H retired in March. I continue to work part time.
We have never had a formal budget. We need one now. It is creating friction. We also are having difficulty agreeing on our investment strategy.
We have been together forever. You would think we would have this figured out by now.
One of us 
spends more than he realizes.
One of us still spends as if the money is still flowing in.
âOne of us spends more than he realizes.â
Ha, ha, I wonder which one of you!
I wonder if it would all be easier if people start budgeting when theyâre younger. Itâs pretty hard to stop the routine youâre already in, as the habits are pretty hard set. We seem to waffle between not thinking much about what weâre spending, to, âHoly crap, look at how much we spent last month, so letâs go on the low flow spending planâ. And then we forget about that, and go back to the usual thing.
Thatâs it exactly bus driver!
Except for the early years we have never had monthly money flow Issues. We have been very fortunate. We are not big spenders and we have never paid much attention to spending as there was always more money coming in.
I have no interest in being the spending cop and yetâŠhere I am.
My husband and I have always been frugal. We were raised that way. Weâve raised our children that way.
When our now college-age children were toddlers we started tracking expenses. At that time it wasnât a formal budget. However, when we started thinking about an early retirement, we did make a budgetâŠand we are very happy we did! It is similar to our parenting styleâŠsetting expectations up front and avoiding some unpleasant conflict later.
I think Iâve heard from another forum that you get free advisor from Vanguard if you have more than one million in money, some of us has large IRA accounts, we may get free advise. Iâm going to put together a plan for both myself and my family. In 20 years, I know I wonât be as lucid as today, which on some days, itâs not reliable. But it serves as something I can refer back and refresh my memory.
Iâm also looking into finding cheap way to do a trust from Nolo, this is for my sister who doesnât have money to do expensive trust. I worry that she gets a little old, looked tired last night when she came over. She said her friend from high school who is just a little older than her in age, just died. Funeral this weekend. I donât know if she has a will but her assets are not much that I worry but the in between phase, from able body to non able body to death. Somehow if I donât have access to it, I canât help her. Some people thinks it goes straight from able body to death. Itâs not simple.
According to the Fidelity link above:
" 10 percent of people ages 55-59 had all of their 401(k) assets in stocks."
Hm, I am not alone.
@DrGoogle, you get some level of advice at elevated AUM ($1M might be the threshold), but you can always go for the personal advisor for 0.3% of AUM. Itâs cheaper than competing service providers, and they are unlikely to have anything but your interests at heart, but I still wonder if itâs necessary. Itâs only $3,000 per million per year, but thatâs a lot of lobster dinners 
Maybe Iâm projecting, but portfolio managment seems easy, the hard part is estate planning.
Bob, thatâs a lot of beers for my husband. I think I prefer automatic rebalancing. I know the life style fund do that but I donât know if Vanguard do that. I need to do more research.
CCDD, itâs good if you have been 100% in stock. My sister is 100% in stock. She keeps putting more in when sheâs working.
Last night I dug through the âretirement planning binâ of papers, books, etc. Have to glean the info from the legal guide book I checked out from the library. Got on-line with our 401k - found the mid cap stock/value we are in (APHQX) has been under-performing, even in the longer terms compared to other choices for stock (3 yr, 5 yr, 10 yr) - this stock fund has been ranging -1.34 YTD, to -2.49 for 1 yr, and prior qtr -1.71.
H logged onto our account with our investment guy. We have a market update (group meeting) next Thurs, then we follow up with 1 on 1 meeting with Don Aug 11. Will bounce off info with Don as well as overall portfolio review. Want to see what he thinks about our bond fund now (PDBZX). I am thinking I want the bond fund to recover some as well as this stock fund before I move the money. Want to be smart (as much as one can be) with having the money where it can do the best.
Our 401k has more than doubled over the last 6 years (and H has been putting in only amount to be matched by employer at 4%). Started in 1988 and put in max until we had to slow that down due to kid expenses (although our earnings were lower of course at the start). Company has changed overall plan (bouncing from Principal, Dreyfus, and now Prudential). I actually liked all three of these overall plans, but had to get educated on their funds as we rolled from each. Had prior experience with Principal (my former job) and with Dreyfus (personal savings/investing). Over the years it would get discouraging to hit an amount, then get knocked back. We feel like we have broken through some of the setbacks (I guess until the next one happens!) Big bleed in 2008 that continued into 2009 (2/5 of account lost in 2008, ouch). Got back to original amount (pre-loss) somewhere in 2010/2011. Will go through old statements to see annual returns and account balances (and trends to a certain degree).
DD was wanting to check out some Thrift stores today, and I told her I wanted to see about Corelle dishes because dad and I will eventually have 2 placed - DD thought I was revealing a âsplit upâ instead of us having a place in the north and a place in the south! We had to laugh about that!
H and I talked last night about changing our second beneficiary to our DDsâ name instead of âtrustee of the trustâ since they are now adults. Baby stepsâŠ
I know I felt a whole lot better with having our financial guy doing some other things with our money - like H and I both have a fixed index annuity with Allianz (called 360 Benefit) - Don found one with a really good deal for us - their actuary made a bit of a boo boo, and they have since closed this particular annuity. My statement shows earning 4.88% 10/13 to 10/14. Has option for providing predictable payments, and option with potential to increase payments by the interest rate credited to accum value. Gives a base for option 1 at 4.7% and base for option 2 at 3.7%. My new contract year began Oct 2014.
I agree about the spending and budgeting changing some with retirement. Glad H is not a âfree spiritâ. Maybe go to using debit instead of credit, or more cash based on items outside of âbudgetâ. Know we have to use $$ to fix up items in our home to maximize selling - that can use planning beforehand.
I hope to feel more financially secure over the next six years!
Because it looks like you are comfortable with your FA and because I am not giving you advice on how to proceed on thisâŠthis is a cautionary note. This second part:
âtrustee of the trustâ does not sound at all correct. If your intention is to make a trust the secondary beneficiary of your retirement account, that language wonât fly. Just think about it: a âtrusteeâ is a person or a corporate entity. Also, if you elect to name a trust, make sure that someone understands IRS requirements so the inherited IRA will distribute RMDs based on the life expectancy of the longest-life-expectancy beneficiary.
Complex IRA inheritance requires real expertise.
A few guidelines, off the top of my head, to sort out the issues:
(1) If your sister is worried about needing someone to help her manage her finances when she is unable: she needs to (a) identify a trusted person + a successor trusted person and (b) execute a (springing) POA for financial affairs. CA probably has a statutory POA and she can start there. After that, your sister should consult with each of the financial institutions at which she holds accounts and ask what forms of POA they require and have those properly executed. There has been a great deal of angst expressed about POAs and the best solution is to make sure that the entity you want to accept your POA has been supplied with the proper form. You can find the form online if the company so you can read it and see how it works.
(2) Who gets what: (a) identify the type of property she has and (b) implement estate documents (from simple TOD to a will to more complex things like trusts) to make sure that her property will go to the right people. Otherwise, the state intestacy statute will govern. For some reason, I read that people in CA seem to prefer using a revocable living trust for real property inheritance vs. probating a will, but that may be because of the perceived cost of probating a will in CA or may have something to do with how property taxes are grandfathered. I know nothing more than what I typed in the previous sentence, so youâll need to get proper local advice.
(3) Do not forget about a medical POA, advanced directive / living will.
Thanks @AttorneyMother. She does not worry, I am for her, since Iâm a master at worrying. 
She is thinking she just falls dead like some of her friends skipping the middle stage. Thatâs the best scenario for most people but unfortunately there are some people go though the middle stage that somebody has to come to help.
I hope to be able to hire people to help care for her but I wonât even be able to if I donât have access.
I appreciate the advice.
In our will (drafted when oldest DD was born) we named my brother and sister as custodians with my brother handling the finances if both H and I died - the total language included âlast will and testamentâ. So we had the secondary beneficiaries split between the two girls but with the language for the trustees to take care of them as minors.
Yes we have to get it all cleaned up with our state regs - plan to see a certified elder attny that I know. However some we can get cleaned up already with our life ins policies and our investments.
Would like to have it all very straightforward and very clean. It will take time.
@SOSConcern , this is beyond the scope of this thread, but youâll want to sort out the following:
(1) Non-probate assets and accounts: these pass via contract
â life insurance policies
â 401k, 403b, 457 and any other qualified retirement plans
â IRAs (traditional and Roth)
â bank, brokerage, investment and financial accounts that have a valid TOD or POD arrangement in place
â assets held JTWROS (with some exceptions applicable in community property states)
These will pass according to your designations of beneficiaries or by operation of law. Some people erroneously believe that you can designate âpeople named in my Will.â That designation may work for some thingsâperhaps life insurance policiesâbut not for most accounts. Generally, financial institutions do not want to mess with having to determine whether oneâs Will is valid (which will require filing the Will for probate) and will deem the âestateâ to be the beneficiary. Thatâs fine, but that may not be your intent.
(2) Probate assets: these pass via your Will or via intestacy statute if there is no Will
â probate assets can and do include assets in category (1) if there is no valid designation of beneficiary
From what I understand, elder law attorneys and estate planning attorneys tend to focus on different priorities.
It took my husband and I the whole month of July to complete husband retirement application properly. He is going to mail them today. Next stop is to start applying for Social Security. But I wonder where to apply for Medicare, is that the same place to apply for social security.
Also there are a lot of flyers sent to our house regarding seminars toward social security. Are they worth going or mostly scams?
Thanks for the breakdown @AttorneyMother - we have our estate funds in order as far as being watched and making money and fulfilling our retirement needs once we reach age 65 or if disability happens in next 6 years (we are below tax thresholds for inheritance) - and our financial guy has the 411 on doing things with generation skipping provisions etc. And if we need/want, we can also then follow up with the legal advising. Hopefully if and when DD1 and DD2 marry, they donât marry a flake or worse, and any children are a credit to the family.
I think we need to get our beneficiary designations in order as first order of business. Line up the appt and do the work necessary for the elder law attny. I am getting my information up to date and have our financial stuff under the microscope the next two weeks. Have to write lists and plans, so I can check things off! Also identify everything.
I was just thinking about change of address - some of you have moved or move more frequently. We have had same address for 22 years and have lived in this area since 1983. Postal service isnât what it use to be either.