Azalea
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Posts posted by Azalea
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My thoughts are with you Rosie, many hugs.
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Thank you for posting. I needed that today.
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Isn't it silly that my filter won't let that site through? It allows through plenty of things it really shouldn't. I'd like to see the pictures, so I will find a work around, I need a new hairdo, I'm 51.
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My parental control filter thingy won't let me access the sites Scarlett linked! Are you guys being naughty?
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I agree that funding 401K plans is no guarantee of financial success. Some of the funds offered through 401Ks have ridiculous fees attached. Why are the employers not simply giving us the option to invest in Vanguard index fund or an equivalent fund with very low costs? It's borderline criminal.
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I am somewhat distressed by the lack of understanding reflected in this statement. This is not how investments over time work. The proper comparison is, more or less, "How much of an annuity could I buy at retirement if, instead of contributing to to Social Security over my working life, I invested my employee and employer share of the taxes?" Here's a thorough article on the subject. From the introduction:
If workers who retired in 2011 had been allowed to invest the employee half of the Social Security payroll tax over their working lifetime, they would retire with more income than if they relied on Social Security. Indeed, even in the worst-case scenario—a low-wage worker who invested entirely in bonds—the benefits from private investment would equal those from traditional Social Security.
The contributions you put in at the beginning of your working life are worth far, far more at the end of your working life than their nominal value. This is a good summary of how powerful those early contributions can be. An excerpt:
"The chart detailed how a 15-year-old teenager can save just $2,000 a year for 7 years. Then, never saving another penny again, the money can grow to be $1,000,000 at 65."
I recognize that Social Security provides some benefits that private investment does not, but the vast majority of us are relying on it to fund our retirements. It's naive to say that we come out ahead in that department because the unadjusted dollar amount of contributions is less than the unadjusted dollar amount of your expected payout.
Sorry to distress you. The biggest benefit I may ever receive from Social Security (and Medicare and Medicaid) is that I am not having to pay to support my parents, MIL, and disabled sister-in-law. My family would be expected to provide for all those people and it simply wouldn't be possible. Frankly, some of these people would probably be dead if their medical expenses weren't paid for by Medicare and there weren't laws requiring care to be provided. Because the government provides for all these people, I am able to save money for my own retirement and for the education of my children.
Medicare and Social Security: What You Paid Compared with What You Get
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i agree. But yet, social security has no problem telling me that we will not get the full amount of money we put in. that there will not be enough social security to go around. that we must have other options cause the money wont be there. i remind my mil every time she gets up in arms over any changes to her benefits that not making changes means more money that is forcibly taken from her son and family and less money that will come back to us ever. there is going to be a generation that will suffer. I'm afraid it is going to be us. Unable to collect what we put in, unable to save for retirement or have it lost to the economy crashes, all we can do is say go ahead and screw us since we are already screwed. Maybe our kids will get a break if we go ahead and take the bullet. The babyboomers certainly aren't going to. And given their numbers, they continue to vote in ways that protects them and continues to make it harder for us. i have no expectations that my old age will be anything other than a daily grind. no fancy rv, no touring, no cruises a few times a year, no travelling all around. just the same trying to make ends meet as the early years, the middle years, the now years.......it is hopeless to think about.
Why do you think Social Security is telling you that you will not get the amount of money you put in?
Currently the SS cut off is $118,500, with 6.2% paid by employee and another 6.2% paid by the employer. So the maximum you can pay in per year is $7347 by employee and $7347 by employer for a total of $14,694. Regular folks can expect to receive $15,000 to $30,000 per year from SSI when they retire.
So if you make $100,000 per year for 40 years, you will pay in $248,000 and your employer pays in another $248,000. You retire and with that high of a salary get $30,000 per year from SSI (estimated), you live another 25 years and receive $750,000 in total SSI payments, which is more than you and your employer put in. For your payments in you've gotten a lot more than a reasonable retirement, you also get disability insurance for you and your loved ones if it is needed, and you get to live in a country where our elderly aren't dying in the streets of starvation.
If SSI needs more funding it isn't that hard. Raise or eliminate the cut off, increase the percentage paid, or increase the age of retirement. Or maybe a little tax on stock and bond transactions.
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I increased the investment total to $300,000 and the success rate was 98.3%.
FIRECalc ResultsYour spending in every year after the first year will be adjusted for inflation, so the spending power is preserved.
FIRECalc looked at the 120 possible 25 year periods in the available data, starting with a portfolio of $300,000 and spending your specified amounts each year thereafter.
Here is how your portfolio would have fared in each of the 120 cycles. The lowest and highest portfolio balance at the end of your retirement was $-15,917 to $1,499,579, with an average at the end of $515,478. (Note: this is looking at all the possible periods; values are in terms of the dollars as of the beginning of the retirement period for each cycle.)
For our purposes, failure means the portfolio was depleted before the end of the 25 years. FIRECalc found that 2 cycles failed, for a success rate of 98.3%.
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For example, let's say a couple is getting $2,000 a month from SSI, $24k a year, but needs another $12,000 for a total of $36,000 per year to get by. They have investments of $250,000 and plan to live another 25 years. They are invested 75% in stock fund, 25% in bond fund. Here is what Firecalc returns on that experiment (fancy graph left out):
FIRECalc Results
Your spending in every year after the first year will be adjusted for inflation, so the spending power is preserved.
FIRECalc looked at the 120 possible 25 year periods in the available data, starting with a portfolio of $250,000 and spending your specified amounts each year thereafter.
Here is how your portfolio would have fared in each of the 120 cycles. The lowest and highest portfolio balance at the end of your retirement was $-160,840 to $1,115,548, with an average at the end of $312,303. (Note: this is looking at all the possible periods; values are in terms of the dollars as of the beginning of the retirement period for each cycle.)
For our purposes, failure means the portfolio was depleted before the end of the 25 years. FIRECalc found that 20 cycles failed, for a success rate of 83.3%.
A success rate of 83.3% isn't too bad. Let me do a bit more experimenting...
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Are you expecting Social Security to be completely gone by the time you retire? On current projections, Husband and I will get around USD 15,000 a year from the UK government. I will get another 7,000 in work pension. With a paid off small house and just one small car, we won't need millions more.
I agree with you and fully expect Social Security to be there when I retire. Firecalc can take SSI into considerations in its calculations, if you go beyond the simple calculator on the first page of the website. Or using the simple calculator you could enter only the amount you need above and beyond SSI.
I guess the yearly expenses times 25 mostly pertains to those planning to retire early, and who follow the 4% rule. Which means only withdrawing from investments 4% each year, which is what is recommended.
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All of this is my humble opinion. First don't despair, it might not be as bad as you think.
Read the Boglehead books on Retirement and Investing. There is also a Boglehead's forum. Bogleheads are investors who follow the advice of John Bogle who founded Vanguard Funds. Vanguard is the place to buy Total Stock Market (and Bond Market) Index Funds, while paying the lowest amount in management fees.
From the books you will learn to take into consideration that you may have several streams of income in retirement. Social security, investments, house you can downsize from, part-time work, etc. Go to the Social Security website and find out how much you can expect to receive, it may be more than you think! I know I was surprised.
Then think of just how much more frugally you can live when you are retired. I don't believe that I will need anywhere near the 70% of current income that is often stated.
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What multiple of your current salary in 401k and IRA money do you (generic you, not asking specific person I quoted) consider 'enough' to 'be fine' to retire on for at least a couple of decades? Please help me with some realistic math, if your number seems low to me.
Take your expected living expenses at time of retirement, say $50,000, multiply by 25, so 1.25 million. That is what you need to have saved for retirement. This is according to Mr. Money Mustache, I'm pretty sure just started perusing his site.
Firecalc.com is a fascinating site which you can use to run projections. Love, love, love Firecalc
Do think about how much your expenses will change in retirement. Some things we can't plan for, but many we can. I probably will only be feeding two people, who will eat less and I will have a paid off house, things like that, so I will need far less in retirement than I do now.
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Clark Howard often discusses how to reduce funeral costs. http://www.clarkhoward.com/plan-for-your-funeral-in-advance-to-save-big-bucks
Remember not to pre-pay anything...
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Yes, it's truly sickening what they think we can afford.
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Arctic Mama, It only takes a moment of Googling to find out RCP leans conservative. I am always hoping to find something unbiased but I don't think it exists.
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NPR and New York Times are liberal. My favorite place to go for news is Real Clear World or Real Clear Politics (diff tabs on same site). It gives a sampling of articles from different sources. It's fascinating to read the NYT take on a story vs Washington Times. It's helpful to read both sides to see which bits of data sway each side and also to try to get a clearer picture of what is going on.
The founder of Real Clear Politics claims that the site is conservative:
From wiki:
The web site was founded in 2000 by McIntyre, a former trader at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and Bevan, a former advertising agency account executive.[4]
Philosophy[edit]In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, McIntyre said, "We're trying to pull together the best political stories, op-eds, news analyses, editorials out there. The proliferation of content is enormous. Part of what we're trying to do is distill it in a clear, simple way for people who don't have hours to spend searching the Net".[12] He told the Chicago Sun-Times that RealClearPolitics strives to feature "serious intellectual pieces" and that they're "not looking for the over-the-top, vitriolic, red-meat craziness on either side".[13]
Patrick Stack of Time magazine has described the site's commentary section as "right-leaning".[14] The site has been described as being run by conservatives, and containing "opinion pieces from multiple media sources".[15] In 2009 RealClearPolitics was described as a weblog "in the conservative pantheon" by Richard Davis.[16][17]
In an interview with the conservative magazine Human Events, McIntyre described the philosophy behind the Web site as based on "freedom" and "common-sense values". Said Bevan, "We think debate on the issues is a very important thing. We post a variety of opinions". He further stated, "we have a frustration all conservatives have", which is "the bias in media against conservatives, religious conservatives, [and] Christian conservatives".[3]
In a 2001 article for Princeton Alumni Weekly, which noted that "The articles selected invariably demonstrate McIntyre and Bevan's political bent, about which they are unabashedly forthcoming." McIntyre said, "I'm not really a die-hard Republican because my interests are less on social issues, more on taxing and spending...But I definitely don't want the government telling me what to do with my property...Nevertheless, any political junkie—even a liberal—would enjoy our site because the topics we choose are current."[18]
RealClearPolitics was listed among conservative political weblogs in a 2005 conference paper on mapping the political blogosphere by Robert Ackland of the Australian Centre for Social Research.[19]
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My husband brought to my attention that some of these stories are misrepresenting what and how this happened and who holds the blame, as well as how to deal with it. I'd had some misunderstandings on this point and where the communication breakdown occurred as well, so we were glad to see this story explained much more clearly:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/flint-was-hit-by-a-perfect-storm-of-mistakes-1453499906
One of the main issues was that water was tested at the source and after treatment at the plant. Not out of the taps. So it was easy to miss this issue for awhile given that the plant tested samples were within allowable ranges of acidity and corrosiveness. The slow response after this became known seems to be the city refusing to talk to the state as the takeover and budget woes continued, and that is the more problematic link in the chain of culpability, in my mind.
Arctic Mama, I am unable to read the WSJ article as I don't have a subscription. I think WSJ leans conservative. Here's a left wing source http://www.occupydemocrats.com/newly-leaked-emails-indicate-michigan-republicans-didnt-poison-water-to-save-money-2/ it's very brief. It suggests that this debacle may stem from republicans desire to privatize The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.
I think that this tragedy might be very interesting to follow as a study in how the right and the left present the facts.
Who do you all think are the most objective sources? I would say NPR or The New York Times, but I know conservatives think those sources are liberal.
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-So Shire and Oregon look at the lit and come to the same conclusions. Either way, the best spin only shows half the studies as showing ANY benefit and the other half have no benefits or worse.
49 minutes in. I will not die. Don't worry, he would NEVER cherry pick his data, he assures us.
-Now see, this is interesting. The whole mental illness issue is complicated. To have that discussion though about whether ritalin is playing a role, that's interesting.
-Hurray, 52 minutes in and we have clapping. Now for Q&A. How nice to hear Sroufe pronounced. Quite the name! But back to this stupid argument that not changing something over a population means we shouldn't act for the individual.
-See, this makes sense. When he says pharma + psychs are in business to spin it as deficiency so they can pan the drugs. That makes sense.
-But look how blanket this is. No discussion, on his part, of whether some situations outweigh others. It's SO EASY to have these sort of absolute convictions and say oh it's causing harm, without looking at the situations where the child is experiencing ACTUAL HARM *not* having the meds.
-Hurray. Now we know that schizophrenia, ADHD, everybody is actually better off WITHOUT meds over the long haul. Don't look at anyone in your family who got meds and is BETTER for it, like life-alteringly better. Because he read a study that said for a population schizo drugs aren't necessary. Your relatives are just on unnecessary meds and being harmed.
Can we NOT have some common sense and distinguish things???
Ok, it's about to end. Let's ponder implications.
You might want to watch the video again. The speaker asserts that Shire and Oregon came to different conclusions.
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I know many of the posters haven't had time to watch the video. I encourage watching it. The speaker simply states the findings of research done on the outcomes of using ADHD medications, without a lot of opinion. There have been no long term studies that point to positive outcomes. There are negative consequences. He does address the two studies that state some positive outcomes and explains the failings of those studies. It is worth the time to watch, thanks OP for posting.
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Congratulations!!!
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We have several of Cal Newports books, and I follow his blog as well.
For me, Facebook is great for professional networking, nice we have a family crises going on where I need to upload folks quickly, and the rest is mostly meh. So many organizations use it now for updates and networking that many of us find it useful even if we don't like it in general. The group email lists that I used to subscribe to have largely moved to Facebook.
But I frankly don't care what you make your family for dinner, how much you love your kids, or what you're going to watch on TV tonight. Sorry. :crying:
So I mostly check Facebook once a day and have it organized so that I can zip through and move on.
Professionally, I think it's very valuable to work out what you're truly good at and enjoy, and put your efforts towards that. Setting prioritized goals is very important. I write up weekly goals every Sunday and use that to guide my week.
Of course life sometimes derails that. The number of urgent interruptions outside of work that I've been juggling over the last six months is killing me, and there's really not a lot I can do about that most of the time. There are some calls and emails that you just can't schedule.
But I do like the use of a timer during periods when I can truly ignore email and the phone. I find that I can be very, very productive in 30 minutes if everything else is screened out and then I can go put in a load of laundry or meet the carpool or whatever.
I'll probably wait on his latest book until the library get it, but we busy people need all of the help we can get!
Would you elaborate on how you have organized Facebook? How, why and when Facebook posts to my Timeline is a great mystery to me.
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I agree, I want one too!
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Just saw this, thinking good thoughts for you...
Health care crisis in action
in The Chat Board
Posted
I'm not willing to riot, but I'm ready to march, where's my sign?