Hello. Regular person here. Just checking in to say howdy to others who may be reading this thread also, and to state firmly that not all of us have huge houses (we feel right-sized with 1900 sq ft), or bank accounts in the hundreds of thousands, or enormous 401Ks, or houses on each coast. In fact, some of us may not have started saving for retirement until later in life - like mostly after children were out of college. So if you have been a little intimidated by what you have been reading here, and feel like your retirement plans are too small or too modest for discussion - COME BACK AND REPRESENT! You are much needed here to add balance to this discussion. And now⊠back to my rice and beans, prepared at home by yours truly in an instant pot.
Our house is about 1200 square feet and is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. It was just right for us when our kids were young and now that theyâve flown the nest but visit. The whole house is only one story, so itâs pretty accessible, tho the doorways may need to be widened if we ever need wheelchairs or walkers.
I have warned our kids that wherever they settle and start families, H and I will try to have a long term rental (fortunately there are a range of options that make this possible). I want to watch any grandbabies grow up and we still donât know where our young adults will settle. One of our offspring is in VA and the other in southern CA.
My siblings all live in Honolulu, as do my parents. I really hope our kids will ultimately settle here, but tine will tell. Sadly, we have a very high COL here.
We did help our kids with starting Roth IRAs. S is mostly doing fine on his own. No idea when D will finally be medically and financially independent, which adds more unknowns to our lives.
Company match? What is this crazy feature you talk about? Never have had one.
Our S gets a partial match from his employer, fed govtâhe tries to be sure to always get all of it.
@anxiousmom I think having bi-coastal houses is an outlier on this thread as much as getting into Harvard SCEA is, to tie it into being on CC. 
I hope all feel welcome here and encourage all to chime in. One of my favorite things about the Parents Cafe that keeps me coming back is to hear from a variety of opinions and voices that reflect the range of folks across the country and even internationally. I learn new things even when I donât agree with them all.
And @ saillakkeerie, for 95% or more of us, add " Pension, What is this crazy feature you talk about"
The important thing is to start where you are⊠and just plan carefully from there.
To be clear, we live in a very modest houseâŠthat needs to be paintedâŠ
We also generally buy new cars, maintain them well and drive them for 10+ years/120,000+ miles.
DH didnât start putting money into a 401k til he was 37 (grad school, student loans and child care and saving for a down payment got in the way), so we have been playing catch-up for a while.
I started saving for retirement in my mid-20s. Iâve been in and out of the job market (due to kids and serious illnesses) and not always had a 401k plan available. If I had a plan, I contributed enough to max out my match. Should have tried to contribute more, but was throwing all of my income at the EFC. Both DH and I grew up in families that had very little and didnât save at all. We were determined to handle finances differently.
What will enable us to retire is decent medical coverage. The loss of my income is lousy enough, but my annual medical bills without good coverage would have bankrupted us long ago.
I was a pension plan administrator for many years. I used to tell folks to put in whatever they could, and to put in enough to get the full match if at all possible. Every bit you can save will be a help. Three of my four siblings have no retirement savings at all. Scares the cr*p out of me.
Most of my employers had NO retirement plan. My job working part-time for the state had NO benefits at all. They were careful to give us few hours/week so we were never entitled to any benefits. The state didnât even contribute to SS, so my years of working with them count as 0, except if I earned from any other employers who did contribute.
We are happy to have one house. I honestly would not like the responsibilities and costs if having more than one dwellingâwould prefer a long term rental for anything in addition.
Speaking of Valentineâs Day, I donât like receiving flowers. When we were dating that was okay - it was his money - but once we got engaged I told him never again. Now it was OUR money, and I just donât see the enjoyment in something that will die.
I have a great picture of my mom on Christmas Day, unwrapping a garbage can. Raising three kids on one salary, that was kind of a joke gift from my dad but a necessary one. Iâm sure what money there was for Christmas went to stuff for us. Thatâs where we stand ⊠we are not romantics in terms of âstuff.â We sort of float Christmas to something we need earlier or later in the year, and call it good.
Oh, I take that back. I think I am getting a new garage door for my upcoming birthday/anniversary. =))
@IxnayBob, I have heard the same thing about shoes (two pairs alternated last longer than twice the lifespan of one pair). I wonder if that is also true for jeans. Itâs not clear that ShawSonâs approach is the most frugal, though it is generally pretty frugal because he does not have lots of clothes sitting around to be used once a quarter. Heâs also thinking he might never own a car, if he can use uber, zipcar and Caltrain, but I suspect that will change.
@doschcos, I havenât inquired but Iâm pretty sure they are hiring real employees and not contractors. Is that a trend in startups? I know Google has a huge number of contract employees. There are also PEOs (Professional Employer Organizations) that jointly hire the employers with the company and offer benefits and HR support, etc. That might be something a startup uses. Doesnât seem particularly problematic.
@dragonmom, I had a pension from my first job. But, like you, nothing since then. A couple of jobs with 401ks and then 25 years ago, I went out on my own and retirement is just about savings. For better or worse (probably worse), this is the brave new world. And, this just in, the Trump budget would cut Medicare and contains the first real cuts, I think, in Social Security as well (though just for disabled folks as far as I can tell). While this budget wonât pass, the trend for the next few years for health insurance and retirement income arenât positive.
@saillakeerie, I match for my employees, though Iâm not sure if it is a SIMPLE IRA or a 401k.
@bearcatfan, my mother used to give us socks as presents. I ask ShawWife to get me things I am already planning to get. Alas, many of those things are tax deductible so my business really ends up paying for them (but I donât tell her that). She loves loves loves flowers so I have gotten her flowers over the years, especially when I am traveling. When the kids were little and I was traveling (I travel half the time and used to travel more), it would change her week to have flowers. Now, I often get them at Costco. I have also taken to getting my mother and my mother-in-law flowers for Valentineâs Day and Motherâs Day.
@shawbridge Itâs my understanding that start-ups will frequently (not sure how frequently) bring people on under an independent contractor status instead of an employee status to get around things like health insurance, FICA, unemployment tax, etc. All the benefits of such an arrangement seem to accrue to the employer not the employee. Seems pretty scam-y to me. The ones Iâve heard about are usually young employees and not affiliated with PEOs.
hi.
In reading this thread I realize that I should have opened up a Roth Ira for DS a long time ago. we had only regular IRAâs and it did not occur to me until recently that we could open a Roth for him.
He will be 30 this year, so Iâd love it if someone can point me to a primer on how to open one/ fund one for a now adult child.
Never to late, @menloparkmom
There are many places you can go to but you could start here:
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/retirement/roth-ira-all-video
https://www.fidelity.com/retirement-ira/roth-ira
http://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/IRA_Roth.moneymag/index.htm
Itâs very easy to get started. Let us know if you have specific questions.
thank you!!
@menloparkmom I opened Roth IRA accounts for DDs with TD Ameritrade. Invested in ETF (exchange traded funds) where it is diversified stock and should follow the market. TD Ameritrade is pretty low cost to use.
Big article in our Sunday paper âWill you have to work in retirement?â One in three people say they will. Also less than 1 in 13 overall believed they wouldnât work during retirement.
There are some tools on this site to see if your 401k will be sufficient - www.blooom.com.
We saw our financial guy Don on Wednesday. Decided to take our $150K in gains from 401k from last 2 years and purchase another annuity. Similar to one we bought 2 years ago but the gain for us with the new annuity will be a little less. Annuity we own had 10.72% compounding annual increase rate of return over past 2 years. Buying a product now to me seems like we will do better on product purchase than when the stock market is down. H will sleep better at night with us making this move (he typically doesnât SWAN). We reduced our risk. Annuities are pretty much no risk and guaranteed money which our returns are better than bonds and less risk.
I adjusted our 401k holdings; got out of HBLTX (Hartford Balanced Income R5) - turns out they have about 42% bond holding in it and that had dragged down the returns (11.69% return last year). So shifted account % on the other 3 holdings. One of them, JGVRX (JP Morgan Growth Advantage R5) had a return last year of 35.69%. Our 401k had a 20.47% return last year. With only 3.5 years to retirement, having a little less risk for us is a good thing.
Based on our current projection of income/expenses in retirement, we are in the black (not drawing down from principal) for 16 years (2034) when we will be 78 years old. OK to start drawing on principal by then IMHO. We wonât run out of money as far as I can see, esp since we have the gold standard on LTC insurance.
I understand your point when referring to flowers, but your comment applies to all of us and, worse, our pets!
Good point @VeryHappy. The one thing I learned about gifts was to give what would make the other person happy and not what would make me happy.
PSA: imo, except in very rare instances, annuities are not suitable for most purchasers. Again, imo, Single Premium Immediate Annuities (SPIA) are the only annuities to consider purchasing. Some purchasers might be in the exception category, but thatâs pretty unlikely with estates of the size we are discussing here, and anyone in the exception category should have a fiduciary who has examined the annuity and its suitability for the purchaser.