Beliefs About Retirement

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Gallup brings us an interesting poll. It asks,

 

 

What's particularly intriguing is, that upward trend began prior to the recession. Since 2008, the number of "no" answers increased from 44% to 53%, a 9% difference. But from 2002 to 2005, the "no" answer increased from 32% to 40%, an 8% difference.

 

What does everyone here think?

[SIUYA 11]

most people will not have enough money for retirement - they get sold on the idea of driving off into the sunset to spend their money.

newsflash - 20 years of retirement money disappears very quickly when you have a speed hump like the GFC, your promised double digit returns only come in at 6%pa, inflation is at 4%, and you actually live for 30 years.

[MightyMouse 12]

What is disgusting more now than ever, is that if you retire and your home is paid, cars are paid, and you have $1,000,000 in liquid assets that you need to use as income, you can only earn about 3.5% safely on the money which means that you have 35k of income.

 

SS will give you, if married somewhere around 2500, so between ss and your interest income you will be making around 60k in retirement.

 

Keep in mind that when you are retired, you are not working so you cannot invest aggressively because you cannot replace the capital if you lose it and you need the capital to generate income. You do not need it next year, you need it now.

 

If you live in the new york metro area, your home is probably still worth about 500k or higher so you have a total net worth of 1.5 million, but you pay about 10k in taxes on your house so your net income is about 45k.

 

You retire a millionaire and you live like a peasant. Most don't try to make the money last.

Its part of my business and I assure you that not many people retire with the million to begin with and they quickly go through their assets and are broke in about 5-7 years. It is pretty sad. These guys where successful executives and are broke before they are 75.

 

Its also difficult to gauge what costs are going to be. Costs generally triple every 20 years, the fed tries to make them double but misses by a little. In addition, we do not know what technologies we are going to have in the future that we are going to want to have or need to pay for. A person retiring in 1980 did not have a cell phone or cable TV and the internet. Cable TV, internet and a cell phone cost about $300 a month. We can hardly imagine living without them now.

 

But thank god that an Ipad2 is relatively less expensive.

 

The people who I deal with who do enjoy retirement have ongoing family businesses. You need to have good relationships with your children and they need to want to be in the business and you need to trust that they are capable of operating the business. Technically, these people never retire, they sort of just slow down and take long vacations and then get sick and die. Its not too likely that a corporation will let you do that. Large corporations do not tolerate the aged.

[Ingot54 13]

What is disgusting more now than ever, is that if you retire and your home is paid, cars are paid, and you have $1,000,000 in liquid assets that you need to use as income, you can only earn about 3.5% safely on the money which means that you have 35k of income.

 

SS will give you, if married somewhere around 2500, so between ss and your interest income you will be making around 60k in retirement.

 

Keep in mind that when you are retired, you are not working so you cannot invest aggressively because you cannot replace the capital if you lose it and you need the capital to generate income. You do not need it next year, you need it now.

 

If you live in the new york metro area, your home is probably still worth about 500k or higher so you have a total net worth of 1.5 million, but you pay about 10k in taxes on your house so your net income is about 45k.

 

You retire a millionaire and you live like a peasant. Most don't try to make the money last.

Its part of my business and I assure you that not many people retire with the million to begin with and they quickly go through their assets and are broke in about 5-7 years. It is pretty sad. These guys where successful executives and are broke before they are 75.

 

Its also difficult to gauge what costs are going to be. Costs generally triple every 20 years, the fed tries to make them double but misses by a little. In addition, we do not know what technologies we are going to have in the future that we are going to want to have or need to pay for. A person retiring in 1980 did not have a cell phone or cable TV and the internet. Cable TV, internet and a cell phone cost about $300 a month. We can hardly imagine living without them now.

 

But thank god that an Ipad2 is relatively less expensive.

 

The people who I deal with who do enjoy retirement have ongoing family businesses. You need to have good relationships with your children and they need to want to be in the business and you need to trust that they are capable of operating the business. Technically, these people never retire, they sort of just slow down and take long vacations and then get sick and die. Its not too likely that a corporation will let you do that. Large corporations do not tolerate the aged.

 

You live in a great world MM ... imagine having to worry about managing a $1.5 million asset, and that still not being enough to retire on.

 

I will never be able to retire. I have few assets, and few prospects of ever amassing anything worth a mugger's time. But I got over that years ago - as soon as the situation became plain to me, I began learning how to understand and manage the financial markets.

 

That has largely been unsuccessful, and I am beginning to wonder whether break-even is all there is to this game. I don't want to just "break-even" - I would rather just leave it alone, and go spend time with my grand-kids.

 

However, with the material stuff behind, there is still much in life to be happy and pleased about. I would love to have an income of about half my current salary, but that isn't going to happen either. So I turn to less stressful thoughts - of music, poetry, achievement in non-material areas, and writing. And I wonder a lot more about the truth and meaning of life, spirituality, and what it is all about.

 

I'll bet you a sneeze to a cream-puff that I will be happier in my retirement than you might be in yours ... except that I will still be doing something ... ... anything except enjoying the fruit of my life's labour. And you know what - I don't mind at all - I'd rather be active and busy, than redundant and affluent, strangely enough.

 

Someone once said: "A speculator who dies wealthy, dies before his time."

 

Don't get me wrong - I am not making any distinction about the situation by any means - the truth is I would like to be in your situation.

 

But that dog ain't gonna hunt!

 

To borrow a quote: "I have never worked so hard for easy money."

To which I have to add - "Obviously I am still not working hard enough."

 

It keeps me humble, and identifying with the bulk of the world's people.

And I have absolutely no stress about taxes and the government taking anything from me ... they already have it all! And I have no fear of anyone stealing any of my assets, or of any bank failing and taking me out in the process!

 

If you want to see how you are doing, look no further than here ... Global Rich List

 

Be well

Be happy

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TjXy2pJXJI]YouTube - Jim Rohn: How to Avoid Being Broke and Stupid[/ame]