58 and no savings and no pension

[Anonymous]

I can't speak for other housewives but my DH and I have built a substantial portfolio of assets and investments over our 25 years together, have plenty of disability, life and long-term care insurance, and live in a community property state. I sleep very well at night.

Unless the market crashes right before you retire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I can't speak for other housewives but my DH and I have built a substantial portfolio of assets and investments over our 25 years together, have plenty of disability, life and long-term care insurance, and live in a community property state. I sleep very well at night.

Unless the market crashes right before you retire.

Then you misallicated your investments. You should be exposed to high volatility near retirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I can't speak for other housewives but my DH and I have built a substantial portfolio of assets and investments over our 25 years together, have plenty of disability, life and long-term care insurance, and live in a community property state. I sleep very well at night.

Unless the market crashes right before you retire.

We wouldn't be that exposed so close to retirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a government job asap for the retirement. You can owe the IRS and work for the feds as long as you are in a payment plan. After 6 years, you are entitled to a retirement with the feds. If you worked till 70, you might get about 10% or so of your pay for the rest of your life, plus SSA. It's better than nothing.

It won't really help. Most Fed jobs now are no longer on CSRS or CSRS-offset, but are now FERS, which is essentially a glorified 401K program. Yes, there are some additional basic benefits to FERS, but not enough to help a late employee. The basic benefits are 1% per year of service of your average of the three highest salaries in your career. So, let's say this employee starts as a civil service at 59 and retires at 67. If he made $100K average, then his annual dispensation from FERS benefts will be $8K annually. And the FERS basic benefits are counted against SS, so that means that he'll get $8K but will get $8K less Social Security. If your FERS payment is higher than your SS payment, than you earn all of your SS payment and FERS will cover the balance of your retirement payout above SS. So the basic benefit will not increase his monthly income. The only difference will be where the money comes from. And then he'll have the TSP (which is the 401K part of the plan) on top of that. Not really different than if he starts a 401K or IRA now and makes pre-tax deposits to the account.

Thank you for posting this because I was confused by the numerous people on this site saying "WE HAVE TWO PENSIONS." I just read someone saying on the money forum, "WE HAVE FOUR PENSIONS." When I told DH this, who worked for the Feds for nearly a decade, two decades ago, he said no way, that even then the govt didn't have a real pension program. Since he's turning 50, maybe these people are all 55+. He has his TSP, but I'd wondered what pension means these days.

Please go back and read the retraction. FERS does have a pension, not generous like CSRS, but it has a pension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, glad to hear things have gotten a little better. Please start looking at what you can do to save money for your retirement. My brother, in his late 50s, just broke his back and can't work. He had no savings and retirement and was probably planning to work until he dropped. It took him months to get on disability and he had to declare bankruptcy. That took care of his credit card debt but my sister and I have been subsidizing him and probably will be doing it for a long time to come. This is reducing my emergency savings so if I suddenly got laid off I not have much of a cushion and it's soon going to hit dd's college fund.

So you may be planning on working till you drop but what if something happens so that you can't work?

smart man use mind not back

You think nurses are stupid? Because that's what he was doing until he broke his back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's not enough information here on OP's finances and situation to provide any useful practical advice. And I understand the reluctance to yank a teen out of school. The rest of his/her life will be decided in large part over choices made in these next three years.

OP here. Thank you for intuitive remarks. And what a difference 12 hours makes! DC's school gently berated me for not stepping up sooner when things got tough. Pride can be so useless. The school will add financial aid and, fortunately, I asked before acceptance letters went out. Also, I received a call to do a long-term medical project which I can review at home. Thought I was going to break down and cry. Thank you for not calling me crazy and saying I would be baggage to my child some day. I think I can see a tiny light at the end of the tunnel!

I'm going to make myself a nice hot tea and sit in a chair smiling at this.

I'm happy for you.

OP here. I intentionally revived this thread ONLY hoping that the poster who made herself a hot cup of tea would know that things are so much better. I have a gameplan that is working slowly but surely. DC will still stay in private school but I am glad that it's only for three more years. Poster, I think of you occasionally and your thoughtful words in a sea of vitriolic comments when I was beyond myself that night. I'm hoping you read this and again know how much I appreciated your thoughtfulness, and that things are going well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There's not enough information here on OP's finances and situation to provide any useful practical advice. And I understand the reluctance to yank a teen out of school. The rest of his/her life will be decided in large part over choices made in these next three years.

OP here. Thank you for intuitive remarks. And what a difference 12 hours makes! DC's school gently berated me for not stepping up sooner when things got tough. Pride can be so useless. The school will add financial aid and, fortunately, I asked before acceptance letters went out. Also, I received a call to do a long-term medical project which I can review at home. Thought I was going to break down and cry. Thank you for not calling me crazy and saying I would be baggage to my child some day. I think I can see a tiny light at the end of the tunnel!

I'm going to make myself a nice hot tea and sit in a chair smiling at this.

I'm happy for you.

OP here. I intentionally revived this thread ONLY hoping that the poster who made herself a hot cup of tea would know that things are so much better. I have a gameplan that is working slowly but surely. DC will still stay in private school but I am glad that it's only for three more years. Poster, I think of you occasionally and your thoughtful words in a sea of vitriolic comments when I was beyond myself that night. I'm hoping you read this and again know how much I appreciated your thoughtfulness, and that things are going well.

Good news (not the pp you referred to). You are making a good salary, so that can make all the difference (put away as much $$ as you can for later - google 'frugal living', 'minimalism' and 'voluntary simplicity' to see how others are quite happily living on tight budgets).

[Anonymous]

Get a job with the Dept of Veterans Affairs asap and work for 10 years - they are always hiring people in medical fields and you will get a retirement.

Also, reduce your cost of living and move someplace extremely cheap, even if it's more crime there.

[Anonymous]

Good work OP! I am always glad to hear how these things work out.

[Anonymous]

"And the FERS basic benefits are counted against SS, so that means that he'll get $8K but will get $8K less Social Security."

Not even close to the truth.

[Anonymous]

Glad to hear things are going better, OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"And the FERS basic benefits are counted against SS, so that means that he'll get $8K but will get $8K less Social Security."

Not even close to the truth.

Oh Jesus. About a hundred people have pointed out this was wrong, the original poster retracted and apologized twice...what more do you want?

[Anonymous]

OP here. I intentionally revived this thread ONLY hoping that the poster who made herself a hot cup of tea would know that things are so much better

Not the PP that had tea, but the PP who understood not yanking DC from school. So very glad to hear things have turned for you!

[Anonymous]

Op, we did not start saving until we were 48 years old. Ten years later my dh died. Luckily he had term life insurance through his job, and as a result I am okay. I would advise you to do what you have to do for yourself right now. Make sure you and your spouse carry a fair amount of life insurance on each other, so if something happens to one of you, the other will be okay. The remaining spouse should then name your children as the beneficiaries of their policy. Upon the demise of both of you, your DCs will inherit something. This should make up for what you cannot do for them now.