I prefer not to live in the land of magical thinking. I believe it is prudent to prepare for a worst case scenario - no Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. To do otherwise would be foolish, IMHO.
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Nope! Also note âalmost everyoneâ indicates a majority - so Iâll stick with planning for the worst but clinging to any hope for the best.
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The worst case is so bad though. Bad markets, long term health conditions, loss of government safety net and programs I paid into. For others itâs the chance of pensions being underfunded⊠There is no end to how bad things could go, especially with the current direction of our government. We canât plan for all or it.
It definitely feels harder than where is my next paycheck coming from.
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Reminder that this thread is in the cafe, not the political forum. TIA!
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Years ago, pensions âunderfundedâ by actually having so much on the actual company stock that when the company went bankrupt people lost their pension. Laws were enacted - when DH worked for Motorola in the mid-1990âs, he was limited to invest 25% in Motorola stock. So the shift has been to 401k and SAR/SEP and IRAs with many controlling their own funds. Of course not doing well with market choices or being too conservative and not gaining the growth with âtime value of moneyâ.
One can only take care of oneâs health as best one can. Cannot help oneâs own genetics, and accidents do happen.
People can âplanâ or âworryâ about government safety nets and government programs in place, Medicare, SS, Medicaid.
One can save up as best one can, make the best choices one can make.
Some people think of plan B if XYZ happens - like a little part-time work as semi-retired, ways to get reasonable health coverage until Medicare age, etc. I have two friends that are financially doing OK after horrible divorce situations where they both had to get out - and each owns their own smaller place, both will work longer - but the 67 YO has flexible hours and the job is low stress for her, so she can live her life well considering the circumstances. The other is younger and has ability to work longer in less physical job (with PhD in nursing).
As everyone else, we would be spending down our nest egg w/o SS and w/o Medicare. Opinions on that would be in another forum.
In my experience, PT work usually doesnât come with benefits. At my company, you need to work at least 32 hours to get benefits, which isnât part time enough in my opinion. Would love to hear from others if that is not the case.
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Same here. 32 hours or no benefits.
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30 hours/week in some jobs - engineering and nursing in our area for example. The point was PT work to supplement. My friend who is over 65 works as many hours as she desires, as I did in nursing. The point was on options when one is young enough to still be able to do things and has the desire to have adequate financial resources.
Plan A is oneâs choice - but sometimes one is not able to stay on plan A for whatever reasons.
In nursing, I worked enough hours to qualify for insurance, and it saved us $1,000/month from what we would have needed to pay for COBRA health insurance (same coverage/benefits). Many companies pay 75% of employee group health insurance, which was the case for DH and me. We had his employer health insurance through the years and found me carrying full secondary insurance in earlier years of employment was not necessary. In my case, I did retire at 65 from my âsunset careerâ (worked 4 1/2 years after 18 years out of the work force) and my DH was already 65. We had enough of a nest egg - and that is why DH did retire at 64 1/2 - he was ready for happiness that his job did not bring him, and he was happy with our nest egg.
It was suggested I repost this here for the more financially savvy. Thanks in advance for any advice!
Wondering if anyone knows how and if this can be fixed. See my rant below.
Long story short, the bank person on the phone - after a lot of going back and forth about where to send me, came back on the phone and said everything would be taken care of all by itself today. Well later I got a notification that I was credited $0.10 to my savings. Nothing in the IRA changed until tonight. It now shows they debited $3.90 from the IRA - the amount of the check they cut to morgan Stanley last Wednesday - but they gave the dime to ME - not to my traditional IRA with Morgan Stanley. Omg. I donât even know where the dime came from. The $3.90 was supposed to be the interest from the time it closed to the day he cut me the check.
Is this something that can even be fixed? Should I even bother? I know itâs a dime, but Iâm so freaking paranoid. I donât know if I should go down there again or what. Or is there a chance this could magically correct itself overnight? I am sooooo irritated with this.
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I think this might affect some people on this thread (in a positive way). âWEP impacted workers who received pension benefits from work where Social Security taxes were not withheld, resulting in smaller retirement benefits. GPO covered individuals with public pensions from jobs that didnât take out Social Security taxes who lost access to their spouseâs Social Security benefits, including deceased and ex-spouses. SSA started its âaggressiveâ retroactive repayment plans last month. Those benefiting from the new law include some teachers, firefighters and police officers in many states, federal employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System and people whose work has been covered by a foreign social security system.â
âThe agencyâs original estimate of taking a year or more now will only apply to complex cases that cannot be processed by automation. The American people deserve to get their due benefits as quickly as possible,â said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security."
Higher Social Security payments, back pay for 3.2 million people: Who qualifies? - al.com
This has been talked about here before and does affect some who are frequent posters on this thread.
Iâm going to disagree with the word âaggressiveâ and wonder why it was put in italics. It was a bipartisan effort by both partyâs of congress. Itâs been very popular.
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The writer of the article put it in there - and then the article explained how most will get handled with automation to have it enacted ASAP.
Well Iâm at the bank now. Told the guy it was still not correct. He replied he checked this morning and said it was correct. I said they put the $0.10 into my savings. He says âwhat did you want me to do with it?â Youâre the bank! You fix this so itâs right!
So now Iâm waiting for them to cut Morgan Stanley a check for $0.10. I told him I want a letter from him detailing what was done for my tax folder. He said âwhy? This happens all the time?â Really? Maybe so, but I want one. I have my own timeline and he did send me an email after the first goof saying it was 100% his fault at least.
Iâve been with this bank for over 30 years and H for 45. Itâs the one where our paychecks go to pay all the bills. Iâd rather not get so angry that I feel the need to leave, but Iâm getting close.
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Did all of the money make it to the new IRA except the $0.10? Then I wouldnât worry about it.
Even if itâs an âearly withdrawalâ at worst youâre paying an extra 10% tax on your 10 cents. And if you try to enter this in a tax program it would get rounded down to zero anyway.
For future reference, you donât have to do a company to company transfer when moving an IRA. You can just withdraw the money and then you have 60 days to roll it over yourself.
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Under the ACA 30 hours a week is full time and the company must provide benefits.
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They were originally $3.90 short. Then the second time they were $0.10 short. I wondered about the rounding, but I just want everything to balance. They could have kept the stupid $4.00 for all I cared! Just make it go awayâŠ
Hopefully this is it! I only have 2 accounts now. I ainât touching them.
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I received an email from SSA stating that my retroactive lump-sum benefit should arrive this month, and my newly adjusted monthly benefit should start in April.
oopsâŠ
EDIT: I didnât receive this info from SSA, but from Social Security Fairness, an advocacy group that lobbied to get GPO/WEP repealed.
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