<p>Very useful posts here, as always.</p>
<p>My friend will not get any SS, retirement fund or 401 from her husband, she never work at this country. She is now 50. So, I’m curious, if she start working with minimum salary (let’s say US$11.00/hr) for 15 years, how much will she get from SS every month if she wants to retire at 65? I feel so sorry for her. She might only get US$1,500 alimony plus some money maybe US$200,000 from the divorce.</p>
<p>Your friend NEEDS a good divorce attorney. Her job for the 25 years she was married was to run the household. Many courts will award her a significant part of family assets INCLUDING pension and retirement funds accumulated during the marriage, but she needs an advocate who will be sure she gets her proper share. They will also often order the spouse with assets to pay the attorneys fees of the spouse who stayed at home. The divorce may also require H to pay for her to get some vocational training so she can get a job and support her during the transition. Please help her find a GOOD divorce attorney.</p>
<p>[What</a> Every Woman Should Know](<a href=“http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10127.html]What”>http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10127.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>HiMom - yes, she has lawyer. She lives close to me, I’m the one spend time to listen to her. I’m worry about her future and hope I can give her some advise (but since she already has lawyer, I will do my listening part mostly).</p>
<p>You are a good friend to be helping her but these are issues her attorney should also be addressing because rights vary by the state in which the married couple lives. Also check out the post above #123, which talks about how much she MAY be able to recover as a spouse or ex-spouse for her husband’s SS due to his working during their 25 year marriage. The local community colleges may have some suggestions and resources. It can be helpful to work with her to consider her skills and experiences (even as a volunteer) to help figure out what she can do to earn money.</p>
<p>Your local community organizations may also be able to help her acquire some job skills and help her find a job that can use her skills.</p>
<p>I’m with DSTARK: $30,000 in Bay Area is not really doable- under almost any scenario. And $50.00 a day for three is not hard to hit- but than the UC’s charge $11.00 per meal in the dining hall- that’s 33.00 a day for one student. That’s the budget- not including snacks or a coffee break! </p>
<p>And while I may have to be extremely frugal in retirement, I hope I am not in that position. I am certainly not planning on it- not while my kids are whooping it up at college without any student loans, and as a matter of fact on spring break right this minute, in a warm spot, with crystal clear water, floating about with scantily clad women who will most likely never be as beautiful as they are at this time in their lives!</p>
<p>Whether it’s do-able or not and how comfortable/uncomfortable it is, in HI, there are A LOT of families–32.1 to 48.1% of all HI public school kids live in families with two adults and two children where the household income is $27.5K to $39K. That does NOT go far as rents, food and transportation in our state are so high that we and Alaska have perhaps the highest COLA rates in the US.</p>
<p>H & I are doing what we can so we will never find out how comfortable or uncomfortable we would be living on $30K/year or less, except by conscious choice.</p>
<p>At my kids’ campus, meals are also calculated to cost $11 apiece but my kids eat well on much less than that by living in apartments and cooking for themselves, only buying food on campus for a splurge.</p>
<p>Arling, I don’t know how much she would get from SS but I’ve been working for about 15 years and my last projection said something like $1950 or something along those lines. Mind you I am much younger so I don’t know if that works the same way or not. Also, I suggest she get a job for the next 10 years to get 40 quarters in for medicare otherwise she may wind up having to pay quite a bit for it. (not sure if she will qualify under ex husband or not).</p>
<p>You’ve been in the workforce for 15 years already, fendergirl??? Wow!</p>
<p>I believe the divorced spouse is eligible for SS benefits if the ex dies, and possibly if he is disabled, but probably not otherwise. Agree that working is a good idea for the op’s friend, both for income, stability and future benefits.</p>
<p>The SS projection assumes you will be working until retirement, making corresponding contributions, fendergirl, so your projections of a lifetime of decent wages would NOT be representative of which this woman would likely qualify for, even if she were to start working & earn a decent wage today & work until she is able to retire on SS benefits.</p>
<p>The divorce attorney should be able to advise her about any entitlement she may have to her H’s SS benefits as an ex-spouse, as well as any portion of any other assets including retirement benefits, share of the value of their home and savings during their marriage. One of my friends is getting a significant portion of her husband’s retirement benefits, which were awarded as part of the divorce even tho he has only now retired, many years after their divorce. They were married about 15-20 years. She’s very grateful to have that income because she had quit her job many times to relocate for his career and hadn’t built up much seniority or retirement benefits because of that.</p>
<p>Thank you all !</p>
<p>I told my friend no matter what, she should get a job. For pocket money, for insurance, for SS, most important for herself. Get something to do is better than sit at home, alone, unhappy and no sled confidence.</p>
<p>But I have a question, if the ex get marry again, will my friend still get the benefit?</p>
<p>arling, from what I read(Kiplinger’s and such) the answer is yes. As long as the ex-spouse(wife or husband) has been married for at least 10 years. I think this is also from the SS website that I posted in #123. I believe this is designed to protect women who work at home taking care of the family.
And if her ex gets marry again to another woman for at least 10 years, she too will get her SS from his earnings. I think the wifes only get half of the husband earnings.</p>
<p>Your friend needs to get her divorce attorney to be sure she gets EVERYTHING she is entitled to under the law. This may include portions of SS, pension and other benefits as well as assets that they earned while married (income, real estate, etc.) If either or both of them remarry, the divorce decree should still state what is owed to your friend. Some folks are able to remain on medical insurance policies as part of the divorce decree, at least unless and until they get a job that offers health insurance and/or qualify for medicare. The divorce attorney should address this as well. Good luck–your friend is lucky to have you helping her.</p>
<p>HImom - thank you. I will pass your suggestion to her.</p>
<p>I looked at my monthly budget line by line, to spend less is not a big issue on food and clothes. Insurances is a must have, but how about housing? Right now, housing is one of the most expensive part in our budget.
We live in one of the high property tax area, utilities, maintenance… During the winter time, heating bill can easily goes to 500. This year, during the daytime, I was home alone, I will low down the temp and have a portable heater in the room where I stay. Sometimes, I was wondering why we live in a big house but suffer to save some heating bill? Son will go to college this fall, only two persons here, do we need to keep the house? Or, is it a good idea to move to a similar home, townhouse, condo or even rental?
I don’t want to spend my time to clean the house, spend money to maintain it and the high tax when we retired.
Any suggestion?</p>
<p>arling,</p>
<p>My wife’s folks moved out of their house and rented it out, and moved in with their oldest daughter to help her with their mortgage. It worked out well for all involved, actually.</p>
<p>I’m not a huge fan of the idea of keeping a house just to have a house. If you are comfortable with a smaller living situation, I say why not save money? My wife and I sometimes wish we had more space in our little one bedroom co-op, but then again, our bills are cheap and we have made the space really work anyway. </p>
<p>I already hate cleaning a space this big. I can’t imagine what cleaning a whole house will mean for us.</p>
<p>I like having a big house now. Maybe someday when the kids are gone that won’t be the case. </p>
<p>One thought is… the better the weather, the less square footage you really need… since you can spend more time outside. Of course, that does not cover the “clutter factor” that is possible in all climates.</p>
<p>Only the people involved can decide what housing situation will meet their needs (and wants). When we bought our home two decades ago, it was “smallish” but met our needs (and wants) at the time, and continues to meet our needs and wants. Sure, we could have tried to remodel or buy something bigger, but as it turns out we generally all spend most of our time in each others company in the large multi-purpose room rather than our smaller bedrooms anyway. We had a bedroom for ourselves and one for each kid, so that really was enough. Now, we can think of converting one (or both) of the kids’ rooms to studies/offices for us.</p>
<p>We have read of some folks who moved from house to condo/apartment and hated it while others loved it. One of the best suggestions I’ve read is to rent for a prolonged period in the WORST season(s) before making a major move. This way you don’t have to sell your property & move only to try to buy back & move back.</p>
<p>I admire minimalists but don’t feel we are or would like to join their ranks. Costs of maintaining/heating/cooling the house should all be included in the calculation of needs/wants/budget. It is a very complex issue and the answer tends to evolve as the parties’ needs/wants change.</p>
<p>I have several relatives with GORGEOUS, huge homes in very expensive neighborhoods that they live in – alone, now that their kids are grown & out of the nest. It will be interesting to see what they end up doing. Often large homes get filled with stuff from grown “kids” that the kids don’t/can’t move to their new, smaller places so it becomes somewhat of a warehouse rather than an efficient place to live.</p>
<p>When making these calculations one needs to think in terms of ‘real’ rate of return (i.e, percentage return minus inflation rate) and not the nominal rate. Most people would be lucky to get a 3% ‘real’ rate of return over a long period of time. So if you really want to be secure in retirement, then you probably need to build a nest egg equal to 33 times your desired annual income (in current dollar value), and then invest it fairly aggressively (i.e, not all bank CDs). </p>
<p>If you could do that, then you could live indefinitely on your retirement income and upon your death, leave a significant inheritance to your heirs. </p>
<p>So if you are someone like mini who can live on 30K/yr, then you’d want to have about $1million saved away. </p>
<p>If you think you need about 90K/yr, then you probably want about $3 million saved.</p>
<p>vicariousparent,</p>
<p>Exactly. I see way too many people who think that having a million or two stashed away means living like the bee’s knees, but it’s not a lot of money in real terms. For example, I’ll need to have just shy of $8m by the time I retire (hopefully a while from now, mind you), to have a good nest egg. I put most of my money in semi-aggressive mixed funds (mix of types of equities, mostly) and various stocks of my choosing, but I have that luxury at my age. And even with my sort of aggressive strategy, I still barely beat inflation and the market. </p>
<p>It’s always important to consider the time value of money when putting together a portfolio.</p>