I think, before you evaluate this, you need to drink a good bottle of wine, and celebrate! And then think of all the fun things that you can do now that he’s retired. And then…evaluate.
My H dad just retired too and his financial planner told him it takes about a year to really know how much you need to live on. I thought that was interesting and probably very true!
Actually, for us, the amount we need to pick be on is a bit more “fluid” than we had planned, as we are paying all bills for, since she is still medically unable to work. We are attributing her bills as part of “how much we need to live on,” tho technically it could be excluded or pared back. Its working OK for all of us anyway. We are still adjusting to H being retired and drawing pension rather than paychecks for income after two years.
I have a job interview Monday - a place I have been trying, trying, trying to get into. Even met the future boss at a fund raiser and told her I applied for her job opening (HR had closed the job opening, but my paperwork was in and I had no idea if she had already hired someone or not). Re-entry to the job market after long absence. Pay is good too! I am very excited about the opportunity. Please think of me on Monday between 12 and 2 pm CST!
good luck SOSC!
It has taken us a full year to get use to H’s retirement. He still works/earns .5 of what he did previously.
The $ comes into our account at different times of the month and there are 5 deposits instead of the former 2.
My tight accounting went out the window.
Medicare costs much more than we h ad anticipated as they go by the last two years of your income–so at least this will go down this year.
Having retired in May, 2014 --well, I would suggest, if possible, to retire on Dec 31. for the simplicity of the taxes and such.
Much is nice–traveling when we want to–hiking and all. Still, the first year was difficlut for me just having him around so much and also he needed to learn to organize his free time (almost there).
@SOSConcern, good luck!
@SOSConcern - We will all be rooting for you on Monday!
The gang is (mostly) all here, but where is @AttorneyMother ?
At what your adult child’s age will you stop financially support him or her completely? At what his/her age will you retire? For example, 6 or 7 years after your youngest child graduates from college?
The author of this article seems to say that many parents at 50 to 60 years old still financially support their adult children to a certain extent (say, $5000 a year) and often postpone their retirement. Are you such a parent?
http://time.com/money/page/parents-adult-children-financial-support/
My husband and I are in our 50’s, and we are supporting our kids with more than 5K per year. We have 3 in college (two should graduate in May). I do hope they Launch fairly quickly and we can start thinking more about retirement.
Well, we are still supporting D and will continue to do so until her health issues are resolved. Do we all wish it would be better? Of course. Is there a good timeline for health? Even her docs don’t offer us one, so we just continue to see what time and treatment offers. Fortunately, H was able to comfortably retire anyway as scheduled and I am able to be mostly retired as well. Both kids have their college degrees and S is well launched, though we have given him a very low interest loan to help with his business as well.
My oldest S (from my first marriage) took a circuitous route through school and work. Finally, at age 25 he’s a full time student at a 4-year college, with an odd assortment of CC credits. I am happy to provide for him, and will for some number of years.
My H dad just retired too and his financial planner told him it takes about a year to really know how much you need to live on. I thought that was interesting and probably very true!>>>>>>>>
As a recent retiree, I agree. Right now, I admit I’m terrified. I’m afraid to spend money! I can’t relax. I mean, after all I have spent years socking it away, right? So I guess it takes a bit to get out of that mindset and into the mindset that “I worked hard for this very thing and now it’s here so relax a bit.” It’s a bit disconcerting to change gears like this. We’re not wealthy. Definitely nicely comfortable but I have to be prudent.
@HImom, Hope your D’s health issue will be resolved soon.
We have definitely scaled down our financial supports to our S after his college, because his student loans paid for the majority of his expenses in the past few years.
In the coming years, I think we will still pay for a (smaller) part of his bills, e.g., his cell phone bills and hopefully continue to pay the interest portion of his student loans so that the loan amount will not grow larger every year.
If we could completely stop the financial support 7 years after his college, I think it is better than what we have expected.
@VaBluebird, I think it will be a little bit disconcerting for me to change gears as well, especially before we decide to start collecting SS.
I keep hearing that, before your full retirement age (say, 66), it is better to use your own retirement savings first and postpone the collection of your SS as late as possible. But it will be very disconcerting to see your retirement savings dropped.
I think I will face the same problem not long from now. Even though we have not retired as of today, we are afraid to use money. Although we are not like “eating Ramen noodle” every day, when we eat out, we almost always choose fast-food joint! (We were joking to ourselves the other day that it seems to us that in the county where the household income is the highest income in the US (this county is where we live now), you could see a high percentage of old people who eat at a fast food joint like McDonald’s. It was not like this when we lived in a “poorer” state, where more old people seem to be able to eat at a better place, like Luby’s.)
The thing that worries me about this strategy is how it will be affected by whatever is put in place to “fix” SS. If the solution is benefit cuts or means-testing for higher income recipients, it may wind up better to get it while you can. It’s such a crap shoot.
One fosters ideas of financial independence with a work ethic. H and I both had UG degrees that were employable (engineering and nursing). DDs are nursing and engineering, and should finish UG with no debt. We pay for basic cell phone (DD2 pays the extra for data plan) and pay for car insurance. When DD1 graduates, we will allow her to continue using our car until she can save enough to buy her own car - and we will continue paying for car insurance. If I get the job I am interviewing for on Monday, we will have a bit more cash flow to possibly help match money on a car. What we do for one, we do for the other. The insurance laws allow dad’s plan to continue covering them on his family health plan through work until they are 26. DDs both are looking at grad school.
H had some student debt, and I had none. Parents gave me a new car for graduation, and H and I shared so we could buy our house within a year after graduating college, after paying off his student debt, having a down payment, and living pretty frugally.
DDs realize they are getting a good college education, have the experiences they like in college. They like the visits home and time as a family.
We all want our kids to be successfully independent. Some may have a rough start, or have issues. If one can be generous w/o facilitating some kind of co-dependency, I am all for productive generosity.
Both our college grads are self-supporting. They ask for nothing, but we sometimes volunteer to help when easy to do so.
For example, we let DS drive our 1998 car for 2 years … til this summer when it needed pricey repairs. During that time we kept her on our auto insurance, and she paid us monthly (which was about half of what it would have cost if she were getting her own policy. We’ve also paid for various airline travel with and without us.
With health issues, its a tough situation. You really want them to have the independence they can handle, but if they physically have no reliable stamina, many/most jobs are out of the question, sadly. Chronic health issues can be a decade or more and no one knows when we can hope for better. We count our blessings that morale remains good.
Himom- best of luck with your daughter.
We had paid for college and will be paying for a wedding. Thankfully my D is self sufficient now.