I live in La Jolla and we have no where near $50M, but we have lived here for more than 30 years.
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Thank you for saying this! Iâve been divorces now for 13 years and my ex husband and I are fairly amicable and even spend parents weekend together along with our current spouses, in the same car no less, but staying together just for the sake of staying together made no sense. Oh and we also had a business we owned together which finally after all these years we just terminated.
We are each better parents apart than we are together. Being married doesnât necessarily mean you stay no matter what. The Gates clearly have issues they couldnât work through but agreed on one monumental one of philanthropy. Nothing wrong with that and if they can each be happier as individuals than together than they deserve that right while they have many more years to live. No one knows what goes on in someone elseâs marriage and far too many people stay for the wrong reasons or for monetary reasons. Good for them in figuring it out now.
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Youâre not divorced but are you the child of divorce? Since youâre not divorced you really canât speak of it from experience to know anything about it so you shouldnât.
Reading books about children of divorce doesnât make you an expert on it either and isnât a reason to stay married either. If youâre the child of divorce and have actual anecdotes then I can understand but if youâre not then you donât have any firsthand experience on the matter.
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Health care is the big issue for everyone! Iâm counting the dayâs my husband is 65. Just a little over 2-1/2 more years.
Fortunately are health care this year decreased by about $1,000/mo so that was a nice chunk and adds up quickly. Hoping also to stay under our deductible this year as that will also save another nice chunk. But that unknown variable of health insurance is the biggest unknown. Social security doesnât even bother me much anymore because my husband is close to where he can start taking out the max if we need it. I view that as an extra bonus but not something thatâs guaranteed.
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The psychological/emotional aspects of divorce are probably not relevant to this particular thread, but there is no doubt that (for mere mortals - not those in the financial range of Gates, Bezos, et al) divorce has a huge financial impact which could factor into retirement decisions and capacity. âOne spouse/one houseâ goes a long way in building wealth, and building wealth certainly helps in allowing one to retire.
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Guess youâre not ârichâ according my friend. 
Beautiful area and great town center and love Torrey Pines and LJCDS. His kid goes to some other private school. Quite a scene, right?
$50 million? lol.
This past year my income was the highest ever, and I didnât come within 10 points of $100k, including social security. And I live in Brooklyn, NYC and rent. I am very happy with my Medicare Advantage plan which costs just the Part B premium and includes prescription drug coverage. I have never had a problem finding excellent doctors in virtually every NYCâs healthcare network. And my income is well above the median for a single-person household in NYC. Life is good.
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Didnât mean to hit a nerve with anyone.
Some peopleâs retirement options may be limited due to unexpected divorce.
One can have compassion about a situation w/o being in the situation itself. If no additional comments were made, I would not be posting now either.
Maybe someone also doesnât want to consider a divorce a failed marriage - again maybe hitting a nerve. Sounds like many on this thread have figured out that they can and are better people not being married. But the book is very enlightening to those that are struggling in a marriage and wanting to look at trying to avoid damage to all involved.
Just because I have had aggressive cancer doesnât mean others will feel or experience the things I have with cancer. Nor the kind of stress it can have on a spouse. But a health condition, just like other setbacks can affect retirement.
I think it is more off topic in talking about what is âwealthyâ or ârich enoughâ. But maybe someone doesnât retire because they can not have enough money?
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La Jolla is beautiful, but the town itself needs a major upgrade. Many closed stores and restaurants. My Dâs were public school La Jolla kids and have done just fine with their lives. Lots of old money and new money in La Jolla.
Side question for those willing to share: What percentage of your networth is tied in your home value? Planning to stay there for retirement?
Weâre seriously debating if we can take money out of retirement savings and apply to a home in a VERY expensive part of the country (where our kids happen to live, otherwise we would look at less expensive areas). Or possibly purchase something on the water. Our current home never increased much in value, as it has in other parts of the USA. So, even if we sold our existing home, we would need to apply about 1/3 or more of our net worth toward a new home.
Part of me thinks that irresponsible. The other part of me argues that it is still part of our net worth, and why not enjoy where we spend most of our life, for another 10 years, and sell when we need the cash for other living expenses. Can it lose value? Of course. So can our retirement funds!
So just curious how to evaluate.
We bought a very expensive place about 4 years ago and hope to retire in it. We think of this as diversification. Our house and the land it sits on will be left to the kids (we hope) after we exhaust the liquid part of our net worth and kick the bucket.
The main question is: if you plunk 1/3 of your total into the house, are you going to be comfortable living off the other 2/3?
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For us, in a very expensive part of the country (NorCal), its currently about 60% (net of mortgage). Iâd expect it will still be 50-60% at retirement (with a paid off mortgage but more savings), depending on the rate of home price appreciation. That might be high compared to other parts of the country, but here I think itâs unusual not to have the majority of your net worth tied up in your home (a lot of locals are sitting on gains of $1M+), so many people cash in and move somewhere cheaper when they retire. I still remember the colleague who bought his house for $20K in 1962 and sold it when he retired in 2006 for $2M (and it has probably doubled again since then). We would like to stay if we can afford it, but weâll have to see.
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We did something similar in terms of buying a retirement house, although rather than use retirement funds we sold the family home and took out a $600k mortgage. We havenât retired yet but we are living in this house now and will when we do retire.
I would say our equity in this house is probably 20-30% of our net worth. The percentage has definitely gone up in the last few years as the market here has gone nuts.
We will have a $3k+ monthly payment for virtually our entire retirement, but YOLO. Itâs worth it.
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Only a very small percentage. Houses donât appreciate very fast where I live and the value of my home is basically the ceiling of what Iâd be willing to spend if I decide to retire elsewhere.
About 15% for us.
25-30% for us but should be lower than that when we retire in 15 years. Mortgage will be paid off. We love our area and will probably down size at some point to a condo nearby.
What we need to live on will be 100% liquid but we may still have home debt based on our decision to down size, move, etc. The important thing is cashflow. If you have all you need, the rest is gravy.
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When we purchased our current house, it was 14% of our net worth, but we have no mortgage, and the retirement nut we built before leaving our jobs did not include either the value of our home or the potential for SS. We figure we always need a roof over our heads and have never speculated on monetizing our primary residence for cash later.
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I guess it depends on what the 2/3 number is? 
If your net worth is 1 million, would you be happy with $670,000? If the house is paid off, is that enough?
I guess it is better the higher the net worth number is, correct?
Right now our is about 10%, hard to say what our house would sell for in this crazy market. But I think so?
@kjofkw - your adult child/children can move, so IMHO you have to think very strategically. Think of where you want to spend time - do you want smaller place in high cost area near âthe kidsâ and maybe something else another place? Where your primary residence is and all that goes with that.
Fortunately our home is in an extremely hot market right now and will probably continue to increase in value at least predicted through next year (almost 13% this past year, and Zillow predicts over 9% this year). We have a lot of friends here after long time in this area, but no family here and many friends in so many other places. Our prior home in our same area that we owned for over 7 years appreciated nothing and we were fortunate to not lose money (school district was key - the city redistricted and closed a HS that was at capacity when it opened and now is the site of a mega church) - we loved that house and could have added on but realized the change in the valuation situation. If we planned to stay here, we would keep the home because selling/buying in same place doesnât make sense to us and our home is terrific - in the best school district and very convenient location to everything (we are in suburb town with our neighborhood across the street from larger city).
We are very unsure where we will have our âfinalâ primary residence, but we are considering a 1000 sq ft condo - purchase from owner - in a city one daughter currently lives in and 100 miles south from our current home. The condo owners want to sell in a month or two, and I retire in less than 5 months (DH is already retired). Market just about everywhere is where buyers are ready to buy and prices are strong with good value properties selling fast. Will need to get rid of stuff and put a lot of our stuff into storage. Would want to fix up the condo some before moving anything in, and then live out of both places until our home is ready to sell - we have things to do to spruce up the house on interior, exterior is terrific. I want to stay in our current state in that new city area, but H isnât sure what he wants, and if we canât get the house we want at the price we want we might consider elsewhere. It gives us flexibility. We have some things to learn in new city, but are familiar a lot already and our âkidsâ are still there.
The city the condo is in is 100 miles away - DD has lived there since 2012 (college and beyond) and I am familiar with time there with her, SIL, and GKids. DH has not been there as much as I have. DD/SIL/GKids most likely will move for SILâs career, and other DD is still in state (further south) but looking to move to one state south and be in same city as committed BF of 2 years. We also have not so distant travel to our home town state North and area with lots of family and friends, as well as another state West with family and friends where we had lived as well.
We donât want to go up in $$ amount tied up in real estate - our current home has a good amount for us to use elsewhere. For the primary residence it can be a fixer upper - I want enough property to be able to build a âcustomâ detached garage with 2nd story storage - so DH can have a big workshop (which currently is in the garage area of our home - workshop and storage are in the space where a 3rd car garage would have been been). DH is rekindling his love of being in his workshop and he is very handy.
Key is not tying up too much in real estate and not having enough investment funds and liquid funds to live life the way you want to.