It interesting that in prior generations, kids moved to be near their parents (when raising children or later when the parents’ health was declining) but our generation seems to be moving to be near our kids/grandkids rather than the reverse.
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My husband and I have remarked that when our children were young, our parents expected us to come to them. They hosted and you visited.
Now that we have grown children, they expect us to travel to them.
It seems that as things have changed, what hasn’t is that my husband and I are the ones traveling.
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My in laws never visited us for holidays. I refused to travel at Christmas once we had kids, so they missed out on sharing the holiday with our kids. We had to go to them, even when they came to our state to spend time at their cottage in the summer (3.5 hours from us). I resented it. They moved many hours away when H was in college, and he remained in the area where he went to high school.
I have lived in the same area my whole life, as did my parents. After they moved to Florida, they visited us every Christmas until they were no longer able to travel. I always appreciated that they wanted to make the holidays easier on their kids and grandkids.
S moved a little over an hour away, but we see him regularly. D and SIL chose to move back to our area when they got married. They wanted to raise their kids near their grandparents (SIL’s parents also live in our area). Because H & I have no interest in relocating, we don’t feel that we’re “stuck” in the area because of our kids. However, if they do eventually move, I would not want to be far from them when I’m at the point where I need them (that is, when I’m old).
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I moved away after college. Before kids we would make it back for one of the major holidays but once the kids were born it was 14 years before we made it back for a holiday. I refused to travel during the holidays with kids.
Even then my folks rarely came to visit. They came up in 2006 or 2007 and didn’t come back until my mom came in 2018 after my Dad died, but only when we asked her. She came back in 2019 for graduations, but wouldn’t come for the next round in 2023. My kids are 4 years apart. We did visit for sure, but it was a long drive or an expensive plane ticket for 4.
So sadly my kids don’t have a close relationship with their grandparents on that side.
But even the grandparents that were local didn’t ever want to come to us even when it was only a 30-45 min drive. And I had busy kids we worked so we couldn’t always go to them. And they never came to my kid’s activities.
There is a good chance my kids won’t be in the same city. We probably won’t move to an area where my kids are, but we will be happy to visit often.
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We ‘fell into this’ when we didn’t have children. But once they were retired, and we had our children, we pointed out that now that they are retired, they can travel to us. My parents stopped over to see us as we were on their route to and from FL from WI, and it didn’t hurt our feelings one bit that it was a convenient stop. We were weary of using almost all leave time going to family events and family holidays, and not having any real vacations – our parents’ homes were 100 miles apart. But there always is the thought that you don’t want to miss an event and then one of our parents dies - figured we would have more time for vacation travel later.
We don’t have our kids ‘come home’ unless they desire to. We are more than willing to travel some to them when it works out for them and us.
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A new trend? Not a good one IMO.
At first glance it does not seem too bad. (And even employees who never did the IBM 401K money now get benefit.). But I can see why it folks are concerned.
Not every employee has access to a 401k. Not every employee that does have access takes advantage of it. People do have options. There are retirement vehicles available outside of employers (IRAs, etc). IBM is changing it’s retirement contributions and that’s not popular with some. Those employees affected are getting other benefits going forward. Other institutions have also changed their retirement options over time. Employees do have the option of looking elsewhere for employers that offer better retirement contributions.
The most concerning part is that it’s not funded with real dollars. If IBM ever goes bankrupt, these accounts could go with it.
If you were getting the match, you are now being forcibly diversified, and that may not be desired or appropriate.
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True. But I suspect over time there will be more and more employers doing same.
Interestingly my husband and I invested heavily in 401K (with encouragement of our older peers) starting early career because we feared that SS benefits would decline over time. In reality it was the pension plan that got scaled back. Ha, an example of doing the right thing based on wrong reasoning.
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I did the same with the fear that SS would not even be solvent for me.
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Do many of you with more complicated tax situations (ie business owners) do your own taxes? I’m torn. I did our taxes for a gazillion years, then had a CPA for several years hoping it would save money with our rentals. When they raised the fees, I realized they weren’t actually saving us any more than if I did them myself, so I started doing them again. Though I really hate TurboTax, I keep using it. Gotta find a different program.
Now our taxes would be really simple, but we bought a forest, have all the expense of that plus a timber harvest next year. On one hand, maybe it would be worth a couple thousand dollars if they could find some tax breaks. On the other hand, with all the software programs out there, maybe I could do a decent job and educate myself along the way.
Actually writing this makes me think that I just need a better software program, as I am retired and do have the time. I don’t know if the CPA actually does anything more than I would, input the numbers.
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I do know that TaxAct has correctly done several things – multiple states, clergy housing, that TurboTax did not do correctly. But I am not an accountant.
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I’ll put them on the list to check out. Thanks!
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Mine are reasonably complicated - wage income, self employment, rental properties, investment income, capital gains, depreciation, HSA, SEP IRA, health insurance from the exchange (gets very tricky when self employment is factored in), passive income, probably some other stuff I’m forgetting.
I’ve always done it myself. There’s lots of information on the Internet, and places you can go to ask questions of people who actually know the answer.
I’ve used TaxAct for years. It used to be a real bargain, now they price themselves a little bit cheaper than TurboTax. I’m too lazy to find a cheaper one and have to re-enter all the information it carries over from year to year.
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We have used Freetaxusa the past few years. I am hoping to use it again this year with two states (should work)
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What I like about TurboTax is the consistency and history. Would not enjoy the learning curve of different software. Admittedly we usually have simple-ish taxes.
If you decide to hire a pro, you may have a hard time finding on if you wait too long. One year after we had done Roth rollover we were willing to pay $900 to use a tax accountant recommended by FA…. but they were concentrating on businesses, no longer had space for “small jobs”.
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That is the problem with changing software. You have it already set up in your account, and then it takes effort to change it over. Inertia is a powerful force. Looking at reviews, all the tax software programs are pretty similar. Maybe what I hate is just paying so many taxes?
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We have decided to retain an accountant after years of TurboTax. DH has had medical issues and I don’t want to do the taxes. I doubt we will save money but it is one thing off my plate.
We have several income streams. His pay has become Long Term Disability and we are really unsure of the tax implications. Stay tuned.
I do our personal return and the return for my company, in both cases using TurboTax. I’m irritated at the cost, but not so much that it’s worth changing software. I don’t think any of them are meaningfully better, some have a much less user friendly interface. I have found a couple of errors over the years (notably when TT failed to calculate state penalties on K-12 529 withdrawals correctly and they just said “too bad”). I used to use an accountant and I felt I did a better job than him.
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