Living well means planning well for retirement

Jace

Jace

Well-known Member
Do you think you did...for retirement?

....any planning for anything?

Or..just 'wing it' for everything?🤗
 

Well we didnt plan anything for retirement other than put the basic amount in a Private pension the employer put the same in the pot too ,
Ive got enough to cover the bills and take care of myself without any assistance from outsiders ..
We could have put a percentage more in but then living would have been tighter back then , and I would be paying more Tax than what I do now .. .
 

It was strictly wing it. Sometimes I didn't have money for food. Sometimes my "plans" changed unexpectedly. I was a single mother and thinking about my child's needs, not about retirement.

Other than being poor, I was actually pretty responsible with money. So I could have saved a small percentage of my income (most of the time), if I'd wanted to.

Shortly before I retired, I found out how much the government pension was. It was more than I made working. I looked forward to being "rich." Then rents skyrocketed....

So now, when young people ask me for words of wisdom, I usually suggest they put aside a bit for their old age. But only if they can do it painlessly.

It's impossible to predict the future though. In many countries, inflation destroyed savings. Or people weren't allowed to have savings, and were shot for burying money in their yard, etc. We think it can't happen here, but why not?
 
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Planned it. It wasn't easy or quick. We'd make a stab at it, get frustrated, and quit. But we'd pick it up again after some months, because we knew we had to do it.

We had both reached the point in our careers where we had to decide: go for the most money, which would take a heavy toll on our personal lives and our marriage? Or try for that elusive work/life balance, but risk earning much less salary and lifetime earnings?

We took the latter option but knew that meant careful planning to afford a comfortable retirement. Spouse was a union worker with good bennies while I was more employable but at at-will worker. We saved what we could although it wasn't even close to the IRA maximums allowed.

Kept plugging away at the planning process and together took a series of very useful (and free! thanks to spouse's employer) retirement/financial classes. Very intensive - they've since simplified it so it's not as useful, unfortunately - but we credit those with giving us that final push to not only get our planning done, but also know the elements that go into how to properly plan.

A retirement plan is like a will - it's a "living" issue. You have to keep it updated with any new thoughts or issues that arise, between a couple. We made a few changes over the years, but having gone through "the process" it was easy for us to decide what to do.

We were able to both retire early, and despite his retiring just as the Great Recession hit hard, no changes were necessary to our finances. We had built in considerable "leeway" in our financial estimates, and as a result have been able to handle additional new expenses without a problem over the last decade.

Without good planning, we would never have had what we have now. There is no easy path to doing this planning, and because it is so individualized there is no 'one best way to achieve a successful retirement.' It takes time and effort, and a constant eye to make sure things STAY up to date and your estimates remain relevant.

But it was worth it. Far and away the best decision we ever made together.
 
Having watched my mother die and then taking care of my father from a relatively young age I realized that it is common for medical bills to take away everything you worked for and saved in a lifetime. Therefore I did not worry so much about saving for my retirement.
 
hahaha! Don't plan ANYTHING!
When my husband died, they gave me three days to mourn before I resumed work.
Not enough!
Couldn't work without crying.
Up and quit with no income except Social Security at the time.
(like jumping off a cliff!)

I'm good now but I seem to "fly by the seat of my pants". More fun that way anyhow!
 
Planned & stuck to the plan while enjoying life.

Plan was to retire early at 55 but an offer to retire at age 54 was to good to pass up. 27 years later still enjoying life. At 59 on the advice & help from a Fidelity account manager I converted my 401k into IRA's. Did the same when my wife turned 59. We both have traditional IRA's & Self directed IRA's. Didn't need to use that but was forced to at 70 1/2. Those years of growth in the tax free until drawn upon IRA's means we have funds from 2 pensions 4 IRA's & 2 Soc. Sec. electronically transferred into our account every month. No mortgage & no car payments on our 2023 Kia Soul leaves us with utility bills & food as expenses.

Planning & sticking to a plan makes a difference.
 
Knight said:
Planned & stuck to the plan while enjoying life.

Plan was to retire early at 55 but an offer to retire at age 54 was to good to pass up. 27 years later still enjoying life. At 59 on the advice & help from a Fidelity account manager I converted my 401k into IRA's. Did the same when my wife turned 59. We both have traditional IRA's & Self directed IRA's. Didn't need to use that but was forced to at 70 1/2. Those years of growth in the tax free until drawn upon IRA's means we have funds from 2 pensions 4 IRA's & 2 Soc. Sec. electronically transferred into our account every month. No mortgage & no car payments on our 2023 Kia Soul leaves us with utility bills & food as expenses.

Planning & sticking to a plan makes a difference.
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Excellent 👌⬆️
 
I was too caught up with current issues (single mom to 3 teens) to worry about the future. The only issue was encouraging my 3 teens to continue with their education.

I am a MEAN Mama - they could only live at home if they continued their education - if they choose not to continue, they had to move out.

2 of the 3 decided they were "sick of school" and moved out, working at "dead end" jobs. They realized they needed further education after 6 months of "real life" and returned to finished their education. The youngest son learned his lesson from his sister and brother and went straight to university.

My daughter is a "stay at home" mom as her family is doing OK; both sons are engineers - both were transferred to the UK and it is unlikely they will return to Canada.
 
Not any planning in my 20's but by my 30's I had a stable job and it was tight being a single mom with 2 children. I did have a defined benefit pension plan and knew my social security estimates and realized between the two I'd be ok. So planning done, I thought. In my mid 40's they took the pension away and replaced it with a 401k. That was an anxiety provoking occurrence and I had to sit down and really start figuring things out. I reworked my budget, started investing in the 401K and increased my contributions every time I got a raise. In my 60's I really started to research social security and medicare and got a handle on the rules of each and differences in medicare programs and what will and won't work for me. I get paid twice a month at work, currently debt free, living on one paycheck and plumping up my cash savings with the other.

I've worked, and reworked my current budget and my anticipated retirement budgets(allowing for very generous inflation adjustments) and can live reasonably on social security payments. Since I got a late start with 401K contributions my account is not a jaw dropping amount but it's nothing to sneeze at either. I live pretty simply and my wants are few . Intellectually I know I'll be financially ok in retirement as long as I am responsible with my expenditures. Emotionally I still wrestle with the known security of a job in hand vs the unknown. So I have found that I can plan to retire and have a decent plan worked out, but when it's an imminent reality I'm going to have to prod my psyche to go along with said plan.
 
I was unwise enough enough to involve myself with husbands who were very poor with financial issues. Once I was single and stayed that way, things began to look up. I stumbled into a job that had a really good retirement program - and importantly - before they reduced the amount of the pension for future employees. When I divorced the kids father, we profited quite a bit from the sale of the house (which I had strongly advised we buy in the first place); I took my half and invested it in my own house. In the early 90's I paid off all my credit card debt and started increasing the payments on the house. I retired in '02 and made the last payment on the house a year later. I also started saving - something I had never been able to do while married. I always pay off my credit cards monthly and pay cash for large purchases. I have been unbelievably lucky in bumbling into situations that greatly benefited me. I guess it could be said I did some planning after the divorce, but it was very vague and generalized.
 
Very specific financial plans. When DH and I hit our mid-fifties we looked at it in earnest. He asked me to take the lead in financially planning our retirement and I did. Lots of SS research and planning involved. At 64 we went from full-time work to semi-retirement.

Now both 70, we'll continue working this year, but starting January 2024 we'll move to almost complete retirement (we'll probably always work a little as favors, but profits will be small - maybe $5K per year-ish).

Yes, it's a year past our planned retirement, but our largest - extremely loyal customer of 18 years - had staff changes in mid 2022 and we just couldn't abandon them before their new employees had secure footing. Loyalty engenders loyalty.

The planning is working well. DH's SS (starting next month at his maximum benefit age of 70) plus mine (started at 65) combine to give us enough for covering monthly expenses, plus we have IRAs and other retirement savings.
 
Jace said:
Do you think you did...for retirement?

....any planning for anything?

Or..just 'wing it' for everything?🤗
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I "Winged" it till 2021. Good thing I started doing 6% into 401K then 10% 2021. As I had to yank it out for survival till SS started.

I accept my fate to be poor. I'm not blaming anyone. Having a mentor would have helped. But the church only gave lip service, the school counselors were useless and family wasn't into investing.

I applaud all who have made a great retirement, sorry can't say the same.
 
I think I did a little bit of both... we planned by getting the 30 year mortgage paid off in 8 years. That was a big burden taken off. We've bought the last two cars with cash so there wouldn't be car payments... and then with those things out of the way, saving became easier. The "wing it" part was that I didn't really KNOW it was saving "for retirement" because it still seemed a bunch of years off. But then being gobsmacked with a permanent pandemic-related furlough in early 2020 turned into retirement real fast and suddenly nothing else could be done to "plan."
 
I became a shop foreman when I was 26 years old and pushed very hard for the business to implement a retirement plan or I would leave. It worked and I started putting money away then. I changed jobs at 33 and again made a company retirement plan a condition of my employment. Worked again.

Point being I thought of retirement at an early age. I didn't always save what I wanted, and then lost half in my divorce but even so hit my goals, that and overall financial discipline and common sense positioned me nicely.
 
I think I planned pretty well but was still $40,000 short of my initial goal when I retired two years earlier than planned in 1998. My co-workers thought I was crazy (and wouldn't make it) retiring at 50, but I did, considered officially retired 23 days before I turned 51. My pension was based on age 51 but I took a 12% cut (4% for each year under 55). However, I knew I could manage because our carrying charges (aka HOA fee/mortgage payments), which include heat, hot water, insurance and maintenance of common areas, have always been significantly lower than the average comparable apartments in our county and surrounding ones. Also I was debt free and had great retiree benefits. I continued to plan, save and invest well into my retirement years and thank God, am quite comfortable.
 
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OneEyedDiva said:
I think I planned pretty well but was still $40,000 short of my initial goal when I retired two years earlier than planned. My co-workers said no way could I retire at 50, but I did (officially 23 days before I turned 51). I was paid as if I was 51 but took a 12% cut in my pension (4% for each year under 55) but I knew I could manage because our housing costs, which include heat and hot water, have always been significantly lower than the average comparable apartments in our county and surrounding ones. Also I was debt free and had great retiree benefits.
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I would also say that you are very smart lady, you keep track of expenses, are aware of all your expenses, make adjustments where and when needed. To have a good retirement it means we must be aware of inflation, the stock market and react accordingly.
 
Jace said:
Do you think you did...for retirement?

....any planning for anything?

Or..just 'wing it' for everything?🤗
Click to expand...
Winged it as far as retirement and it turned out better than I expected. Sometimes you can plan and plan but it doesn't necessarily happen the way you planned. Life happens and things change unexpectedly. I'm more of a Wing it type person. I don't like making plans too far in advance.
 
I didn't plan to retire at 63. The decision was made for me due to my company's wish to get rid of older, higher paid workers. However, for many years I socked away 6% of my salary into my 401k, which was matched to some extent by my employer, so I retired with enough to live on for whatever years I have left.

My partner went back to work at 55, after 5 years of managing the household, so we could have reasonable health insurance. He has now been promoted twice so he is making a decent salary and also contributing to our living costs. Now I can enjoy not working, and he has a goal of retiring in 5 years.
 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best. That is what we did, my husband died young from cancer. My son and I were/are taken care off. I also worked during our marriage, provided the family insurance and was a lucky person that worked somewhere that had profit sharing. That started our base for retirement.
 

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