How many of you are "Retired"

I’ve never been married and don’t have kids that I know of, I’ve also got rid of my house in Oak Park, IL. because I was paying $17K in property taxes a year alone…I didn’t need a 7 bedroom, 3 bathroom house and nowadays I rent a 3 bedroom, house on a double lot for $500 month, actually it’s $575 a month now, my landlord raised it this year…I have no family anymore they have all past away…

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Honestly I have no idea of most of the answers…but…homeloan is 2.75%!
State income tax is 5% and federal is 28%
I have fixed benefit pension that will give me about 40% of my current 4200 a month jncome but then I will have to buy supplemental insurance I’m sure…I’m not well informed in medicaire areas…
So soc.security will provide another 40% at 67 …moms estate is my only other jnvestment and it’s worth is hard to pin down and she needs it. As I was saying I will get a small part of it…soon. but after that…?
@JOHN1234

500$ bucks is the minimal price of a decent student room here to give an idea (in rural zone), with the kitchen aside the bathroom on the same unique space ^^

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The wife’s pension and sosec. Will be slightly less abut same overall balance between her and my income

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i’ve been retired a year now I’ve never had a better time in my life retirement suits me.

three years before I retired I knuckle down and put a new roof on my house all new air conditioning and heating rebuilt the pool all new appliances and I paid off every credit card I had .

my income now consists of Social Security . I pretty much have everything I want and live where I want. my Social Security covers all of my bills and then some. I can’t go out and do extravagant things but I can keep myself entertained and do whatever I want pretty much here locally. The freedom to do whatever I want and hang out with my pack is priceless to me I could not put a price tag on it.

I trade bud to everyone for things that I need it’s amazing but if I ever need anything done at the house or done to my cars that I can’t do myself I just get up on Facebook marketplace and spend an afternoon finding someone who will trade and it’s very easy to do.

retiring was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life I did wait several years past full retirement age I waited till 69 and I am drawing the maximum government benefit which isn’t so bad around 50 K a year to sit on my ass and do nothing. that takes care of all my essentials and trading of the bud takes care of the shit that I want to buy that I really don’t need lol

there are also so many ways to make money online it’s not funny I’ve been doing video reviews of products on Amazon which takes me about two or three hours a month and I’ve been averaging a little over $1500 a month from that which is really nice and I just use that as playing money.

I’ve never been happier in my life when I was making the big bucks my life was nowhere near as good as it is today

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I.dont have a budget or any retirement accounts. That’s one reason I got back into teaching and left my ex-wife. I made tons of money as a salesman but it went out the damn window as fast as I made it.
I chose to try to make the world a better place and let the chips fall…

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Oh and wife has student loans…who knows how.much they will cost or whatever.will happen to them
but will be close to 600.a.month until we die.

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I would not suggest paying off the loan. Rate is too low to make sense. You can earn more in safe investments than you’ll save not having the mortgage.

Have you setup an account with SS? my Social Security | SSA
It will tell you exactly what you will receive. It also allows different what-if scenarios…What-if I claim at 65 and the wife waits until 70? You get the idea.

With medicare, you want to appear to be making as little as possible on paper. This is the reason I asked about non-ira accounts. I can withdraw from one of these accounts and only get charged taxes on the gains not the total amount. Much more to it but that’s the basis.

My advice? Goto a fiduciary financial advisor with a budget in hand. Many will have a free consultation and provide solid answers. I will stress…must be a fiduciary. They have your best interests in advice. Make sure they act as a fiduciary 100% of the time.

Here’s my favorite what if websites:

https://retirementplans.vanguard.com/VGApp/pe/pubeducation/calculators/RetirementNestEggCalc.jsf

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Any advice for me at 35? What would you do if you were me right now?

I own my home and owe about 90k (4.0%IR / 735$ a month payment) left on the loan.

I do have a 401k but it not very impressive considering I’ve been putting into it for years through work.

Truck is paid off. No debts other than that… minus a little on the old credit card.

What would you do in my shoes? Any wisdom would be greatly appreciated. Would like my retirement years to be peaceful and not a complete shit show.

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Btw, the most important thing about retirement is your health, my last check up was great no major problems at all and my BP was 120/70…to me if you don’t have your health money doesn’t mean anything…

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Great point @PhilCuisine!

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Max out the 401K if you can. if not get as close as possible. If you manage that, start adding to IRA, if you can max the IRA, next up is a taxable brokerage account. You may also be better off investing in Roth IRA/401k. It’s hard to say which without a complete budget rundown. Something you should research sooner rather than later.

Don’t forget taxes! You need to make each investment decision based on taxes. I was lucky and was able to shield part of my income because it was per diem. Any money you can earn and not pay taxes is golden. Not many have the chance but grab it if you can.

If you have credit cards, pay them off first before making any investments. I use credit cards and pay them off each month in full. You’re crazy if you don’t.

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It is a good.pint and work mentioning I was injured in a very minor attack by a student and spent last summer recuperating from surgery because of it.
Teaching is hazardous to your health.
Mom told me over and over she felt better a year after retiring than she felt anytime during her teaching career.

Retired at 56!!!
My husband and I retired 4 years ago (at 56 years old) and sold our home in CA that we had owned for 20 years (do you know what happened to the housing market in CA over the last 20 years???) We had zero debt. We moved to a state that was affordable and suited our wish list. For us, that state was Oregon. The house we bought is half the size of our CA house, but our kids are grown and gone. Prior to retirement, there were a lot of good decisions that we made. We never would have had the confidence to do all of this without the guidance of a financial planner. We draw off our investments and live comfortably.

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if I was 35 with some cash to invest each month or so, I would be buying gold. Physical gold that you have in your posession, not online gold that only exists on paper.
If I could go back to my 20’s when gold and good weed were the same price 300 to 350canadian an ounce in my area … I would have my own mini fort knox under the house.

Still I did invest in gold and silver over the years when I could and have a fairly good emergency stash. I also hold a small gold claim that I can pull some ounces from every year if I put in the work. Over the years I have also gathered quite the firearms and ammunition collection as well and had hoped to pad my retirement by selling those off one day but that investment is being chipped away by gun bans making things valueless.

I’m disabled and forceably retired and got denied financial support even though the goverment classifies me as fully disabled. Kind of a joke… but not. I’m 54 so not at retirement age yet so have some years to try and make some pensionable earnings. Not sure i will be able to do that here in Canukistan and have been pondering getting a teaching permit and moving to spain. Rent out the house here in Canada as current rates for a house and shop n an acre is 2grand a month or 1700 for just the house and yard and I put all my stuff in the shop so i don’t have to pay for storage. Buy an RV and also leave it here on the property at the back of our acre. When we come back to canada we can just spend our time living out of the rv and travelling canada. If I did do this, the plan would be to be back living in the house in 10 years max and it will be paid off
Then if we liked spain enough… sell everything and go retire in a small cottage on the mediteranean sea… drive up to germany and hunt my friend’s land for pigs, deer and red stags. I just don’t see canada being a very fun or affordable country to be in 10 or 12 years from now looking at the current path we are being dragged down by the idiots who are running the show here.

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Same with the US.

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I agree a small portion of gold is not the worst investment but

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Did you know there are five pounds of Platinum in the big 5g towers along with copper and other valuable metals. There are many all alone on the outskirts of cities and in the counties.

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unfortuntely I have never dabbled in stocks. I wish I could though.
I just don’t even have a clue where to start.
A friend I have long lost touch with was real smart getting out of high school at the end of the 80s. By 2000 he was a multi millionaire being one of the ones who made out like a bandit during the .com craze. He then became a day trader from his home office and , well, he’s out there somewhere richer than most. I don’t need to be rich but would like to find a way to generate a couple grand a month from home … that would be nice.

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Fairly straightforward.
Invest in SP500. It provides automatic diversification among many industries/companies.
Only have one fund to deal with. Make sure to buy one with low investment costs.
I like vanguard products because the costs are low.

Management fee is .08%
This means you will pay $0.80 in costs each year for every $1000 you have invested. Not the greatest but not bad at all.
I say that because almost the same ETF in the US is .03%. Now that is low cost.

Also to note…You will more than likely lose money rather than gain if you are a day trader. Not really something I would recommend.

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