I am 63, so watch retirement planning and issues subjects constantly. The old saying “your results may vary” certainly is true when people talk about retirement due to all the variables involved; how much one has saved for retirement, legacy planning, in other words how much if any one wants to leave to family and charities, health, pensions, and more.
I watch financial planner videos on YouTube, but like everything on social media, one has to take what you see with a grain of salt. Is the person making the video trying to drum up their own CFP business, trying to “get clicks” to make income from their videos, or just giving advice out of the goodness of their own hearts to help people?
I’m always suspicious of people’s motives, but I’m pretty cynical!
I’m still working but financially could retire, I just haven’t got off the fence to actually pull the plug on my work.
My main fears about retirement are Boredom/loneliness, health, and taxes, not necessarily in that order. Yours are likely not identical to mine.
In my case, I think that my social security, a small pension (my huge 4 figure yearly pension I call it) and dividends and interest from my outside investments will pay the majority of my bills, at least until that time I need to go to assisted living or a nursing home if that happens.
Therefore my 401K and rollover IRAs mostly look to me to be tax headaches when I get old enough to be required to take RMDs. So I’m leaning toward living off those for awhile my withdrawals taxed at lower tax brackets, to pare them down, as opposed to taking my SS asap.
But that’s my particular situation, as I said before your results may (and almost certainly do) vary.
I have to admit as I focus on retirement and senior living, I’m starting to feel guilty. I remember my 20s and 30s, seems like yesterday, money was always tight, always watching my budget, I rented a room out in my house for 10+ years to help pay mortgage and other bills.
And in my 40s, work got unstable and I spent a couple years in total unemployed, in 2006 and all of 2009 into 2010.
Now I am in my 60s, I’ve got plenty of retirement savings, but money will get transferred from younger often financially stretched younger people to me through social security, tax breaks and senior discounts. Just the other day I was at Culver’s and the kid at the register gave me a senior discount, I’d never even thought about asking if they had one. Lots of places do, I get them regularly without asking. Looking around the other customers at that Culver’s I was probably better off financially than anyone else there.
Here in Illinois retirement income isn’t state taxed, seems sort of unfair when I’ve converted some IRA to Roth in the last couple years, I didn’t owe any state tax, not that I was complaining! Or someone getting 6 figures in retirement income goes Scott free state tax wise here, while someone working and struggling to pay the bills in this financially messed up state does have to pay taxes on their hard earned pay.
So do I need to scheme to try to get every last penny I can out of social security? It is a Ponzi game transferring wealth from young to old whether the retiree needs it or not. Many do and it’s a lifeline for them for sure, but the system is going to be in the red in 2033 or 2034. Not trying to start an argument here, just pointing out that if you’re in decent financial shape because you saved diligently and managed your money well to ensure a comfortable retirement, do you need to try to maximize getting the most $$ out of social security you possibly can or not? Again, not trying to argue about it, just saying it’s something I think about now that I’m about to retire and find myself financially secure, despite many decades of younger years I wasn’t. In many ways I wish I’d had the money when I was young and could have enjoyed it more!!
