Reply to Top 1% of Retirees Have 16.7M

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What's wild is that this is total assets, not just retirement accounts. So for many of these retirees, if they are still in the house the were in before retiring, that house is likely a significant portion of their overall wealth.

I think a lot of people overestimate their ability to spend money in retirement. Like my dad has tons of money but doesn't travel much because he doesn't like traveling alone. Same with my MIL. MIL also has an elderly dog who she doesn't want to leave alone for long periods. Before my mom passed, her main focus was grandkids and spending time with them and buying things for them, not expensive travel all over the world. My parents did do a few big bucket list trips and those were expensive and they enjoyed them, but they didn't have the energy or time to do stuff like that all the time.

When you don't have a mortgage, and you have a lot of time, you can actually live an incredibly nice life while spending significantly less annually than you did when you were working full time and had kids depending on you. My parents/ILs don't even eat that much anymore. My dad spends money on very good wine but can't drink more than a glass or two at a time, so even this "expensive" habit isn't really that expensive for him.

Most of their money will likely wind up going to healthcare and assisted living once they are no longer well enough to live independently. Even then -- some people die slow and some die fast (my FIL got sick and died in 18 months -- we were working on plans to get him into 24 hour care when he just died).

What we always tell our parents is "you can't take it with you." We want them to enjoy their life now and spend the money they want to spend. But it's harder than it looks. My dad joked that the only way he's going to actually spend his full retirement is if he gets a gambling habit.[/quote]

Lord, don't joke about that.  My wife's grandmother developed a gambling habit in her last years because she had diminished mental capacity due to a brain tumor and gambled away all of her wealth.[/quote]

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