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immigrant in 1990, naturalized citizen 1996. scarred by South African experience - market declines and double digit inflation lasting for decades, exchange rates plummeting, exchange controls kept us from getting any money out. So everything we saved before the age of 30, all that was solid melts into air. not interested in personal finance but would like to retire someday, as a result obsessively concerned with personal finance. No debt ever, except for the mortgage. BSc degrees in mathematics from University of Cape Town, philosophy and operations research from University of S. Africa. Postgraduate degree in computer science. Army conscript, worked in Electronic Warfare for Chief of Staff Intelligence. University of Witwatersrand, postgrad student part time, full time DBA and project leader for university IT department. Consultant on projects at RJ Reynolds, State of California as immigrant H-1B laborer. Technical specialist at Software AG for thirty years until bought out by IBM, now IBM.
Comments
we have had experience in down markets that last for decades, with double digit inflation and exchange rates tanking. That wiped out ten years of retirement savings in S. Africa. So I have somewhat catastrophic expectations, having lived through it once already..
Post: Meeting Expectations?
Link to comment from March 10, 2025
I have a folder on my desktop named Retirement Fantasy.. Still working, had planned to retire end of this year at 65, delay SS until 70 so my wife gets the best possible survivor benefit. my wife is younger, working another five years then take SS and retirement at 65. I'd planned to sign up with IOCC rapid response disaster team, do trail maintenance for BWCA and locally in CO, and help with church work. Also take over most meal planning and cooking while my wife is working. There are several backpacking/canoe trips I've never had time for while working, put those tentatively on the calendar for 2026. Our younger son has had a number of health issues and will be living at home for the foreseeable future, which had not been part of the plan. So although we'd love to travel, that's not an option for us. However given the tariffs which will produce high inflation, and market declines, and the cuts to SS and Medicare that the administration is promising, it may not be possible for me to retire. I can't keep doing my current high stress fast response job and won't be able to find another IT job, so looking into Costco and Ace Hardware. I'm sad for the retirement fantasy I'll never get to..
Post: Meeting Expectations?
Link to comment from March 9, 2025
new dentists have enormous college loans to pay off, so they are incentivized to find things.. went to a new dentist, they had a bold treatment plan for me that would have been about $10-20 000 out of pocket payments. I went back to my old dentist, it's been ten years and he's replaced one loose filling..
Post: Hole Truth
Link to comment from February 25, 2025
thanks David.. we have found this all out too ;-) but I didn't know about the ABLE Act. set up a special needs trust in our wills last year. One child in medical school, one child at home forever. Roll the dice..
Post: Special Care Needed
Link to comment from November 5, 2024
exactly where I am, except 14 months left.. not sure I'm going to make it. but, that extra year of not needing to nibble away at retirement savings seems like it is necessary.. trapped in a cubicle for 42 years now, ready for something else by now.
Post: Before You Quit
Link to comment from October 31, 2024
I have the opposite problem - working in IT, a lot of companies including mine are enforcing back to the office. My local office 15min away is closed, so now the company wants me to start commuting 2 hours a day to the downtown office. Honestly it might force me into early retirement, I'm not prepared to do that.
Post: Before You Quit
Link to comment from October 31, 2024
"After all, if you truly have a burning desire to do something, why aren’t you doing it already?" I work 9 hour days, on call weekends every 5th week. That means every 5th week is a 12 day week with no breaks, which takes at least one weekend to recover from. Desire is nothing to do with it, it's about time and energy. As a younger man before kids I did a lot of volunteer work. I really hope to manage a bit of useful volunteer work after retirement when I'll have an extra 9 hours a day to do it..
Post: Before You Quit
Link to comment from October 31, 2024
Excellent ! thank you for doing this.. should I live so long as to retire, this sounds like a volunteer job I could do. Though, I only have degrees in mathematics, philosophy, and computer science, it might not be enough to manage the US tax code.. ha.
Post: Many Unhappy Returns
Link to comment from July 12, 2024
I applaud your planning and good intentions. But it needs to be said - the 'power of compounding' only works if the market is yielding positive returns after inflation and investment costs. There's no reason to believe this will continue. "past performance is no guarantee of future results", as every mutual fund will tell you. So I rather disbelieve in the power of compounding, which only works in an abstract mathematical sense, or as long as number go up. My experience with saving lots before the age of 30: the S. African stock market had negative return over fifteen years, while inflation ran in double digits and the currency devalued. This utterly wiped out ten years of retirement savings. I should have bought a sports car instead. With reasonable maintenance it would still have been worth a couple of thousand, and I'd have had all the fun of driving it. The power of compounding works in reverse too, when the markets are going down. The concept which is mathematically sound, unfortunately breaks down on the assumptions that are required - low inflation, steadily increasing market indexes, skillful stock picking/mutual fund picking. These may not happen.. But, it's the only game in town, and we have to play it, with our hearts in our mouths for decades on end..
Post: Go Big Early
Link to comment from July 12, 2024
I like this idea, though in a qualified way. Free tax prep software is a good idea but I'd prefer to do it the way most other countries do - IRS sends you a pre-filled form which you can sign and send back, or correct if needed. See, https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it The for-profit tax software is uniformly awful. Note I have a graduate degree in computer science and nearly fifty years work experience in IT. Software is one of the few things in life I feel I do have some understanding of. I used to do my taxes down at the public library, which had all the tax forms and regulations handily available. Then life and taxes got more complicated.. First program I used was TaxAct, which in its early iterations had good help pages which explained what the software was up to. It got steadily worse until it was just a series of forms to be filled out, with links to the IRS documents, and no explanations. Tried TurboTax but their politics are detestable (see link above), also it made several mistakes that I caught and one that I didn't. Tried HR Block these last three years, it has also made mistakes each year. At least the mistakes were different ;-) so our tax software is learning I guess. My protocol is to do the taxes with the horrible software, then print out all the forms and check them against the regulations: scribble on the forms and go back to the software to correct its mistakes. Soon I'll have to break down and get an accountant to do my taxes, as I've started to make mistakes too.
Post: Fox in the Henhouse
Link to comment from April 1, 2024