s/o Retirement poll--how much is enough?

[nevergiveup]

How do you determine how much is enough for retirement?

How do you determine a health care plan?

Husband is getting near and we have done some of the online calculators, but it still makes me nervous.

[Pawz4me]

It's going to vary a lot depending on the cost of living in your area, how much debt you carry going into retirement, what your desired lifestyle is, what type of retirement benefits you have (health insurance, pension, etc.) and how much SS you expect to receive.

 

Health insurance will be the big question mark for us.  DH hopes to retire around 60, and I'll be around 58.  So we'll need to provide full health insurance for ourselves for several years before we'll be eligible for Medicare.

[Sarah CB]

We saw a financial planner through our bank (free) a number of years ago to go over what we needed to be putting away and what we could expect later.  This year, we went to another financial planner and got an updated plan.  I think it would be worth talking to an expert.  It's something that is so variable.  

[creekland]

For us so much depends upon the economy and our parents/kids.  We want to travel, so health will likely factor in there some too (can we travel the way we like to, and for how long?).

 

It'd be easier to calculate for our beach bum option as costs would be more fixed there.

 

Right now I'm settling with "we don't have enough" and we'll re-evaluate in about 6 - 8 years.  Hubby just turned 50 anyway, so we'd both be pretty young for retirement at this point (not in attitude if we could travel, but in number of years we could need to pay for).

 

In 6-8 years we'll decide between retirement, beach bum, or continuing to work with more travel added in.  We'll know quite a bit more about parents by then I suspect.  The economy will remain variable.  It's what it does.  We'll have to take our best guess on that.

 

In general, we want enough to buy a condo (that we might rent when we're not home) and living expenses for the number of years we plan to be alive - plus a little extra for unknowns.

[Kari C in SC]

It's going to vary a lot depending on the cost of living in your area, how much debt you carry going into retirement, what your desired lifestyle is, what type of retirement benefits you have (health insurance, pension, etc.) and how much SS you expect to receive.

 

Health insurance will be the big question mark for us. DH hopes to retire around 60, and I'll be around 58. So we'll need to provide full health insurance for ourselves for several years before we'll be eligible for Medicare.

Health care is the million dollar question for us too. I can estimate and plan and pay down rental house debt and crunch numbers, but I do not have a crystal ball as to how health insurance rates, plans, etc will be at the point that we think dh can retire. We are about 8 years out and I hope that things get clearer as time goes on.

[JumpyTheFrog]

Look into Monte Carlo simulators for retirement.

[Guest]

My husband is a wiz at this stuff, but his work also provided financial and estate planning through Fidelity as part of their portfolio management, and the planner confirmed what we already planned and we're working toward. The calculator posted on the other retirement thread is a good one. We put aside whatever our employer matches now, and wanted to have 100k put away by the time hubby was 30. We met and exceeded that, and now have about triple his current salary in savings at 37 and 29 years old. We have plenty of time, Lord willing, to save more. We also have additional assets and accounts that we can monetize now or in retirement as needed.

 

It's enough. We wouldn't add much more to retirement if the employer wasn't still matching, because there is enough invested that the returns on investment are growing it at our target rate without any additional income from us, but it's free money and would be dumb to not to take advantage of :)

 

I was so happy my husband had a solid financial plan before we married and half a decade of retirement savings already. I have done little to hell but consent to his budget and plans. He was raised with good financial hygiene and knew this was important, and so was I. I just hitched myself up to his good sense and planning ;)

 

Healthcare for us is the Gold level CHM plan and a health savings account with it. That gives us a fair bit of rate predictability, and we have catastrophic coverage with them, too, which has no lifetime or age limit.

[nevergiveup]

My husband is a wiz at this stuff, but his work also provided financial and estate planning through Fidelity as part of their portfolio management, and the planner confirmed what we already planned and we're working toward. The calculator posted on the other retirement thread is a good one. We put aside whatever our employer matches now, and wanted to have 100k put away by the time hubby was 30. We met and exceeded that, and now have about triple his current salary in savings at 37 and 29 years old. We have plenty of time, Lord willing, to save more. We also have additional assets and accounts that we can monetize now or in retirement as needed.

 

It's enough. We wouldn't add much more to retirement if the employer wasn't still matching, because there is enough invested that the returns on investment are growing it at our target rate without any additional income from us, but it's free money and would be dumb to not to take advantage of :)

 

I was so happy my husband had a solid financial plan before we married and half a decade of retirement savings already. I have done little to hell but consent to his budget and plans. He was raised with good financial hygiene and knew this was important, and so was I. I just hitched myself up to his good sense and planning ;)

 

Healthcare for us is the Gold level CHM plan and a health savings account with it. That gives us a fair bit of rate predictability, and we have catastrophic coverage with them, too, which has no lifetime or age limit.

Except when it doesn't (bolded)--we saw my husband's 401K lose half of its value.

It took YEARS to recover.

[creekland]

Except when it doesn't (bolded)--we saw my husband's 401K lose half of its value.

It took YEARS to recover.

 

We lost a TON in the economic downturn.  Only some has recovered.  Some never will.

 

We'd have done tons better putting cash in a mattress, but then there would have been the worry that the house would burn down (sigh).

 

Fortunately, my kids were able to get into great colleges that helped with need-based aid, as esp with oldest, we were VERY needy at the time.  Fortunately, our income has recovered a bit since, but what we lost... (sigh)

 

Once we finish college bills for the three of them I plan to donate annually to each of their three colleges - my way of continued thanks and hopes to assist others coming after us.

[The Girls' Mom]

We lost a TON in the economic downturn.  Only some has recovered.  Some never will.

 

We'd have done tons better putting cash in a mattress, but then there would have been the worry that the house would burn down (sigh).

 

Fortunately, my kids were able to get into great colleges that helped with need-based aid, as esp with oldest, we were VERY needy at the time.  Fortunately, our income has recovered a bit since, but what we lost... (sigh)

 

Once we finish college bills for the three of them I plan to donate annually to each of their three colleges - my way of continued thanks and hopes to assist others coming after us.

 

Same here.  Our 401K tanked.  

 

Yet, we are playing the same game again.  Fun times.

[Pawz4me]

We didn't lose a ton in the downturn, and what we did lose we regained relatively quickly (thank you, Stewart our investment adviser!).  But even though we're fairly close to retirement and theoretically could have stopped saving years ago and just let our investments work for us . . . we didn't, and we won't.  We'd never consider that.  We will continue saving for retirement until the day DH retires. ;)  Even though that's probably only six or so years away, even that "close" things are still estimates.  No one really knows how inflation, etc., will affect things.  Unless someone was Bill Gates or Warren Buffet wealthy, I wouldn't advise stopping saving.

[marbel]

Same here.  Our 401K tanked.  

 

Yet, we are playing the same game again.  Fun times.

 

Yep, here's another one.   We lost a lot too.   We were well ahead and felt like we were doing all the right things.  We will never fully recover - there is simply not enough time.

[Jane in NC]

We came out of the downturn not only recovering losses but ahead of the game. Again, plain dumb luck.

 

Healthcare is *the* issue, what I referred to as the elephant in the room in another of these threads. My husband's employer continues to contribute to retirees' health plans. There is no way we can count on that!

 

To be honest, financial investments are one thing; I think we all need to invest in our physical and mental wellbeing for the long haul.

[umsami]

In America, I honestly don't think you can have enough.  Pessimistic, I know.  Social security is not enough for most to live on....and that's assuming it isn't privatized or some other God awful thing.  

 

Medicare right now has 80% coverage....but that could easily go down.  Who knows what rates on supplemental plans will be.

 

My parents had a lot of savings and investments. They planned extremely well. My Dad got leukemia.  Even with medicare drug coverage and a medigap plan it's been a big shock financially.  

[creekland]

 I think we all need to invest in our physical and mental wellbeing for the long haul.

 

I'm not sure this can happen to a large extent.  If I look at my own extended family, I believe I'm the one who eats the healthiest and stayed in shape the best - not 100% ideal for either, but certainly far ahead of the others.  Very, very far ahead of many.

 

Yet I'm the one with the health issues (at my age)?   :glare:

 

Fortunately, I'm not the type who feels the need to pay to continue to stay alive until my last breath.  I far prefer quality of life (and each individual decides that for themselves).  I don't expect to have financial issues from it at all as health share covers it all until age 65, then medicare and whatever supplement we add - assuming we get that far, of course - and assuming medicare/supplements stay the same as they are now.  It'd be fine with me if our country wakes up and gets something better between now and then!

 

I definitely worry less about my diet at this point, though that still includes most healthy things simply because I like them.

 

And I continue to stay active because it makes me feel better on a daily/hourly basis.  There are no concerns about becoming a couch potato here!

 

I'd have no desires to start smoking or eating sweet stuff regularly or other such things even though those in my family doing these things don't have my issues...

 

The money we save by not smoking easily funds many of our travels!

[Serenade]

 

 

We'd have done tons better putting cash in a mattress, but then there would have been the worry that the house would burn down (sigh).

 

 

 

Funny, last night my husband and I were half-joking about putting cash in a mattress. 

[creekland]

Funny, last night my husband and I were half-joking about putting cash in a mattress. 

 

I talked with my mom yesterday and her retirement fund finally got back to where it was 7 years ago at the beginning of the downturn...

 

Fortunately, she still has enough.

 

Some of ours has returned, but some never will as we had to make decisions to cash out just to keep ourselves going through the downturn (and much lower income) itself.

 

Such is life.  I know we're not alone.  I'm thankful we're still doing ok.

[KingM]

If you're decades away from retirement, you're better off ignoring the ups and downs of the market and continuing to invest in a semi-conservative mix of stocks and bonds. Otherwise, you're likely to yank all your money when the market is down, get back in a couple of years later when it starts to boom, and then suffer the same fate the next time there's a crash.

[creekland]

If you're decades away from retirement, you're better off ignoring the ups and downs of the market and continuing to invest in a semi-conservative mix of stocks and bonds. Otherwise, you're likely to yank all your money when the market is down, get back in a couple of years later when it starts to boom, and then suffer the same fate the next time there's a crash.

 

Or, you pull some of what's left (taking a substantial hit on top of the loss) to keep afloat in an economic downturn that cuts your income drastically.

 

As mentioned before, in hindsight, we'd have done better sticking it into a mattress.

 

Nonetheless, we had what we needed when we needed it, so I can't complain.  I prefer not to think what could have been if we'd chosen the mattress instead!

 

We still have some invested for the long term.  No regrets.  It's coming back, but is not totally back to where it was yet.