She is eligible to start drawing SS at 62, but her full retirement age is 67. Anything she starts drawing now, either on her own record or on the deceased former spouse's record, will be reduced accordingly. I think at her current age the reduction would be roughly 30 percent. Each month that she waits to draw will increase the amount. If she waits until her full retirement age (67) then she'd be eligible for his full amount. That is assuming he didn't start drawing early, and therefore had a reduced amount himself. I don't know how that would affect things. SS can get very complicated when there are two records to figure out. In this case it's her own and the deceased former spouse's, but the same is true for every married couple. It's a pretty big strategy thing to figure how how to best go about it.

I brought up infrastructure in the other thread, but many ignored it. But it's a massive problem in some areas.

I think it's safe as long as the pipes are drained. Plus there's the added benefit of not having to worry about potential leaks that could be caused by other things besides frozen pipes.

I hate flat rate definitions because there's no nuance. Thirty percent is going to look wildly different depending on individual circumstances. Either of my young adults could pay significantly more than that and be okay. They have no other debt and have good to great benefits through their employers. But for a single young adult with student loans, or a married couple with student loans, two kids in daycare, and who have to cover a lot of their own health insurance/medical costs -- that thirty percent is going to be a mucher harder reach.

Oldest is a high earner. Youngest is 2E (on the spectrum), works full time in a decent but not high paying job and still lives at home. So widely varying circumstances, but still . . neither has a pessimistic attitude about the current state of things in this country.

FWIW, and because we touched on generalizations earlier in this thread -- I have two 20 somethings and neither of them feel or think anything remotely like this, nor do I hear it from any of their friends.

There have been lots of generalizations, and I hate it, and I've engaged in a little of it myself. Of course in my area it's not *only* younger people who are complaining and wanting to keep more developing out, and not *all* older people are welcoming of new development. But overall I do hear more younger people complaining than I do older people. But of course my experience may or may not be an accurate indicator, it's only the perception of one person.

I read the minutes of all local planning and zoning committees (both our little town and the county) and DH and I periodically attend public information meetings. So it's official stuff. The complaints I hear are IRL and on FB. I have close family members who are first responders, so I also get their take on that end of things.

In my area it's the younger, newer people who are the ones doing the complaining! It's not lifelong residents my age (61) or older, it's the younger people who moved here in the last 5-10 years. They moved here because they wanted the lifestyle (and less expensive property taxes and better/safer school system for their kids than in the nearby city) but by golly now they don't want others to have that opportunity. So they say the families who've owned farms here for a century or more and have now decided to retire and sell to a big developer are greedy.

I'm not sure I'm following you? In my area the development is happening and has been for awhile. The infrastructure planning isn't happening, or where it is (mainly road improvement plans) it's moving slower than a snail's pace. And that (IMO) is a valid complaint being made by the people who rant and rave about the "neighborhood character."

I agree we absolutely need more affordable housing options, but I don't think people should be allowed to build willy nilly. Infrastructure (or lack thereof) really, really needs to be taken into consideration. I get tired of the people in my area griping about all the new housing developments going up, but on the infrastructure front they do have valid arguments, IMO. There have to be workable plans for our schools, roads, and fire/LEO/EMS services to keep up with a growing population. Right now schools and the basic public safety services are in pretty dire shape here. The existing schools are bursting at the seams, response times for fire/EMS/LEO are significantly longer than they should be, and the county can't hire enough people to fill existing vacant positions. There are fewer and fewer large(ish) tracts of vacant land, and it's expensive. Where are the schools going to be built to accommodate more students? I don't know the answers to all that, or how to go about planning to meet the needs of more/most people best, but I do know that careful planning is required, and that some areas are dropping the ball on that.

This.

I see a lot of the total opposite in my area (I've lived here all my life). It used to be relatively rural but has become mostly a suburb/bedroom community for the nearby city. And younger people who've moved here in the last 10-15 years or so get very angry when the older person (often a retired farmer) who owns acres and acres of land bordering their property decides to sell. Frequently it's not even a property bordering them, but somewhere they drive by and they find the property attractive as is. The buyer is usually a large housing developer who's going to come in and build relatively high density housing. All they do (this is all on the local FB page) is complain about the pressure those new residents will put on the existing infrastructure and how "greedy" landowners are to sell to a big developer like that, and about the zoning board for allowing it. As far as I can tell the majority of the people complaining seem to be under 50. So older folks seem to be damned if they do and damned if they don't. The thing is -- frustrated people all too often have an overwhelming need to blame someone for the situation. We see that being exploited in politics all the time. It's dangerous and often comes back to "all about me" thinking, and many people really only respect a free market if it's doing what they want it to do. And nothing is ever going to be all things to all people.

This.

I don't think that's ever been particularly true in my area. I'm over 60 and can only remember a very small number (low single digits) of older people who have moved once their kids were grown and gone. I can't think of a single relative on either side of my family who downsized. My parents had a family friend who sold a beautiful older Craftsman style house in a great neighborhood and moved into a seniors type apartment, but I don't really know the particulars of that. I always thought it was due to finances and was a "have to" situation, but I wasn't close enough to her to know for sure. I think it's possible I assumed it was a "have to" situation because it was (to me) such an unusual thing. Not always. Many newer 1600-1800 square feet, one level townhomes here are currently priced more than our well kept, 30 year old, 2200+ square feet house on a nicely landscaped half acre of land in a desirable area would likely sell for. Plus we know our house is well built. We watch these new cookie cutter type townhome developments building units in 30-60 days and it makes one wonder how they'll hold up. The common wisdom here among many older people (which I'm not sure is correct, but is said so often, and often by people who know more than a little about construction, that it does make one wonder) is that that type of construction will be falling apart in ten years. Maybe that's not true, but essentially trading "even Steven" a roomy, well built home with enough outside space for piddling around but that's not overwhelming to maintain for much less space with unknown/questionable quality of construction, and where an HOA is going to dictate what you can/can't do . . that can be a heavy lift for lots of people.

I read the article the same way you did. The only thing that kinda sorta saved it was that it did say (essentially) "but where the heck would they move to, because there's really almost nothing available." That was very slightly redeeming.

Hugs, @TexasProud and @Kassia. Waiting is so hard.

I think I'm missing whatever point you're trying to make here. The people who at least somewhat regularly do work for us--the ladies who cut our hair, our dog groomer, our "mow man," plumber, etc.--all own their businesses and have full control over the fees they charge. Why would we automatically give them a percentage of our earnings or windfalls? Do Toyota, Ford or Apple do that with their parts suppliers, who are also independent businesses that have full control over their pricing? Has anyone in this thread suggested that they should? I don't see how this pertains to the conversation of fairly compensating employees. But I'm not a business person or economist or anything of the sort, so perhaps I'm really just not understanding something?

The forum that I belong to that has the option of hiding threads is one devoted to serious medical conditions. Death is frequently discussed, and some people find that upsetting and don’t want to see those threads, even the thread titles. Plus it’s a very busy forum where many people are in need of complicated and sometimes very time critical advice. So it allows members to hide threads they don’t want to read or can’t offer advice for, which enables them to easier hone in on ones where they can be helpful. That obviously doesn’t really apply here, but for that forum it is a very useful feature.

I think what you're asking is if there's a way to hide a thread so that you no longer see it? I'm on another board where that is an option, but I don't think it is here.

I would.

I had two. The second one was a replacement for the first one, which died under warranty. The second one didn’t last much longer than the first.

I ordered a Stanley insulated travel mug a week or so ago. Not the huge, jug like ones everybody's nuts about, this one is 16 oz. and straight up and down. It seems to be an imitation of my beloved Contigo AutoSeal. I only bought it because it was on sale at a good price, and there are people who claim they're easier to wash than the Contigo (which--I've never understood why people seem to think those are hard to clean because they're not, but . . whatever). I figured I can always use an extra insulated coffee mug. If it's not as good as my beloved Contigo for coffee it will still be at least adequate for water, I guess. I give not even the teeniest fraction of a fig about being "in" or not.

I think back in the old days almost everyone got checks from their own bank. Nowadays there are a zillion places where one can have checks printed, and I'm guessing it's possible to find one that just requires the routing and account numbers, maybe not an actual voided check. So I think it would be a lot easier nowadays for someone to have checks printed for an account other than their own. Also it seems to me it wouldn't take a ton of info to set up a Venmo or Zell or similar account. Those things didn't use to exist.

DH and I were boosted in early November. As far as I know we've never had Covid. Our overall exposure is likely considered low compared to many on here, but for the most part we haven't been masking, and we go out to eat at least a couple of times a week. We know a couple who both had Covid a couple of weeks before Christmas. I don't know their vaccine status, other than at least one of them was getting vaccinated earlier in the pandemic. Their adult DD who lives with them and who I'm guessing is very up to date on boosters (she has an advanced degree and a job in a public health related field) didn't get it.