Is being on a fixed income during these economic times causing you to "hunker down"?

Brookswood said:
I’ve often though everybody who is contributing to SS should get yearly notice that SS is NOT intended to cover all of one’s retirement costs.
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people forget that ss was never supposed to be a replacement for all their income and so they complain when the ss colas don’t keep up with all their expenses yet they paid in to ss based on only receiving a portion of their income at retirement.

yet somehow they magically expect the cola on just a small piece of what they were earning to cover everything that went up .
 

Muskrat said:
Many people simply can’t save more…it is those I have a real sympathy for.
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well i can only say what i did , but growing up in a new york city housing project there was no way i was ever going back to one .

so startling as a late teen i always made sure i had something to invest and if i had to work more jobs so be it .

at one point i worked as an hvac tech for a company by day , at night i did side work and i was a drummer doing gigs .

so when something is that important to someone , they will find a way , the rest will find an excuse.

an object at rest stays at rest and for most people doing the same ole ,same ole is easier then doing something different or acting to change a situation


so most drift from one low paying job to another like a cork in water.

it is no different than dieting .

there are very few who actually can’t lose weight for physical reasons …they need to eat less and move more ..yet we are a nation of over weight people because they lack the drive to do it
 
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@mathjak107 …I also was never going to be either hungry or beholden when I finally stopped tying my wagon to someone else. It took 40 years of my life to take matters entirely in my own hands. But when I was in nursing school it really became apparent to me that we are not all equal in the brain and reasoning department. One person’s skills are not another’s. I will die a millionaire…but it is a game at this point….
 
I won't be retired until the end of this year but have been living leanly for a while and tracking expenses. One area that I had a lot of leaky spending habits on was Amazon. It was just far too easy to order any little thing I thought I needed. I cancelled my Prime membership in March and have not missed it one bit. I just placed my first order since then for some food items I eat regularly and will never be able to find in my little rural area of the world. It's not difficult to hit a $25 order to avoid shipping charges.
 
Just on weekends so far, when the cottagers come up. Otherwise not much has changed here. Prices are climbing of course , more taxes coming July 1 on gas diesel heating oil to list a couple. A carbon tax.. That means food and services etc are going up too.
 
Youngster said:
I've been able to handle the inflation we're seeing in this country up to this point. I am expecting it to get worse before it gets better so I am beginning to take that into consideration. As far as my discretionary spending goes, I'm cutting back on eating out and I'm now traveling less frequently to closer destinations. How about you?
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Yes. Hunkering down here.
 
As with most inflationary times the returns on investments also increase. They usually lag behind inflation rates, but you can offset a lot of inflation by keeping your money invested in safe moderately high return short term investments. I have some of our money invested in 6 month and 12-month federal bonds that were paying 5% APR or a bit more. That helps offset inflation for sure...I hope as these mature I will be able to turn around and put some in more govenment bonds at competative rates.
 
Not sure what "hunker down" means. If it means not throwing money around recklessly, I never do that, no matter what the economy or my income is doing.
 
I’m not on a fixed income. SS goes up every year. But, the higher cost of many things has started to bite, So, I do what I can. One thing I do is invest to take advantage of these higher interest rates. The idea of collection 2 or 3 percent on savings just makes me sick, when we can easily and safely get 4% to 5%.
 

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