<p>Hayden, if I could only get my wife to retire, I might achieve my wish of not dying while a resident of NJ. I like the bumper sticker; you didn’t copyright that, did you?</p>
<p>
I used to work for a company from the mid 70s on, whose stock prices followed some sort of “Moore’s Law” and kept doubling and splitting several times. I didn’t have a 401k or IRA then, and after several inept attempts at trading, settled on the “be loyal to the company, nay, family, and buy company stock and never sell vested stock options” strategy. At one time in the eighties, I had several hundred thousand dollars in it, over 90% of my assets, which then was a huge amount, especially for someone my age. It wasn’t a gun at my head at all, but Kool-Aid imbibed by someone really dumb.</p>
<p>Long story short (the bulk of the rest was in the Japanese market, but I’ll skip that), it kept going down from the mid 40s high, but since I was too immature to “sell at such a big loss compared to its peak”, I held on. I was let go in '91 and the company was finally sold at under 30c/share. </p>
<p>Dadof3, that is a tough story.</p>
<p>Dadx is corrected about the inherited IRA form a parent. I inherited one from my Dad with 2 siblings. This money had never been taxed. The executor had to split the money 3 ways with each one of us getting to decide how to take the money. The other 2 paid the tax the year they received the money and took it all out at once. Both me and my spouse are working and I didn’t want to add the money on top of both of our incomes and pay all the tax on it at the highest level. Instead I rolled it over into my own inherited IRA and I have to take minimum distributions annually which are taxed. The minimum distributions are taxed when I take them out. The minimum distributions are based on my age and therefore years of life expectancy left and the amount of the IRA account at the end of the previous year. If you don’t take the money every year then there is some sort of penalty so you have to remember to do it. The nice thing is the IRA money is continuing to rise in value every year but the amount you have to take out is a higher percentage every year.</p>
<p>Looking at the original question…I figure it’s going to be the same as always…I’m always going to need JUST a bi more than I have. Story of our lives. Our one dream thing has always been just beyond our reach.</p>
<p>I’ve been obsessed with retirement to the point where I’m in a weird situation of having to borrow to help the kids with college, hardly any savings, a high income and about a half mil in retirement savings with 20-25 years to go until retirement.</p>
<p>My planner said my retirement years will be better than my working years and would like to see more balance but encourages me to keep funding the retirement accounts. It’s a mix of traditional and Roth IRA, traditional 401K which come in the forms of bonds, stock funds and individual stocks, usually high dividend paying stocks. I rebalance everything twice a year and adjust weighting based on market conditions but don’t time anything. Hoping to add real estate to the portfolio in a few years.</p>
<p>There is an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on Social Security that might be of interest:</p>
<p><a href=“What You Don't Know About Social Security—but Should - WSJ”>http://online.wsj.com/articles/what-you-don-t-know-about-social-securitybut-should-1403470474</a></p>
<p>That is a good article.</p>
<p>And another article from today’s Wall Street Journal, this one on Roths:</p>
<p><a href=“http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052702303980004579576053951164192?mod=yahoo_itp&mg=reno64-wsj”>http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB20001424052702303980004579576053951164192?mod=yahoo_itp&mg=reno64-wsj</a></p>
<p>Loosely related retirement planning question… we went to a will writing class, and wondering where you keep your will. I was going to get rid of the safety deposit box, but now not sure. Should I start a new thread? </p>
<p>safe deposit box, copy in safe at home</p>
<p>The will should be kept at the lawyer or at home. If it’s a copy it should be cleary mark copy and the location of the real will. Never put the original will in the safe deposit box because if the owner is deceased, your beneficiaries will need a court order for the bank to open the safe.</p>
<p>Edit to add there is a problem with keeping the will at home, fire. Maybe get a good safe for home ?</p>
<p>We keep our copy in a fire safe at home. That’s a safe that a robber would have no problem with but is supposedly fire proof. The original is with our attorneys. Our copy is clearly marked “copy”, and has the name, address and phone number of the attorney firm. </p>
<p>deleted</p>
<p>Can you have two copies of original will? I think we have the original and I believe our lawyer also have an original.</p>
<p>@drgoogle - In Pennsylvania, a joint owner of a safety deposit box can enter a safety deposit box to remove a will, as long as a bank employee is present (and the bank employee must then file the appropriate form with the state):</p>
<p>file:///C:/Users/berkoa69/Downloads/rev-584.pdf</p>
<p>Dadinator’s link on the internet: <a href=“http://www.education.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=space&name=Dir&id=cached&psname=Dir&psid=1&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true&control=DirRepost&rangeFrom=50&rangeTo=52&subfolderID=61413&DirMode=1”>http://www.education.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=space&name=Dir&id=cached&psname=Dir&psid=1&in_hi_userid=2&cached=true&control=DirRepost&rangeFrom=50&rangeTo=52&subfolderID=61413&DirMode=1</a></p>
<p>@dadinator, cosigner still works the same in California. I was referring to the remaining spouse on the safety deposit box. I think there is another thing to do is to have a cosigner for your safe deposit as one of your kids or power of attorney. But the assumption is you must have kids that you can trust. In most family situation that is usually the case.</p>
<p>It is important that you choose a younger lawyer who will survive you or a law firm that has some continuity with the work that their lawyers do. It doesn’t help your survivors if your lawyer is retired or dead when his/her services will be needed.</p>