It’s good to have evidence that it can be done, since a lot of people are in the same financial boat this couple is in. It’s clearly not easy, but it seems like they are doing okay.
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This doesn’t feel like “doing okay” to me. IMO, they are living way too close to the edge, one emergency away from serious trouble.
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Thanks for sharing this.
I think the book will be an excellent resource for those not having much of a nest egg for retirement and needing to learn how to be frugal in retirement.
So these two were living on thread bare before their move; renting. Car given to them. $4K debt paying off $266/month.
I wonder if their jobs before 65 (they declared they both started drawing SS at 62) had some form of health insurance or how their health insurance was covered. It sounds like they had made a decision that they will always be working to live off their SS, small pension, and earnings. Maybe they were on some NY state health assistance plan for low income.
IDK if they realized what a penalty they chose with their life time SS of a deduct of 5/9th of 1% for every month before their full SS retirement age of 65. I do think they believed they can live frugally and it didn’t matter because they always figured a way to make it work. I didn’t see the Salvation Army food assistance food pantry. I imagine this early SS penalty was in place when they retired at 62?
For many, I think if they personally have not been good savers/investors/having a paid for home, they would not even consider retiring at 62 with SS and a PT job. Plus if the job has health insurance or how are they going to have health insurance prior to Medicare/65? Many people with children do not want to be a burden or a worry for their children. I know some single elderly parents do live close to family, as do some married elderly parents.
With my return to paid employment 4 1/2 years ago (after being a SAHM for 18 years, which also included aggressive cancer treatments for aggressive cancer and being cancer free for 11 years now), I actually have enough with SS for me to draw on my own (higher than the 1/2 spousal off my DH’s). I am sacrificing some by early w/d of SS at age 65 instead of full 66 and 4 months (being born in 1956) so we have some cash flow in as we don’t have but a very small pension from one of DH’s prior employment - SS has a schedule for ‘full SS’ with later years going up a few month until 67 for those folk’s full SS payout.
Our out of pocket insurance costs for health care for us is about $500/month more than when I was working and employer had very good coverage and reasonable employee cost. For us, it is worth it! Next year my drug plan is going up $20/mo. It is what it is (I take nasal sprays for allergies so I am in a higher drug plan than DH). If DH and I do need higher cost drugs, will have to research and change during annual ‘open enrollment’.
A surprise for me was that when DH filled his prescriptions in Oct (under new drug plan), he had no co-pays (they would have been low amounts). I wonder if the co-pay is ‘annualized’ under Medicare rules and was already met with my company health insurance which covered DH through Sept. That was a nice surprise.
The Reids keep their health well monitored, and they are fortunate to have excellent medical care options in their area. Cleveland Clinic in Vero Beach area. My son in law’s parents live close enough to the Mayo Clinic FL option for them - it is worth the drive for Parkinson health management.
I worked with a RN (she was working at age 70 FT - poor retirement planning and personal circumstances, and she still is a smoker…) that flew down to FL for deep brain stimulation laser treatment for her Parkinson’s - the treatment worked great for her. Surgical procedure was in Orlando. She told me the four spots where they drilled into her head to mount the apparatus are sensitive, but otherwise she is doing great.
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However, the linked page says that they avoid using Cleveland Clinic because it is more expensive.
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I agree. They are driving a car that is probably on its last legs, their expenses are increasing way in excess of what their SS will increase. They are already paying in excess of 40% of their income in rent, soon it will be 50%+. If they ever have to move it may be very difficult to find a place that will rent to them at that ratio (I wouldn’t, too risky). They won’t get jobs (“both of us quickly realized we were square pegs trying to fit into round holes”), that is BS.
They are surviving. I wouldn’t say they are thriving. In 5 years they will probably need gov’t housing assistance and food stamps.
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Theirs is not a comfortable way to live - using a food pantry and negotiating with dentists to get cheaper medical care. I think as others have said they are one step away from a financial crisis.
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That was an instructive article on what not to do (for me) - although it seems this couple is happy with their choices (for now). But quite close to the financial edge!
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Inflation will come after them like a hungry lion after a gazelle… that’s not a happy retirement story. Hope they will be able to find some gigs to supplement their income and stay healthy.
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I read this also with alarm. They have no cushion and are heading into big expenses (car). Good for them for paying off lots of debt but counting on income from art ( in the range of $500/ year) just not even enough to count as pipe dreams.
It kind of reminds me of the commercial for jellyfish pills “I’m a writer and my husband is ……”
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Don’t see the concern. They can easily reduce costs of housing and medical care: move away from the coast and rents will drop precipitously; switch to a Medicare Advantage plan with Rx benefits.
The take away message for me is that it takes them a lot of work and sacrifice to live their life of leisure. I applaud their frugal lifestyle if they enjoy it. To each their own. It doesn’t seem sustainable, though. They made it work because of the stimulus payments and a food pantry (sorta bugs me that they made a choice to live a lifestyle that depends on charity that is supposed to go to people who have no options).
Seems to me if they put off taking social security for 3 years and took the opportunity to stash away an emergency fund, they would be much more stable. And she wrote a “how to” book on retirement?
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My mother lived like this for a long while, and avoided regular work, though managed rental property, and taught violin for free long enough that folks started paying her for lessons. She co parented my niece and lived with my sister in her later years and was always available to help people. Needing new brakes on the car was a matter of great consternation. There was no way I wanted to live like that, though she was lovely to be around. 30 years ago it was easier to do that than now, with medical care and insurance less expensive. Not to mention housing.
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The reality is that many Americans live like this every day, retired or still young and working. I know people that spend every last cent and have credit cards maxed out. They live for today and seem to not care about tomorrow. I have relatives that just squeak by because of education, health and job circumstances. I grew up in a household that didn’t have anything extra. It’s not ideal but it happens a lot across this country. Not everyone is saving, planning, investing and looking towards a rosy future.
My personal plan has been to sacrifice some while working to ensure I can live better in retirement. It should pay off but I could also die tomorrow and then maybe I should have just splurged more while I was younger. Either way my family will make out better.
It doesn’t sound like these people ever lived a life where they were completely comfortable financially. Maybe that’s all they know and all they want. Growing up in a household similar to this I personally want more of a cushion and more stability.
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X100! It’s also what we’ve taught to our children. Like you, I also grew up in a household that worked hard but didn’t have much. Some days, maybe we’ve gone a bit overboard in the saving but not living in the present. But we sleep well at night.
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Well you can ‘avoid’ when stuff is routine. When in a serious medical crisis, you are going to be in the hospital and want ‘the best care possible’. It seems this couple is intelligent enough to navigate their situation.
I met a lady at church who is going to have a very good orthopedist do some re-work on her left leg/hip. The prior MDs (two prior surgeries) didn’t do a good job. One was from a bad car accident (head on and she was in a small car). IDK if the 2nd just did the hip and ‘ignored’ the issue of her leg being 4" shorter after the surgeries! Will see how the fix does.
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Please don’t think that when I said they are “doing okay” that I meant that their situation is one I envy or would want. However, I recognize that I am privileged. Regardless of whether this couple is in this situation because of choices they made or circumstances that arose along the road of life, they are dealing with the cards they have been dealt. It isn’t easy, but they are making it work. Would I do things differently, even now, given what I know about their current situation? Yes. Would I want to be in the precarious financial situation they are in? No. Would I consider their book a good how-to for retirement? No. Would I consider their book helpful for others who are in a similar financial situation in retirement? Maybe. It would be optimal if they had made more money, saved more money, taken SS later … but that’s all water under the bridge right now. They now have to live with their situation, and they seem to be doing okay. Not well, but okay. The future will probably be tougher for them than the present. Millions of Americans struggle with this reality.
Good dental care does mean money. DH and I have good teeth in general and continue with excellent dental care. We are using Delta Dental COBRA for 18 months. Dentist office said AARP Delta Dental does not offer the ‘same’ as what a company plan offers. So it turns out our dentist offers a dental saving plan that we will pay into once our COBRA period ends.
A head’s up is to try to keep your upper teeth as long as you can, because an upper denture with the roof of your mouth covered means you lose a lot of food taste.
Maybe others are in different circumstances than my husband and I are. Complete retirement is going to be within 1 year, the exact date is a little variable with my husband having to decide if he can make it a year or will hang it up a few months earlier.
But this is how I’ve been feeling. Our entire married life, it’s felt like there was a carrot just out of reach for us. We were always working to the next level.
Kids in school, college to pay for. A dollar amount for the 401k to hit. It always seems that there was a goal that we were reaching for.
Now the goal is to have the cars paid off before retirement. So we must, save, save, save to get to that goal. We have 2 car payments because of car accidents and the need to have a car. We never in our marriage had 2 car payments before but this is where we are at.
I mentioned that many people I know are going to Hawaii and that I would love to do that. Husband says, we can do that. But let’s pay off the car first.
When does it become you’ve done enough? We have money and could pay off the car. But husband wants it to come out of current income, which means tightening our current expenses.
I hope I’m making sense. I feel my in laws were always waiting for the next thing, enough in the bank. Now, all those things they wanted to do have passed them by.
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I grew up watching family members do that. They never enjoyed life because they were always focused on saving. I learned from their mistakes, which is why I try to find a good balance. I’m a good saver but never to the point of not enjoying the the things I want to do. Life is too short to keep putting off enjoying life, which includes what your money can buy.
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Figuring out “enough “ - in any arena - is hard. And is terribly personal and changes over time.
DH retired sooner than we thought he would. Yet, we’ve found that we have enough in more areas than we imagined. And in some areas that would not have been enough “before “.
Hang in there. It is figure-out-able.
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