Standard of Living Changes

[stretch5881]

I tend to look at things that most people think is boring. I read over company financial reports, pay attention to geopolitical events and history.
In light of the current events, I think back to '73 and '79. The events those years caused global inflation. Could it happen this time?
Geared more at us retirees, the Social Security trust that pays part of our monthly check, will be depleted in 6 years 8 months. Our monthly payment will be reduced by 23%. This goes for all payments made by the SSA.
The trusts for Medicare will be depleted starting 2040.
You could go to the government websites and fall asleep trying to read their financial statements, or, you can just do a search for "Social Security trust" and "Medicare trust" to get the short versions.
How are the people, without investments, going to survive?
What kind of life will our children and grandchildren face when they are retirement age?
I try to teach mine and I can see the light in their eyes going dim.

 

[Myquest55]

My DH, a USNavy Submarine Vet, has always worked for an hourly wage. We moved around a lot, even after the military, for work and managed to upgrade our house a little bit at time so that when, we sold to move for retirement, we were in a comfortable spot. I handled the finances and invested as much of any inheritance we received along the way, as I could. In 8+ years, we haven't had to touch our savings but once during COVID19 to re-roof and paint the house.

When each of our sons graduated college, we scheduled a meeting with the Representative from both of our life insurance/investment companies. (I have always split our investments/savings between 2 companies. I've seen a number of news articles along the way about Reps disappearing with people's life savings and I didn't want to lose everything, should that ever happen)

Anyway, they explained some of the ways they could save and protect their money. So far they seem to have taken that to heart. Another person they might listen to is a Tax Preparer. I have NEVER done my own taxes but have always had a lot of questions for the professional (who attends the IRS update classes and actually knows what they're doing) about how to minimize our tax footprint and maximize our deductions. Has worked pretty well for us over the years. Sometimes they will listen to a someone other than a parent or family member - even if you're saying the same thing Good luck!

 

[Aunt Bea]

There was similar concern when the government and companies began moving away from traditional pensions in favor of 401k plans, IRAs, etc…

I believe that our elected officials will pull a rabbit out of the hat to save Social Security and or implement harsher means testing so that people in higher income brackets will be cheated out of the benefits that they were promised and paid into over their working lives.

Personally, I would like to see all of the State and Federal social programs like unemployment insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, welfare, snap, Social Security, etc… rolled into one benefit program that we pay into when times are good and protects us when times are bad from the cradle to the grave.

We need to give people credit, they’ll figure it out and life will go on.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” - Theodore Roosevelt