I tried to do savings bonds for the next generation of nieces and nephews and found it very challenging. I gave up and sent checks. If I recall paper Savings Bonds are now only available to those who have a federal tax refund.
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Apparently there are even 529 gift cards now. I am wary of gift cards, as you hear stories of the balance being wiped. It happened to me once with a Saks gift card, so I try to avoid purchasing them, but it could be an option for a family member. Just hold onto the receipt!
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I thought this was interesting, and it gave some budget breakdowns on spending assumptions/averages:
How long will $1 million in retirement last you in Alabama? - al.com
It actually goes to how you will spend down your money in any state.
In health care costs, we spend the most with what the insurance costs, and then a bit more with name brand medication (but that might change with the medication limitation with Medicare that I believe will be out 2025?) I can venture to say we probably spend that amount for the 2 of us in AL (the break down amount for health care cost).
These sorts of figures scared a relative of mine even though they had several million dollars because they feared that needing lots of care for many years would make them burn through their money. But the fact was that at that level , woth the investments they had which grew and the tax benefits ( deductions) of very expensive care setting off some of the tax burden from their investments, their assets remained stable despite a decade of care.
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We are living as well as we did when we had our last working income - that is because we had built up the 401k, the Roth, had a financial advisor that helped with consolidating our loose ends (SAR-SEP, IRAs, etc.) We still manage DHâs 401k (our largest asset) because we have good investment choices (stock funds that are professionally managed funds with excellent Morningstar ratings and excellent returns - of course based on how well stocks are doing) and low fees (we are under his former employerâs Prudential account) - they have now rolled it under another retirement plan company âEmpowerâ, but we have the same or similar investment choices. We have these 401k monies in three investment choices now. But when it has made sense to purchase annuities (and lower our overall portfolio risk because our 401k does grow to be very large), we do so.
DH looks at our monthly balance sheet (our financial advisor has the software and we can enter/change amounts that are not linked), and prints it out for us. DH is understanding more and more about how this all has worked for us, and he has appreciated my expertise in everything I had done with our financial picture/investments. I was the one that found our financial advisor to assist in lowering our financial risk (we now have annuities through our FA, and he was expert in finding the right annuity at various times) â neither DH nor I have pensions.
We are slowly educating DD2 more on investments, 401k, etc. When DD2 is home soon, I will sit down with her and show her how to analyze the choices she has with her 401k choices. The engineers she works with are like her - they are smart in their engineering work, but they havenât had the time or guidance on how to analyze the choices/returns/risks.
In early years, I think its is important to be diversified. (Donât have 100% of your 401k invested in employer stock; I know somebody who did that⊠for 30 years). And donât be afraid to have a large portion in stock funds, even though there will be times that the balance declines.
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I never understand in these articles if these amounts are per household or per person.
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Good point. Wowser, at $1.9 million, Iâd hope theyâd mean per couple (and still a ton of money! rarely achieved - maybe they mean their average investor).
â A recent survey by Schwab Retirement Plan Services stated the average American should have about $1.9 million stashed away to retire comfortably. Which is not good, since the average amount Americans have saved between 55 and 65 is a little less than $200,000â.
Also as weâve said many times here (just repeating for the newbies), whenever you try to set a retirement savings target there are a ton of factors - Retirement age? Pension? Retirement healthcare benefits? SS? Debt? Is 401k money taxable or roth? lifestyle priorities? etc etc.
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I totally agree - A few specify, but most leave me wondering - Itâs frustrating.
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Hereâs an alternative approach to making retirement affordable: geoarbitrage.
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Heh. S2 did that at age 26. Much less expensive place to live!
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Legally cannot do that now - when DH worked for Motorola (1995-time frame), the most one could have in Motorola stock was 25% by law.
That law was the result of people losing 401k/investment with company they worked for when there was bankruptcy.
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One thing I will say about geoarbitrage is that one can do a lot of it in the US. Even in MA, while much (but not all) of the Boston metropolitan area is expensive and the Berkshires are expensive, there are parts of the middle of the state that are a lot less so.
And, Iâm pretty sure big parts of New Mexico and West Virginia are pretty inexpensive places to live.
The question is whether the reason the costs are low in those area exactly the reasons you would not want to live there (crime, schools, access to health care, etc.). In some cases yes and probably in some cases the reasons are different.
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My brother and I inherited property in Croatia. Itâs a beautiful property on the Adriatic Sea. The paperwork necessary to claim that property was unbelievable. My brother eventually hired lawyers in Croatia to help. I gave up and told my brother he could have my share of the property because I felt like we were just wasting money and not getting anywhere. My brother passed away last yearâfour years after he started the process of claiming the property and he still didnât have ownership. Long story shortâI wouldnât move to another country if I had to deal with bureaucratic issues like this. Life is too short.
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Croatia is on my bucket list - the next cruise I want to take will hit several ports there.
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We had a wonderful family holiday there. The coastline is beautiful. But, I believe @Bromfield2 that it would be a hard place to own a property in absentia.
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The stock market just continues to go up. A coworker of mine who is 56 so a few years older than myself had taken some money off the table back in early January is kicking himself a little.
I had told myself that I would reset when the markets got back to 2021 highs, but I didnât make a move. Happy I didnât but just not sure when. I have been the epitome of a buy & hold investor.
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Took a voluntary severance package, about to take an increased interest in this thread now, if nothing else, to try and stay off the politics forum. D24 is heading off and still need to plan for S31. This is likely a pause rather than the end of my working days. Just finished the book Die with Zero and highly recommend it as a counter point to every retirement book regurgitating skipping starbucks and trying to rationalize the roth vs 401k coinflip for the 100th time.
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Welcome!
Thanks for the book suggestion. My H is considering a voluntary severance package at this moment. He can get stuck in running possible future scenarios and I get it - sort of. Iâm much more interested in not spending life worrying about if and when Iâm 90.
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