Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We own our home outright. It's worth a bit more than $700,000. Our county and town taxes are $9,800 a year, so if we had $35K to work with, 30% of it is gone to real estate taxes.
You can sell your home, and buy a $150,000 home in West Va, still own it outright, and pay $1,500 a year in real estate taxes. And have more $ to retire on. No one is MAKING you live in your $700,000 home. It's YOUR CHOICE to live in a high cost of living area.
Is that really a great retirement? To live in this area with so much free stuff to do and little time to do it, between work and raising kids, and then move to W. VA, where there's much less to do, especially if one is not the outdoorsy type?
Anonymous wrote:We own our home outright. It's worth a bit more than $700,000. Our county and town taxes are $9,800 a year, so if we had $35K to work with, 30% of it is gone to real estate taxes.
You can sell your home, and buy a $150,000 home in West Va, still own it outright, and pay $1,500 a year in real estate taxes. And have more $ to retire on. No one is MAKING you live in your $700,000 home. It's YOUR CHOICE to live in a high cost of living area.
Anonymous wrote:Why in the world after busting your hump for 40 years would you want to continue working for the rest of your life just to be able to buy a latte every morning?
Once you eliminate child-related expenses, college savings, retirement savings, mortgage and health care (since you're on Medicare), you can live pretty well on a LOT less.
Anonymous wrote:Do people really get by on just Medicare? Don't most have supplemental insurance and have to pay for medications and stuff? I'm just saying, I don't think health expenses go to zero. They may drop, but not go away entirely.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:One important retirement assumption is that you want to maintain a certain living standard. In fact you can retire on much less, if you curb your spending commensurately.
http://catosdomain.com/?attachment_id=9643
Okay, stepping off of my box now. It baffles me why folks don't get this.
Why in the world after busting my hump for 40 years would I want to retire and live on much less? I spend most of my money on daycare, retirement and college savings and groceries for teenage boys. When do I get to live?
Anonymous wrote:One important retirement assumption is that you want to maintain a certain living standard. In fact you can retire on much less, if you curb your spending commensurately.
http://catosdomain.com/?attachment_id=9643
Okay, stepping off of my box now. It baffles me why folks don't get this.
Anonymous wrote:Um, people! Half of US households make under $50,000 a year. Forty percent make under $40k. Twenty percent under $20k.
Assuming the $50k folks can retire on an income of $40,000 (80 percent of pre-retirement income) and that there will be two recipients of SS at $15k a piece, they will have an income of $37k - pretty close to $40k.
Yes, it's "unheard" of in DC to to live on so little, but Half of the United States DOES!
Yes, we live in a bubble here!
One important retirement assumption is that you want to maintain a certain living standard. In fact you can retire on much less, if you curb your spending commensurately.
http://catosdomain.com/?attachment_id=9643
Okay, stepping off of my box now. It baffles me why folks don't get this.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Nobody retires if all they have is $7,000 a year plus social security. Those folks live with their kids and work until they drop.
My ILs retired on $500,000 almost 20 years ago. They have almost that much left in their nest egg. My MIL thinks the concern about retirement savings is way overblown. I say it's because she's happy living on $36K a year. I'm the first to say that that is not my idea of retirement. At all.
Do they own their home? My parents probably have about that, but they own their home and car, no debt at all. They don't live hand-to-mouth by any means (cruises every other year, home decorating, eating out). Both get SS and Medicare.