Where do you put your money when you are 2 or years from retirement? Equities are risky, bond prices will go down if interest rates rise. Our financial advisor suggested real estate and life insurance. I dont know. I have a bit in real estate.
Any ideas.
"How to figure out the cost of health insurance from now until weāre eligible for Medicare. (His health insurance provider was very opaque about COBRA) "
Check out ACA options under your projected retirement income. Maybe youād qualify for subsidies and could utilize that as health insurance until medicare eligible.
āWhere do you put your money when you are 2 or years from retirement? Equities are risky, bond prices will go down if interest rates rise.ā
Iād say it is risky to have zero exposure to equities. Remember that although one might be retiring, they are usually many, many years from death. Your money has to work for most retirees during retirement. I wouldnāt eschew equities all together.
We are staying the course with our retirement funds. I distrust any life insurance productā¦ just because the agent is making his or her living on my investments
āOur financial advisor suggested real estate and life insurance.ā
Agree with @dragonmom about life insurance as an investment product. If this was your financial advisorās advice, honestly Iād look elsewhere for an advisor.
^ that FA just outed him/herself.
āEquities are riskyā yup, and they have been for the last few years of phenomenal growth.
āBond prices will go down if interest rates riseā yup, and the increased yield will make up for the price decline if you have selected an appropriate duration.
""How to figure out the cost of health insurance from now until weāre eligible for Medicare. (His health insurance provider was very opaque about COBRA) āā
Well, by law the employer has to be transparent. Keep bugging the HR.
I think I understand stocks wee bit. Not bonds. I understand that the inverse correlation in price and interests. Does that mean it doesnāt matter when you buy bonds at high or low? Or is it still better to buy at a low price? Intuitively, Iād say the latter, who can argue with low price earning more interest? Is that wrong?
@iglooo, unless you understand bonds, I suggest buying them in a bond fund. Then, the operative factors are duration, credit quality, tax status, and expense ratio. Someone else worries about the other details. Even if you understand bonds, IMO individual bonds donāt make sense unless you have more than at least $10M in bonds, and then Iād have someone manage them; itās not something one does on the side.
I do buy bond funds not individual bonds. Trading individual bonds are worse than trading stocks imo. Itās harder to study than individual stocks. Even with bond funds, you have to understand a bit, I would think. I understand duration, credit quality, tax status, and expense ratio. They are the easy ones, simple to understand, listed all on the first page. I have no desire to fool around with junk bonds. I buy AAA or AAās. I do understand the correlation between duration and risk, etc. What I donāt understand would you also try to time it a bit in trading? Would you buy bonds right before FED raise rates? Would you worry if the price will drop right after you buy? I know you get your money back in the end. But wouldnāt it be beneficial to buy when the price is low with higher interest?
@ManhattanBoro If you have a schedule for your portion of health insurance from employer (some companies provide a print out with all employee benefits, like the life insurance etc, it may give what the portion of health insurance paid for as a company benefit). Maybe some retirees have a different schedule - if they have a certain number of years in, as a benefit. Can you contact the health insurance company directly to see what their rates are?
H is delaying retirement 4 months until we both turn 65, so we both qualify for Medicare - this is in less than four years. Always a doubt on continuing ability to work due to so much downsizing and corporate changes, but seems he has employment and maybe a small bonus next monthā¦can hope for a decent bonus, but that could be very wishful thinkingā¦
Pulling up our 401k gains in 2017 now that year end numbers are in.
If we had extra money, we would add to small Roth IRAs we started for our adult children. We may need to replace a vehicle, and have some home projects listed.
If only one spouse is working and going to be exited out of work before both spouses are 65, maybe other spouse would be willing to work something with easy job entry but with benefits like health insurance. Health insurance costs possibly are manageable with family finances, but it also may be worth job re-entry for the benefit and the extra cash flow.
If one is trying to get a job for health or other benefits, be sure said job offers such benefits and that you would get them if employed. In HI, many employers purposely only hire PT workers so they donāt have to provide medical insurance.
Yes, employers definitely want to avoid paying benefits if they can. The exception I have noticed is local bank that often advertises in Help Wanted in the newspaper. Pay starts at $11/hr with benefits (though Iām guessing employee portion is high, especially if there is a spouse). Schedule includes alternate Saturdays but also weekday time off, which seems helpful for appointments.
My company pays full benefits for part time workers, I guess itās the only way to get people to come to work for four hours at a time. But I thought the financial assistance with Obamacare was going to make it not worth peopleās while, but I was wrong.
I have avoided this thread, but would say please find a great investor, who has personal integrity, Investor who has returned 25% annual return for 10 year or higher. One can be down in a single year but great value investors have consistent records over long term.
^ if such an advisor actually exists, they arenāt taking pennies to invest from the likes of us
" Investor who has returned 25% annual return for 10 year or higher"
Really? To me that would be concern that maybe you are dealing with a Bernie Madoff type. Indices like NASDAQ have averaged 11% per year or so over the past 10 years.
No wonder there is ācasinoā in your user name. 
@doschicos making fun of my name will not gain you anything. Yes there are Bernie Madoff. But there are Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet of the world too. When they started their comapanies when both were young, they took money from people like you and me. Not everyone is crook. That is your job to find these kind of people who are diamonds in the rough. These people exist, just look harder. If you sent me a PM, I will give a name or two, but now they are bigger and charge minimum 500k. There are few who have lower minimum but their record is 4 to 5 years. Plus one has to be acrredited investor to invest.
Make sure the manger is holding 70 to 80% their net worth in the hedge fund. person is putting his or her money at the risk. As long as hedge fund manger has his or her risked aligned with the rest of investors, have a track record and integrity, you will be fine.
@notrichenough find a manger who is running a holding company and have their own personal money invested in the company. In that case you do not have to be accredited investors.
Charge 500k?!
@doschicos by the way every hedge fund has few spaces available out of 99 ( for each fund) where they can take unaccredited investor; generally those spots go to younger people who have great potential to become accredited investors. If you can get one of those spots, with a hedge fund manager who shows integrity, go for it. Manager sometime run 3 to 5 such funds. These are SEC rules. But as the hedge fund manager gets more name recognition, they want a bigger piece of pie as minimum investment.