Regret Retiring Given Inflation/Market Woes?

[Anonymous]

We’ve decided on PT work at current job instead of retiring before SS (67) and Medicare (65) kick in. It covers health insurance and means we don’t dip into savings or retirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Co I worked for wanted more diversity, so employees with 30 + yr experience were forced out. If you didn't believe Drag queen bingo at a co. holiday party was awesome, you were given s*&t assignments. Complain? Told, seniority "doesn't count" because "we are in a pandemic"

IF the company culture was the same as it was pre-2019, I would NOT have been forced out & I would NOT chose to retire. I refuse to return to work & take a low paying job- I just do not buy any extras, will not go on vacations, or give big gifts. I would rather do with less & wait for SS & Medicare to kick in. (So I have no income at all, except for what I withdrew from 401k & my savings)

Oh & I have the lovely opportunity to pay over $32k/yr for health ins for myself & wife, (& we better not get sick because we have copays, coinsurance or we are really screwed) Can't qualify for any subsidies for ACA because I took $ out of my 401k, so we "make too much".

I can't regret retiring, because it was NOT my choice. But as a long time union member & Democrat, I certainly regret paying union dues & my voting choices.

If you are not being forced out, I would not retire until you can get SS & Medicare.

Unlikely this is why you were forced out. And if so, why didn't you do like people in the 90's did, and keep it to themselves.

Not to opine on this particular situation but the notion of having to bail out before one wants to is a real threat. Whatever the reason. Healthcare costs can be very expensive. Not having $ in taxable accounts to draw on is real. Plan to work to whatever date you like but be prepared to pivot at an earlier date. That's my takeaway. I am thankful for some of the tools out there that allow you to input your numbers and run various senarios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Co I worked for wanted more diversity, so employees with 30 + yr experience were forced out. If you didn't believe Drag queen bingo at a co. holiday party was awesome, you were given s*&t assignments. Complain? Told, seniority "doesn't count" because "we are in a pandemic"

IF the company culture was the same as it was pre-2019, I would NOT have been forced out & I would NOT chose to retire. I refuse to return to work & take a low paying job- I just do not buy any extras, will not go on vacations, or give big gifts. I would rather do with less & wait for SS & Medicare to kick in. (So I have no income at all, except for what I withdrew from 401k & my savings)

Oh & I have the lovely opportunity to pay over $32k/yr for health ins for myself & wife, (& we better not get sick because we have copays, coinsurance or we are really screwed) Can't qualify for any subsidies for ACA because I took $ out of my 401k, so we "make too much".

I can't regret retiring, because it was NOT my choice. But as a long time union member & Democrat, I certainly regret paying union dues & my voting choices.

If you are not being forced out, I would not retire until you can get SS & Medicare.

Seems you and others with similar seniority had a case for an age discrimination suit. Companies are trying to cut higher paid workers and this type of layoff appears suspect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Co I worked for wanted more diversity, so employees with 30 + yr experience were forced out. If you didn't believe Drag queen bingo at a co. holiday party was awesome, you were given s*&t assignments. Complain? Told, seniority "doesn't count" because "we are in a pandemic"

IF the company culture was the same as it was pre-2019, I would NOT have been forced out & I would NOT chose to retire. I refuse to return to work & take a low paying job- I just do not buy any extras, will not go on vacations, or give big gifts. I would rather do with less & wait for SS & Medicare to kick in. (So I have no income at all, except for what I withdrew from 401k & my savings)

Oh & I have the lovely opportunity to pay over $32k/yr for health ins for myself & wife, (& we better not get sick because we have copays, coinsurance or we are really screwed) Can't qualify for any subsidies for ACA because I took $ out of my 401k, so we "make too much".

I can't regret retiring, because it was NOT my choice. But as a long time union member & Democrat, I certainly regret paying union dues & my voting choices.

If you are not being forced out, I would not retire until you can get SS & Medicare.

Really tough to reconcile the bolded. Beyond that, you seem nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I retired 7 years ago at 53. So far I've been through two major market adjustments. The first was two years ago, when Covid first hit and the market dropped more than 30 percent. The second is now.

Market fluctuations are part of life. If you don't think you can stomach them, you're not ready to retire.

You have to think and look long term. Yes, things suck right now -- big time. But I'm still well, well ahead of where I was when I retired despite two major market fluctuations. My net worth was $4.8 million when I retired in 2015, and as of today it's $7.02 million. Yes, six months ago it was $8 million, meaning on paper I've lost $1 million this year. But I'm staying the course, and not regretting my decision to retire one iota.

+1. You need to be comfortable with the equity portion of your portfolio dropping as much as 50%. If that makes you nervous, then you had too much at risk.

The problem with taking hedge fund manager advice on what is coming for the economy is that your are asking the 1% to forecast how the 99% are going to behave and what a crash in consumer spending will do to our consumer based economy

fact is the 1% is soooo far removed from the reality of most American's financial decisions that this is how we get a Fed that claims " we failed to anticipate the effect of inflation on consumer spending"

WORSE is that these out of touch 1% Fed Reserve types think that raising interest rates will curb inflation because " in theory it does"

WRONG again: prices are up because GAS/ Oil cost more and Covid quagmired supply chain of key contributing parts- making their cost higher and higher....

When costs go up- REAL Americans- the other 349.99 Million of us- spend less. Why ???? because gas for our cars and food on our table costs more

raising Interest rates isn't going to make us buy less milk, eggs, and ground beef or chicken, raising interest rates ISN'T going to make us drive less to work

It will just make our CC bills higher and HIGHER and so we will spend less.... economic recession

I retired in June of 2021. I told my " broker " I was not comfortable putting my savings in stocks because I had never felt a VIBE in the country so insecure since the 1973 Oil Embargo and that I feared Inflation was coming. My Merrill Lynch broker responded by asking me , " what do you mean by inflation.... ?" seemingly to test if I - a middle class working stiff- actually knew what the term meant.

So, I responded with my recall of what happened to price of food in 1973/74, gas prices and 14% interest rates to buy a home- stagflation

He said, " well, our forecasters just don't see that on the horizon... these supply chain issues are very limited to China and only in a few commodities... and this will be quickly resolved"

FLASH FORWARD 1 Year and here we are....

Why did the Fed " fail to anticipate" ? Because the only people they really talk to, understand and respect are the top 1% of earners and THAT is NOT who / what drives the economy is a consumer based country like ours

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Co I worked for wanted more diversity, so employees with 30 + yr experience were forced out. If you didn't believe Drag queen bingo at a co. holiday party was awesome, you were given s*&t assignments. Complain? Told, seniority "doesn't count" because "we are in a pandemic"

IF the company culture was the same as it was pre-2019, I would NOT have been forced out & I would NOT chose to retire. I refuse to return to work & take a low paying job- I just do not buy any extras, will not go on vacations, or give big gifts. I would rather do with less & wait for SS & Medicare to kick in. (So I have no income at all, except for what I withdrew from 401k & my savings)

Oh & I have the lovely opportunity to pay over $32k/yr for health ins for myself & wife, (& we better not get sick because we have copays, coinsurance or we are really screwed) Can't qualify for any subsidies for ACA because I took $ out of my 401k, so we "make too much".

I can't regret retiring, because it was NOT my choice. But as a long time union member & Democrat, I certainly regret paying union dues & my voting choices.

If you are not being forced out, I would not retire until you can get SS & Medicare.

why don't you just diet and exercise and keep the 32K in your pocket instead of handing to the health insurance industry and their lobbyists , executive salaries and stock investor dividend checks

Need health care: go to minute clinic

OR, buy a plain ticket to ANY European country and show up in their ER- you know, where medical care is FREE and they have no mechanism to even bill you because its too foreign to them

Obama Care is, in fact, nothing but a coerced subsidy to the health insurance industry

It DOES NOT cost $800/mos for health care when you never need the services of a Doctor. These companies are literally racketeers and should all be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license

If all of America would JUST STOP paying them and demand Nationalized Health Care like ALL of Europe, Australia, NZ and Canada...oh... and Russia and Cuba and Iran.... and Israel - we'd all save nearly $1,000/mos

How is THAT for an Economic stimulus and a Leg Up to Small business owners- just GET RID of the Health Insurance Industry- instant economic BOOM

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the market was roaring, having 2-3 years of expenses in cash was seen as a missed opportunity, even for people close to retirement. And it's true that interest rates on savings accounts were pathetic - the best I could get for a HYSA was .3%. I did it anyway, because I have an extra large security gland. Of course it loses out to inflation every year, but its point isn't to maximize yield. Its point is to help you get through an environment like this without selling investments at a loss, racking up credit cut debt, or drastically cutting living expenses.

There are other options. I, for example, am currently retired (early) but still have a lot of my portfolio invested in the market. I suspected this might be a tough year for stocks, so I sold some on literally the first trading day of the year in January. But, in retrospect I didn't sell enough -- I got hit with a bigger tax bill than I had expected because I made a foolish mistake in 2021 that cost me big time. So now I'm sitting on maybe 2 months in cash reserves, 3 tops.

It's not a matter of now having to sell stocks at a loss, but of having to sell them at less of a gain. That's what happens when you play the long term game. I'm thinking, though, that instead of even doing that I might first try borrowing a few months' worth of cash from the pledged asset line that I have set up with my brokerage firm to buy a little time and see where the market goes. The interest rate is still pretty low (around 3 percent), so I'm tempted to give it a shot.

Times like these require creative thinking -- not panic or regret.

I would never want to be in the position where i'm thinking of borrowing money to pay my expenses. Even if the math works, that would seriously mess with the Sleep Well At Night side of personal finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I retired 7 years ago at 53. So far I've been through two major market adjustments. The first was two years ago, when Covid first hit and the market dropped more than 30 percent. The second is now.

Market fluctuations are part of life. If you don't think you can stomach them, you're not ready to retire.

You have to think and look long term. Yes, things suck right now -- big time. But I'm still well, well ahead of where I was when I retired despite two major market fluctuations. My net worth was $4.8 million when I retired in 2015, and as of today it's $7.02 million. Yes, six months ago it was $8 million, meaning on paper I've lost $1 million this year. But I'm staying the course, and not regretting my decision to retire one iota.

+1. You need to be comfortable with the equity portion of your portfolio dropping as much as 50%. If that makes you nervous, then you had too much at risk.

The problem with taking hedge fund manager advice on what is coming for the economy is that your are asking the 1% to forecast how the 99% are going to behave and what a crash in consumer spending will do to our consumer based economy

fact is the 1% is soooo far removed from the reality of most American's financial decisions that this is how we get a Fed that claims " we failed to anticipate the effect of inflation on consumer spending"

WORSE is that these out of touch 1% Fed Reserve types think that raising interest rates will curb inflation because " in theory it does"

WRONG again: prices are up because GAS/ Oil cost more and Covid quagmired supply chain of key contributing parts- making their cost higher and higher....

When costs go up- REAL Americans- the other 349.99 Million of us- spend less. Why ???? because gas for our cars and food on our table costs more

raising Interest rates isn't going to make us buy less milk, eggs, and ground beef or chicken, raising interest rates ISN'T going to make us drive less to work

It will just make our CC bills higher and HIGHER and so we will spend less.... economic recession

I retired in June of 2021. I told my " broker " I was not comfortable putting my savings in stocks because I had never felt a VIBE in the country so insecure since the 1973 Oil Embargo and that I feared Inflation was coming. My Merrill Lynch broker responded by asking me , " what do you mean by inflation.... ?" seemingly to test if I - a middle class working stiff- actually knew what the term meant.

So, I responded with my recall of what happened to price of food in 1973/74, gas prices and 14% interest rates to buy a home- stagflation

He said, " well, our forecasters just don't see that on the horizon... these supply chain issues are very limited to China and only in a few commodities... and this will be quickly resolved"

FLASH FORWARD 1 Year and here we are....

Why did the Fed " fail to anticipate" ? Because the only people they really talk to, understand and respect are the top 1% of earners and THAT is NOT who / what drives the economy is a consumer based country like ours

Did you fire that kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that even a lot of bond investments have had losses similar to stocks this year. A 60/40 portfolio is having the worst year on record. I just picked this random "total bond fund" and it's down over 12% YTD: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/VBMFX

The problem is that this was obvious and if you didn't see it, you deserve the poor result you're now getting. The price of bonds is inversely correlated with interest rates; since interest rates were at 0% for a long time, they had no place to go but up and therefore bond prices had no place to go but down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Co I worked for wanted more diversity, so employees with 30 + yr experience were forced out. If you didn't believe Drag queen bingo at a co. holiday party was awesome, you were given s*&t assignments. Complain? Told, seniority "doesn't count" because "we are in a pandemic"

IF the company culture was the same as it was pre-2019, I would NOT have been forced out & I would NOT chose to retire. I refuse to return to work & take a low paying job- I just do not buy any extras, will not go on vacations, or give big gifts. I would rather do with less & wait for SS & Medicare to kick in. (So I have no income at all, except for what I withdrew from 401k & my savings)

Oh & I have the lovely opportunity to pay over $32k/yr for health ins for myself & wife, (& we better not get sick because we have copays, coinsurance or we are really screwed) Can't qualify for any subsidies for ACA because I took $ out of my 401k, so we "make too much".

I can't regret retiring, because it was NOT my choice. But as a long time union member & Democrat, I certainly regret paying union dues & my voting choices.

If you are not being forced out, I would not retire until you can get SS & Medicare.

why don't you just diet and exercise and keep the 32K in your pocket instead of handing to the health insurance industry and their lobbyists , executive salaries and stock investor dividend checks

Need health care: go to minute clinic

OR, buy a plain ticket to ANY European country and show up in their ER- you know, where medical care is FREE and they have no mechanism to even bill you because its too foreign to them

Obama Care is, in fact, nothing but a coerced subsidy to the health insurance industry

It DOES NOT cost $800/mos for health care when you never need the services of a Doctor. These companies are literally racketeers and should all be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license

If all of America would JUST STOP paying them and demand Nationalized Health Care like ALL of Europe, Australia, NZ and Canada...oh... and Russia and Cuba and Iran.... and Israel - we'd all save nearly $1,000/mos

How is THAT for an Economic stimulus and a Leg Up to Small business owners- just GET RID of the Health Insurance Industry- instant economic BOOM

Not everything can be fixed through diet and exercise.

I do agree with you on a single payer system. The government could easily enact laws that removes the walls erected by these entities across state lines - All insurance should be accepted across the country. All medical professionals should be allowed to work in all states. One of the best medical plans out there is the Federal govt. employee plan. Open that up to everyone (with subsidies for the poor; charge a premium for the rich, etc.). Negotiate prices with pharma companies; Allow immigration of a million more doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. When the only person paying you is the federal government and there are enough service providers (vs. the artificial scarcity of today created by the medical cartels), watch all the doctors, hospitals and pharma companies fall in line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Unlikely this is why you were forced out. And if so, why didn't you do like people in the 90's did, and keep it to themselves.

Believe it or not- your choice. But I was forced out, along with others with traditional values. I, along with others, did not make any announcements or engage in any discussions. But when we did not "register" at an online portal, &/or attend/participate in these & similar events, management knew who believed or didn't in their agenda. As far as a class action lawsuit, our useless union told many of us that changing shifts, stopping a company match for retirement benefits, etc. were not guaranteed. The union rep told us we should be "honored" - more senior members were needed to work the sh*t hours to "train" others (funny that the "trainees" were never assigned to those shifts or were allowed to work from home).

I am using my savings to pay for healthcare because I was told by a financial advisor, if I (or spouse) have a major illness or accident, medical providers can put a lien on my home & can add all kinds of attorney fees, collection fees, etc. And they can get my savings account (that I just put a large chunk of 401k money into).

I paid into SS for over 40 years- when I am eligible, I will take it. & I will put in for Medicare benefits as soon as I can.
(At my age, my education & experience, it is impossible for me to get hired for a similar position. I will not take a minimum wage job, pay more taxes for the government to waste and be kicked around some more. I have had enough. I am old school- if you make a bill, you pay it, but I am rethinking that. If I sell my house & can protect my assets, then I will probably stop paying for health insurance.

There is a whole group of us in the younger group of baby boomers who didn't get the cheap or new houses in the 70s or early 80s, and don't have the guaranteed pension, that are really being screwed over. (Management "consultants" came in and advised my company to discontinue the guaranteed pension & gave employees a 401k). Only consolation is- I am not the only one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the market was roaring, having 2-3 years of expenses in cash was seen as a missed opportunity, even for people close to retirement. And it's true that interest rates on savings accounts were pathetic - the best I could get for a HYSA was .3%. I did it anyway, because I have an extra large security gland. Of course it loses out to inflation every year, but its point isn't to maximize yield. Its point is to help you get through an environment like this without selling investments at a loss, racking up credit cut debt, or drastically cutting living expenses.

There are other options. I, for example, am currently retired (early) but still have a lot of my portfolio invested in the market. I suspected this might be a tough year for stocks, so I sold some on literally the first trading day of the year in January. But, in retrospect I didn't sell enough -- I got hit with a bigger tax bill than I had expected because I made a foolish mistake in 2021 that cost me big time. So now I'm sitting on maybe 2 months in cash reserves, 3 tops.

It's not a matter of now having to sell stocks at a loss, but of having to sell them at less of a gain. That's what happens when you play the long term game. I'm thinking, though, that instead of even doing that I might first try borrowing a few months' worth of cash from the pledged asset line that I have set up with my brokerage firm to buy a little time and see where the market goes. The interest rate is still pretty low (around 3 percent), so I'm tempted to give it a shot.

Times like these require creative thinking -- not panic or regret.

I would never want to be in the position where i'm thinking of borrowing money to pay my expenses. Even if the math works, that would seriously mess with the Sleep Well At Night side of personal finance.

Yea, well, my management of personal finance has worked out very well for me so far. But you can do you.