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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I also wonder about people that save a ton of money for retirement.  For example, my dad made an offhand remark one day that they have a few million saved and will probably never use all that money.  Hell I wish they'd spend more of it and make up for lost time, they deserve it.

I agree it's important to save some amount of money (for argument's sake let's say an amount that would let you draw $35-40K per year in addition to your SS payments).  That lets you take a few modest trips and live a comfortable life but not extravagant (this plan also assumes you'll have paid off your mortgage or will sell and move to a lower COL area so housing expense is minimal).

Obviously there's a margin of error here too and you want to err a little on the side of caution but I can't see socking away tons of money for retirement.  By the time you're old and need nursing home care your quality of life kinda sucks already so why not use more of the money when you can actually enjoy it. [/quote]

No one has a crystal ball.  My mother was competent and independent and fine living alone - until she wasn't.  Dementia hit when she was 76, then hit hard the next year such that she had to move into assisted living ($3400ish/month).  Every six months or so her needs increased ($$$) and by the end, seven years after going into assisted living, she could not do anything on her own - she needed help eating, toileting, getting dressed, bathing - everything.  At that point the cost was $8K a month plus another $2K for the daily helpers from outside that she needed.

Thank goodness she had fantastic wraparound insurance.

She had saved a LOT for retirement and paid everything herself until the day she died - and she left her kids something too.

I never want to burden my kids with expenses of that nature/level, so we save aggressively.  [/quote]

^^^PP here.

P.S.  I made certain to choose an assisted living for my mom that had a Medicaid-accepting, fantastic skilled nursing (nursing home) as part of the same facility.  My thought was that if she needed to go into nursing care, she could stay where she was as a paying resident for as long as possible, then become a Medicaid-pay bed.  She would have had first priority as a paying client.  She died before this became necessary, but FYI for those of you facing these issues - planning and strategy are everything.[/quote]

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