60+ year old thread.

Good Morning everyone

 

Good Monday Morning Folks .

Reporting from downtown Mount Sinai NY.. We were going to stay until Tuesday but leaving today to beat the NY work week traffic in the morning .

Thanks Sue. Made it here okay,now to head home will be a challenge with the rain.

Sorry about the Lions losing Kurt.

Wish you a good MRI report Mark

Stay warm, stay dry and be safe folks.

 

Busy cleaning up the house, oh my.

My wife was a hoarder. When the kid moved out in 2010, she took over the room for her office. She never opened any bank or credit card statements but would leave them in a pile. Thankfully, for tax stuff, she would write "IRS 2005" with all the receipts and add them to the pile.

Two shredders are working full-time, and it took three days to clean up her office. I found all the home improvement receipts and am keeping taxes since 2020, but there is no need to keep 1995 tax returns!

Boxes and ostomy supplies were donated to the local chapter of UOAA.org. She also donated new clothes she had never worn with tags attached: Women's Shelter. 24 (!!!) new beach towels to the local dog shelter. About 10% of the food was expired, and most went to the local food pantry (24 bags/boxes of Pasta).

Finally, I got ahold of the Social Security Office and used the "call back" option rather than holding. Two hours later, only one call back was a survey to ask how they were doing. They were understaffed and overworked. The next day, I called first thing and didn't use the call, but it held for 75 minutes. Thankfully, the funeral home had already notified me about her death, but they can only look at appointments for the local office two months out. No appointments are available so that the regional office will call me back by the end of the week. Hurry up and wait. I'll qualify for her survival benefits (about $1800/mo) and get that until I start claiming SS for myself. So I've been playing the "what if"waiting games ($3800 at 66.5 or $4800 if I wait until age 70).

I had forgotten about the marble-top dresser. It came from Germany. My parents bought it used and hauled it home in 1966. The Singer sewing machine in the closet is the same vintage. Days of mom ripping Dad's dress shirt collar to flip it over to get another year out of his dress shirt. We were frugal when we grew up, I wish my hands were more stable to sew! I need to pass it to a family who can appreciate it (we have some Ukrainians who have relocated, so I'll find it a good home).

Oh, finally can see a floor in her office; the carpet still looks new:

 

@roundrocktom do you make house calls? Cleanup is never easy or quick. Nice job cleaning up the room.

 

One thing I will say when it comes to SS: Don't wait, do it as soon as you can! You'll be 80 before starting early will become financially detrimental. The extra retirement time is worth a few hundred $ per month.

 

Cleaning up and sorting through everything is hard, I'm sure you are having many memories from days past.
As for SS. Don't wait as Rich @OldSchlPunk said. I took mine 5 months earlier from my full age and what I lost was minimal and not even missed. Go for it

 

I agree with this, but there are several schools of thought of course. I started at 65, rather than 62, seemed like a good balance for me.

If a person needs the money, then no doubt take the $ ASAP.

OTOH, if a person is really fit, has long lived relatives and has plenty of income presently and has little need for the money (and don't want further tax burdens), the yearly waiting jack-ups (~+8%), plus inflation adjustments, does make financial sense IF you wait to the max beni age.

At 65 and a decent life expectancy - I tried to split the difference rather than wait until 66 y 8 mo or whatever it was for me born in 1958. At 65 it's a pain to pay Medicare if not out of SS.

If you take early and are 100% disciplined to invest every dime, well that is a winner too.

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Sorry, been lots of chatter on this across investment forums as the late boomers move through. Keep moving, nothing to see here.

 

Good Morning Porch Pals & Sue! Sadly, not the Lions day, but this incredible season isn't over. Injuries are worrisome, though. Not much to do except get some shots, and keep the pup company while wife plays pickleball. Not actually raining, so maybe I will get those leaves out of the pool!

Sorry @roundrocktom . That's a tough road.

 

Brother and I did the parent's house. One huge pile. They really didn't throw much away.

 

While cleaning out the room, lots of items were never opened.

My Christmas Present from 2014, Northwood Custard Glass, was in there. Chrysanthemum Sprig is one of my favorites, so it's a sweet memory (my wife bought it but couldn't find the shipping box, hidden in her office).

 

Every time I went to clean things up, "Don't touch that. I know where everything is and don't need you messing up my stuff." I promised my kids I wouldn't do that to them.

Good news: I can finally make it down the hallway to the side door! The double doors are to the water heater/filter utility room. It's nice to have access without having to move stuff. The UV water purifier gets a new tube annually. I hated the beep, beep, beep reminder as it took so long to access.

 

I guess it depends on everyone's individual circumstances. My calculation included working till 67, having sufficient funds to survive nicely for three years, my Dad passing in his mid 80s and my Mother in her mid 90s all incented me to wait until 70 to start drawing Social Security. Now, a couple of weeks from 73, I think it was the right decision for me. I make no blanket recommendations to anyone else, however. Cheers!

 

Absolutely! Like the things no one here wears. It DEPENDS.

But for me working until 67? No thanks!! Hahahahahaha at 60 was way way more than enough. I didn't hate work at 55. At 59 I loathed going to work. (I don't hate working, don't get me wrong) I think I just crossed a line somewhere where I just hated dealing with people AT work. I would feel stress I never felt before, I was not eating or living right, just time and the big guy above were telling me: YOU NEED A DIFFERENT PATH!

Why am I writing this all out? Well it depends, and sometimes there are things maybe you can't control.

Once you take SS hard to go back. Yet I have zero regrets.

The only financial planning error I made in all this was, because we both retired before 65, we needed to buy insurance on the marketplace. Nothing wrong with that and we made huge budget allowance for health insurance premiums. And then I found out about the lower income incentivized premiums. So we artificially tried to keep income low, and we did more or less. The rates were GREAT. Except the last year, yoops..........was nearly done with my 1040 and blammo, oops owe $4000+ back to Uncle Sam because well our income blew up and well no discount. Oh well, if I sum it up, still a win.

 

I am envious of y'all who've been able to retire relatively young; after the recession the two businesses run by my wife and me, one of which was over 30 years old, both failed and left us with a mountain of debt. By 2013 we were so broke we had to sell our house at a significant loss effectively leaving us with two old cars, our furniture, the clothes on our backs, and empty bank and retirement accounts. I managed to get my wife to retire in late 2020 as her company was taking huge advantage of her and then in 2021 I got head-hunted for a new job which brought my income up above our former combined incomes; I figure I'll need to work until the end of the decade (when I'll be 73) in order to be able to afford to live comfortably for the rest of our lives.

 

Yeah that's very tough. Some stuff you just don't know what challenges will be set out for you. Seems like our struggles happened earlier for us. Layed off, no income, no businesses (yet), young hungry kids, some in school and we had to move, etc. If there is a positive, nothing like a good, sharp, kick to motivate a person. Bless you and hang in there!

 

Afternoon all:

Same here on the "it depends" on SS, "IF" I knew I was going to make it this far I would have waited until 65 or 66, "IF" I knew I would make it to 90+ I may have waited till 70, that's the unknown factor. I know quite a few who never got to collect a cent from SS or only received it for a short period after signing up for it, I didn't like the thought of paying into it for years and then end up getting nothing or almost nothing out of it!

after reading the last paragraph of your post Paul.
I have mentioned using Schedule G more than once (income averaging), it was meant to work for what you just mentioned, and they did away with it, wonder why!

 

I "retired" at 52 by buying a ranch, and intended to dodder my life away reading books in the shade of a tree as the cows munched grass nearby. But something was brewing that I never would have believed and we lost a significant percentage of our retirement due to a betrayal (don't ask) and if it hadn't been for the ranch selling for a good amount more than we bought it for we would have had to go back to work. I took SS ASAP and have not been sorry so far. We've always lived frugally, mostly by paying cash and never paying interest. But I have to say that the way prices have increased recently, mostly real estate and insurance, I'm beginning to see a future where we will have to choose between eating and house insurance. Never thought we'd see that, but it is what it is. SS has done us well and I've been fine with it until the house insurance quadrupled.

 

both my neighbors were retired on disability and they seemed to be doing ok (they are my age) and after another afib episode convinced me i needed to retire. That year it had been less then 90 days between episodes, 3 of them at that point, and they said if I could afford it, to go ahead, so at 63 & 3 months I retired. Also picked that day since it gave me 15 years with the state. Thought the episodes were caused by work, so I had to go. Thought about waiting, but my folks lived to 70 & 71, so waiting didn't make sense. Older sister got $0.00 from the $57k she paid in.

Have a good day all. Watch out for the ice outside.

 

Good morning group, clear sky means cold air... 43° brrrr (for us near San Diego)!
The wife and I took her Corolla into Toyota Carlsbad for one of it's 5,000 mile services. Arrived early for our 7:30 appointment and it was done by 9:30. Back home and back to bed, lol!
Now, as I sold another of my books, I will be off to the post office but in my Tacoma, which doesn't get much driving lately. I can't wait for summer!

 

If the pay is good, it can be considered