax-free.
Same here. Have a few years left on a 30-year policy and when that hits 30, we will drop it.