Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Have You Saved Money For Retirement?

+1, There's a big old pile of money in the 401(k)s of Americans. You can be there's more than one politician scheming on how to get his hands on it.

Regarding the Social Security retirement benefit, according to their website the maximum that a recipient can get in 2017 at 62 years of age is $2,153. At full retirement age the 2017 max is $2,687.

When both husband and wife are drawing SS retirement money and one or the other dies, the deceased's SS benefit ends.
Depending on how much the deceased spouse's SS was, the loss of it could be a fairly substantial hit on total household income for the surviving spouse. While the surviving spouse does have the option of drawing the larger of the two SS retirement benefits, it still could mean a significant loss of total income.

As I understand, too, usually defined employer pensions are reduced if the employee chooses to include their spouse as a recipient upon their death. Some defined employer pensions may have limitations on how long they continue paying retirement benefits to a surviving spouse.

It is for me......I'm debt free and live modestly on my SS income but I have everything I want/need.

Haven't touched a penny of my 401K since I retired at 63 (five years ago) and doubt that I ever will.

It's sure nice to know it's there though.

I did have a very nice sum of monies invested and in savings... then came the divorce.

Divorce was done last summer, and I'm still giving her money.

Almost all of my railroad retirement, which was a small amount. A SUBSTANTIAL portion of my 401k. 50% of all my investments. 50% of the equity in everything we owned. And she took about 85%-90% of our cash savings.

So, here I am, no window, no pot to pee in, and wondering how I'm going to retire before I turn 74.

Speaking of savings, does anybody remember the little books of stamps that you filled up, and then turned in for Savings Bonds? I remember doing it, but don't recall the details of how it worked.

I just gave a savings bond to my son--we bought it about the time he was born and it is approaching the 30 year deadline when interest payments stop. I was trying to explain to him how important savings bonds were in the old days, but my recollections of how those stamp books worked was pretty shaky.

Retirement for me will probably depend on what health insurance costs when I'm ready to retire.

They don't tell the whole truth. You do not actually get the amount the book says you will. They take out for Medicare and so far, every year they have given a raise, they raise the cost of Medicare. This year we get a 2% increase. I get the maximum amount and because of the new cost of Medicare, I get a $13 a month raise. Then at the end of the year we give part of it back in taxes owed. At least they don't still take out for SS.

I think they force you to start taking it out at age 70 1/2, don't they?

And you just got closer! Happy Birthday, sir.

Yep, MRD.

This much bullsit will cause global warming.

Northman/walt is so full of chit. Retired at 33? ya right can you say "disability" ?

About half retired. They say, "Use it, or lose it".

I come from a long line of ancestors who:

1) Diligently saved for retirement, and died long before they had time to spend it.
2) Worked long past anyone could believe they could still work.

I picked #2.

If I live to be that age I'll gladly start taking it out......providing the stock market continues on it's present course.....if not...I'll probably want out anyway.

I was doing pretty well and was invested in real estate back around 2007-2009. Yep, we all know what happened then, and NV was the worst hit State. My moderate stock portfolio also vanished, and I had a tussle with cancer in 2007 and 2008 that hit the savings hard.

Since then I've been able to add on to my small house to increase the value much more than the addition and remodel cost; pay it off and all other debts. I had planned on working for five more years when I fell off a roof in 2013 and had to quit working as an independent contractor for a claims company. I planned on saving 80% of what I was making.

Even at this I managed to save and invest a bit, so I have a small nest egg, and I sold my small home in Montana that had no mortgage. With our investments and small SS payments we get by. My home and second parcel attached are going up in value fast, but so are taxes and insurance. I could sell out if necessary and use 1/3 of the proceeds to buy something that would be comfortable but not a palace, leaving me double the cash and investments.

So, yes I have enough to live on and have a bit of fun if we watch our expenditures. If we need to splurge a bit or pay an unexpected repair bill I sell a gun or two. At 70 I don't do any expensive hunts or trips anymore. I was fortunate to have done a bit during my best money production years and am satisfied with my life.

If we kick off when we're supposed to we'll get there before going broke.

I'm drawing a decent pension from one career (retired at 43) and am working on a second. My employer puts 12% of my income into 401k/457 and we contribute also. We carry very little debt and are also able to put a few $$ into savings each month. My wife hasn't worked since 2010 due to health issues, so we're living off of what I make.

I'm now in my 25th year of retirement. Have a greater net worth now than at any time in my life. A big piece of this is related to ballooning house prices in our area. We have reached the point in life where we do very little travelling anymore and are happy to spend time with our daughters both of whom are now in their 50's. I still manage to get out on easy hunts. Arthritis is starting to cause problems for my wife. I never earned huge money during my career but had work I enjoyed. My wife never worked outside the house until the first of our girls was about 13. We both feel most of our desires were fulfilled while we were younger and able to travel so no regrets now. There were years when we struggled to save but we still managed to do many things as a family, sufficient to keep us happy.

I can only suggest that anyone who only lives for the day will eventually reach a point where they will wish they had saved. However, to each his own.

JIm

So da wife and I are in our mid 40's. We each have mutual fund accounts. We started those a few years ago by rolling them under one umbrella, because we each had little retirement accounts from various employers and now they are under one roof.

Her employer and mine have R/A's, and we add to our mutual funds every year for the obvious reasons. What I would like to do is take 1k (I think that's the minimum) and go to Charles Schwab and have them invest in the stock market.

Now I know there will be some of you here that will say "do it yourself". Ah no, I don't know enough about it, stuff like that isn't my thing, thanks anyway.

So the advice I am asking is Charels Schwab a good place to start, or Edward Jones? Any other firms?

What I have noticed over the years is that it seems older guys and guys in the know that have investments don't want to give advice, almost secretive. I knew one old timer that suggested to me 20 some years ago to invest in mutual funds. I took his advice and got started at about 35. I don't understand why guys don't give advice to younger people. It's like it's they just want to be smug about it and look down their noses.

In the option that I chose, my Wife will get 1/2 of what I am drawing for the rest of Her life. It dropped what I get considerably because She is 10 years younger than me. Because She has no retirement except Social Security, I felt that is the way to go. It would be better if I did not have to start drawing out some monies when I hit 70 1/2 (which is near), that is drawing more interest than anywhere I can put it at this time. But the Government wants the tax off of that money. miles