<p>I am taking care of my 98 year old mother right now. She was a ball of fire until 94. Then she needed a walker and extensive help. As she approaches 100 she needs more and more help. Thankfully she has her own money to finance all the care she now receives including full time home care. This experience has been such an eye-opener for me. I am working until I am no longer able.</p>
<p>Get long term health care for yourself. The earlier you get it the cheaper it will be, but of course you’ll pay over more years.</p>
<p>I wonder if thoe “breakeven” numbers include the time value of money. My discount rate for future $$$s would be at least 10-15%. I think age takes a slice off life enjoyment every year. Who at 60 feels as good as they did at 50 or 40–not many. I think that grows even faster after 60. At least for most men.</p>
<p>I have read the underlying report ( <a href=“Homepage - Pension Research Council”>Homepage - Pension Research Council) and they do take into account taxes and discount rate. (Although they did not assume a discount rate of anything close to 10-15% which they would point out may be wildly optimistic with most results being significantly lower than this. This certainly could be an area for disagreement with the study, however.)</p>
<p>Note that the study is NOT saying to defer retirement or to go “poor” during the first years of retirement while waiting for SS to kick in. It says that if you use more of your retirement savings up front and then transition to a more heavy weighting of SS later that the net amount that you have to spend during your retirement is greater. This is particularly true when you factor in the impact on marriage and the fact that the surviving spouse can take advantage of the increased SS payments after the death of the worker. (A 65 year-old couple has a greater than 50% chance of at least one partner surviving past 90.) Also of interest is that once you (as the worker) reach full retirement age, it is feasible for you to continue to defer your SS payments (and hence allow them to continue to grow) but at the same time have the spouse of the worker begin receiving her/his 50% portion of the SS payments as soon as the worker reaches full retirement age. That way, a partial SS money stream begins at full retirement age and is then augmented by a much larger stream at age 70. This larger stream would then apply to the surviving spouse should the worker die first.</p>
<p>In the case of dual workers, they would argue that it may make sense for the lower-earning spouse to start early but have the higher-earning spouse delay payments - thus assuring the higher income stream for whichever spouse lives the longest.</p>
<p>I need to look at the study in more detail, but it certainly provides food for thought.</p>