At What Age Should A person Get Out Of Investing In Stocks?

Apologies for taking this off topic for a second, but I don't know if I'm the only lurker to find this thread fascinating, and confusingly informative!!!
 

It is only confusing because people parrot what they hear from other misinformed people instead of researching things from proper sources . So they don’t understand how things work And end up believing their own bull spreading more misinformation
 
mathjak107 said:
It is only confusing because people parrot what they hear from other misinformed people instead of researching things from proper sources . So they don’t understand how things work And end up believing their own bull spreading more misinformation
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i luv that!!
 

actually the less you have the more important making efficient use of it and developing a safe draw rate becomes . those in that position would likely have done better if they did understand..

do you know here in america you can take a mere 1000 dollars out of an ira for a vacation or expense and see the marginal effective tax rate on that 1k cost you 47% in taxes . that is because of the two moving targets as to how social security is taxed and once it is it gets added to income which creates more tax on the social security and around and around we go .

so the less you have the more important it becomes to get things right . that includes investing efficiently to meet your goals and controlling taxes in an efficient manner .. knowledge is power as they say.

we don't know about all the things we don't know .. so we only judge how we are doing by what we have and what we know ... the fact that we could have had more as well as a better plan is something we don't consider . money may not buy happiness but it can certainly buy choices . so the more we have available to us the more choices we can have when things come up .

i know many retirees who sweat every unexpected expense . their lives are so stressful . if they could have done some things differently they might have been able to give themselves a bigger cushion .

heck , before i got close to retirement i thought because i was doing well as an investor ,what else do i need to know ? boy was i wrong ! by the time i learned all the things i did not know tax wise my situation sucked . it could have been so much better had i known all the things i first learned to late .

i could have had an aca subsidy from 62-65 , i could have had tax free ss for a while , i could have taken up to 42k a year out of future rmd money at as little as 4% tax but it all required setting the building blocks up many many years earlier . now was to late.

somethings to consider when your assets and income are lower .


the tax gods give us all a tax gift . if we can keep our taxable income low enough , a couple can pull 24k out of an ira tax free using just the standard deduction .


they can pull over 40k out at as little as 4% effective tax ... that is an insane deal compared to rmd's later ..


so the question now is , if you take ss early how will not being able to take that nice juicy tax free or low tax money effect you long term . if you delay ss longer can you take advantage of that money ?


how will spending down invested assets effect you if you delay ? what about any aca subsidy you may need from 62-65 ? what about roth conversions if you delay and income is lower ?


what about lower rmd's vs higher ss check and the effect on your wife as a widow now that she files single ?


further more how you invest may effect your ability to control your income . dividends are something you can't control or turn off and on . if taxable income is critical wold you be better off drawing money from appreciation where only the gain is taxed and not the entire dividend ?


i can give you so many questions that come up once you try to integrate ss with your situation and have lower resources where every dollar additional counts ..
 
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I am thinking bout closing my Merrill Lynch SEP IRA because they have made some dumb mistakes with my money. Can I ask SOC Sec. how much tax they will take out before I move on it. My income is my Soc Sec check and stock dividends most of which I reinvest. I don't want to get hammered with tax if I do this.
 
you lost me .... what does ss have to do with your personal income tax . you tell ss what to withhold if anything out of your ss check if you want . why not just roll it over to fidelity or vanguard ?
 
Mathjak107 wrote
what about lower rmd's vs higher ss check and the effect on your wife as a widow now that she files single ?
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So glad I re-read this whole thing...was still using married tax rate on my spreadsheet for "Retirement plan for one person"...updated my spreadsheet and had to re-figure some calculations to check that everything 'should' work out.
 
I'm not a capitalist. However, if I were to play the game, I'd use this strategy, which seems obvious to me, until I think no more...

 
fmdog44 said:
I am thinking bout closing my Merrill Lynch SEP IRA because they have made some dumb mistakes with my money. Can I ask SOC Sec. how much tax they will take out before I move on it. My income is my Soc Sec check and stock dividends most of which I reinvest. I don't want to get hammered with tax if I do this.
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I don't think SS would have that answer -- they withhold what you tell them to. IRS is the one who says what the tax hit will be, not SS. Can't you just use one of the online worksheets to see what the tax hit might be? I used the IRS worksheet when trying to decide how to pay for the roof I'm going to need. I know it might be a little off, but you could enter this year's numbers, along with the amount you'd be withdrawing and I think you'd get a pretty good idea.

If it were I, I'd roll that Merrill Lynch account over into something else, rather than just take it out, because I wouldn't want to take the tax hit.
 
mathjak107 said:
i rather go to vegas and get dinner and a show then these silly trading systems ....
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Living in Vegas & using our soc. sec. for fun money beats living where they roll up the streets at 7 p/m. For those not familiar with "rolling up the streets" that's when you live where there is nothing to do after 7 p/m.
 
Knight said:
Living in Vegas & using our soc. sec. for fun money beats living where they roll up the streets at 7 p/m. For those not familiar with "rolling up the streets" that's when you live where there is nothing to do after 7 p/m.
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Enjoy Vegas, if you come to see me better get here before 7:00 pm!

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Aunt Bea said:
Enjoy Vegas, if you come to see me better get here before 7:00 pm!

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Lucky for us never stopping investing makes it possible to enjoy things like Sunday brunch at Bally's Sterling Buffet. To each their own because tolerating risk is not or everyone. Great pic. reminds me of driving across Kansas
 
Yep ,we are retired 3-1/2 years drawing 6 figures a year from our portfolio and we are still higher then the day we retired ...we run 40-50% equities in a risk parity type portfolio that while not swinging for the fences in the up markets , it makes money as well in the down markets
 
Knight said:
Lucky for us never stopping investing makes it possible to enjoy things like Sunday brunch at Bally's Sterling Buffet. To each their own because tolerating risk is not or everyone. Great pic. reminds me of driving across Kansas
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I wasn't talking about income or investing I was talking about my preference for living a quiet life!

Imagine your Aunt Bea on the Vegas strip!

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As to the original poster's question about what age should you get out of investing -- I guess I don't see the point in the question. Why would you get out of investing just because you are older? What would a person do then, keep all their money under their mattress? Put it into a savings account or money market paying almost nothing? It doesn't make sense to me.

I certainly wouldn't want to liquidate now that markets are down, and I don't really see any good reason to liquidate when the markets are down, either.
 
Butterfly said:
As to the original poster's question about what age should you get out of investing -- I guess I don't see the point in the question. Why would you get out of investing just because you are older? What would a person do then, keep all their money under their mattress? Put it into a savings account or money market paying almost nothing? It doesn't make sense to me.

I certainly wouldn't want to liquidate now that markets are down, and I don't really see any good reason to liquidate when the markets are down, either.
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over long periods of time avoiding investing has been the riskiest choice .. it has the highest failure rate and pay cuts were needed most often ... there are enough ways to invest today and control volatility so avoiding investing really is not a great choice unless you are so wealthy money you can live on low draw rates..

the difference in draw between a 50/50 mix and using fixed income alone is almost 2x .
 
Butterfly said:
As to the original poster's question about what age should you get out of investing -- I guess I don't see the point in the question. Why would you get out of investing just because you are older? What would a person do then, keep all their money under their mattress? Put it into a savings account or money market paying almost nothing? It doesn't make sense to me.

I certainly wouldn't want to liquidate now that markets are down, and I don't really see any good reason to liquidate when the markets are down, either.
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I agree.
 
rkunsaw said:
I agree.
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There is a reason for the question. The basic 'truth' about stocks is that they go up and they go down. As Suze Orman likes to point out, one needs to have a 5+ year horizon, where the money in stocks are not needed, in order to recover from a major downturn. That's really the major issue about stocks. What happens to a 75 year old invested in stocks, and a recession hits?
 

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