My grandmother used Mellon Bank which has high fees. When she died my dad took his share of the money and invested it using someone who worked for an large investment firm. His sister left the money with the bank. Dad came out way ahead (no idea how the mix of the funds were invested between the two).
The Ohio Teacher's pension fund is where my mom's pension came from too. Would be nice if they switched to something lower cost so they could pay out more to the teachers. That being said I am grateful she has a pension as I do not (the problem I see with most of the annuities as they are not inflation adjusted and only have a 10 year payout guarantee - like the ones at TIAA when much of my money is as I am university faculty and that is what many colleges and universities use).
Google brings up some summaries but they leave many things out. I had to use the search function in the bill to find out what happened to getting 1099-C's once the pandemic pause ended. Results: student loans that are canceled because of total and permanent disability or death of the student (does not explicitly address parent student loans for students and so no idea what is happening with those under these circumstances) will not result in a 1099-C (this was already the case if the student used the VA for this and, of course, the pandemic pause stopped anyone from getting a 1099-C). And there, as you noted, far more things not addressed in most summaries of this long bill.
Another one that may be of interest to some is that if your student loan is discharged due to total and permanent disability or death you will no longer get a 1099-C so the loan amount won't be considered ordinary income and thus taxable as income. The pandemic pause stopped this and they were set to start back up 1/1/26. Note- this was always true for disability if that was done via the VA, but not via Social Security or a physicians letter. This is NOT retroactive because of the pandemic pause stopped them to begin with. Also the Public Service student loans, teach student loans, etc. will still be discharged after 10 years of qualified employment with no 1099-C. Nothing was touched in that respect. Although now, outside of that, there will only be 2 repayment plans. The rest have been cancelled. There are limits on the amount of school loans medical and dental students can take out which is $200,000. That doesn't even cover tuition at any private medical or dental school and even many state schools. As it is almost impossible for these students to work part time due to rotations they are going to either need parental help or take out private loans. This will cut down on the number of students who can even go to especially medical or dental school (although usually they don't have night rotations or 12+ hour shifts) due to no way to pay for it plus their living expenses, books, lab fees, etc. Graduate students are limited to $100,000 which might work if the graduate student has a grad assistantship (masters students usually don't, just PhD students) and based on the fact that it takes, on average 5-7 years to finish a PhD many of these students will struggle to pay for school. In my opinion we are damaging our ability to have highly trained professionals that some fields need like in STEM, college faculty, doctors, etc.
I think one big issue is finding meaning in life after retirement if our job contributed to that. And doing things that we find challenging that we also enjoy as that adds to our feelings of accomplishment and self worth. The problem again is if our job was part of that finding other things that can fulfill that aspect of our lives. If our work friends were a large part of our life due to interactions at work, finding others we interact with frequently to fulfill that need as work friends start to vanish also matters. These things can take some thought and planning.
Considering what the median amount is that people have saved for retirement I am not surprised. The median social security amount a month isn't enough for anything but a very basic lifestyle where you are one car repair away from disaster. Back when I was teaching college student (mostly traditional age) one of them said that everyone needed to retire at 40 to give young people a chance. I immediately said that was a great idea; I'd enjoy 50 or 60 years of retirement at their expense. Most of the class laughed or looked horrified at the thought. I have found that younger people have trouble imagining their future. Part of that has to do with the fact that one's frontal lobe doesn't fully develop until you are about 30 (helps you anticipate long term consequences of current choices) and part of it, I think, has to do with having a great deal of trouble imagining themselves as, for example retired and what that entails. Because of that I had one of their projects be to talk to someone in retirement, 5 years out from it, and 10 years out from it and ask them a number of questions, including what they'd advise younger people to do with respect to having enough for retirement. I then had them write about if anything anyone said affected their thoughts on how they'd plan for retirement, what their plans will be, and what the HR department of companies should do because of what they learned from whom they talked with (it was an intro to management class; they also had to add some business journal articles on the subject too). Most of the students found this eye opening and many thanked me for that assignment. I think people have trouble planning because we don't make this part of every day life from when people are young that we talk about. My parents used to hate that I worked in outdoor adventure (paid below minimum wage due to giving us room and board). I loved it because I got to work in a number of states and countries. They told me I'd regret it when I was retired (eg bring down my income average for social security). I shrugged them off because I couldn't afford to travel without working in other countries. Of course as I was older (and I did change my career at 40ish because of this) I realized what they said was true - oops. That meant I had to be incredibly frugal to "catch up" in what I had in my retirement accounts. I also waited until 70 to take social security as I needed the higher amount (I could have used it sooner due to career wrecking cancers). I think we need to figure out how to get younger people understand the reality of retirement, decisions that need to be made when they are younger (like my students learned with their class assignment), and not ignore how difficult it is for younger people to actually imagine what their reality could be given different decisions they make now with respect to retirement.
We boomers break everything we touch due to being part of the population bubble. When enough of us reach the age we have to take money out of our retirement accounts it is going to affect the stock market due to the smaller size of the groups of people who start to be able to focus on putting more money into retirement. That difference will not be made up by the twenty countries who have invested the most in our stock market as they also will be having their own boomer problem. It won't be made up by 3rd world investing in our market (they aren't in the top 20). We need more, not fewer, younger immigrants who can pay/buy into the "system" to shore it up and make up for the fact that we have too few people in some of the decades under us.
I kept a Dodge Grand Caravan 25 years and 3 months. Likely I should have sold it about 2 years before I sold it to the junk yard (blew an engine bearing so I dumped it). Overall I saved a lot of money keeping it although I had to pay more several transmissions (it was the era of the bad transmissions). I knew it had been well taken care of and so it was worth repairing. I saved a lot of money overall in the long run. My kid called it the ghetto van as it was also from the era of the peeling paint and looked like crap but when she was learning to drive I wasn't worried about a dent in the bumper (van was 18 years old at that time) from her backing into a post in the mall parking lot while learning to back up.That was worth something too. And liability only insurance is cheap. My current vehicle is a Toyota Sienna that is 15 years old (actually built Aug 2009 but is a 2010 model). I just had to replace the transmission (expensive to rebuild but broke right on schedule for how long they last and broke how they usually do per the transmission place) but again I know it has been well taken care of, has nearly 200K miles on it and is good for at least 100K more. Many years it just needed routine maintenance and occasionally expected repairs as things wear out. Overall all it has been cheaper than buying a new vehicle or another used car where I wouldn't know how well it was taken care of. Yes a year here and there has been expensive but the average I have spent is pretty low. And insurance is cheaper too. I think what one does depends on the reputation of the car for longevity, repairs, etc. and taking the long view. I wouldn't dump a car just because something that you know will break soon and is expensive to repair breaks. It if appears to be a lemon then likely it is worth dumping it sooner rather than later. I also factor into my decision both the replacement cost (and if buying a used replacement the usual things you have to immediately fix) and the overall cost per year averaging what I have spent so far.
It would devastate me to lose my cats. A friend lost his cat in a house fire (it wouldn't come out from under the bed and he couldn't get it, he left only when the fire entered the bedroom) and he sat outside hearing it cry until it died. Hopefully of smoke inhalation and not by being burned alive. I can't imagine having to go through that.
Growing up my cousins lived in the LA fire zones. Each kid was allowed one box to put in there whatever they wanted to take. They had a carry on suitcase for clothes. Having to do that their entire childhood made all three of them not be collectors of a pile of stuff. And all 3 of them moved out of CA. On a personal level I'd take cats and enough of their necessary stuff I wouldn't need to find a store immediately, the money, computer, important papers, photos, etc. people have already mentioned. Enough clothes for a week, sleeping bag/pillow and camp pad or similar for the weather (I have a minivan and I'd dump the seats), a box of food I could cook on camp stove and a pan to do so (and matches), water, and a cooler with whatever I happened to have that could fit. Given time and space I'd pull a few pictures from the wall, a couple of knicknacks, and give time and space anything on the "second priority" list that would fit. Stuff can be replaced but memories do matter so I would include some sentimental things that couldn't be replaced.
Comments
My grandmother used Mellon Bank which has high fees. When she died my dad took his share of the money and invested it using someone who worked for an large investment firm. His sister left the money with the bank. Dad came out way ahead (no idea how the mix of the funds were invested between the two).
Post: The High Cost of Financial Advice: A Tale of Two Portfolios
Link to comment from July 12, 2025
The Ohio Teacher's pension fund is where my mom's pension came from too. Would be nice if they switched to something lower cost so they could pay out more to the teachers. That being said I am grateful she has a pension as I do not (the problem I see with most of the annuities as they are not inflation adjusted and only have a 10 year payout guarantee - like the ones at TIAA when much of my money is as I am university faculty and that is what many colleges and universities use).
Post: The High Cost of Financial Advice: A Tale of Two Portfolios
Link to comment from July 12, 2025
Google brings up some summaries but they leave many things out. I had to use the search function in the bill to find out what happened to getting 1099-C's once the pandemic pause ended. Results: student loans that are canceled because of total and permanent disability or death of the student (does not explicitly address parent student loans for students and so no idea what is happening with those under these circumstances) will not result in a 1099-C (this was already the case if the student used the VA for this and, of course, the pandemic pause stopped anyone from getting a 1099-C). And there, as you noted, far more things not addressed in most summaries of this long bill.
Post: What to Know About The One Big Beautiful Bill
Link to comment from July 12, 2025
Another one that may be of interest to some is that if your student loan is discharged due to total and permanent disability or death you will no longer get a 1099-C so the loan amount won't be considered ordinary income and thus taxable as income. The pandemic pause stopped this and they were set to start back up 1/1/26. Note- this was always true for disability if that was done via the VA, but not via Social Security or a physicians letter. This is NOT retroactive because of the pandemic pause stopped them to begin with. Also the Public Service student loans, teach student loans, etc. will still be discharged after 10 years of qualified employment with no 1099-C. Nothing was touched in that respect. Although now, outside of that, there will only be 2 repayment plans. The rest have been cancelled. There are limits on the amount of school loans medical and dental students can take out which is $200,000. That doesn't even cover tuition at any private medical or dental school and even many state schools. As it is almost impossible for these students to work part time due to rotations they are going to either need parental help or take out private loans. This will cut down on the number of students who can even go to especially medical or dental school (although usually they don't have night rotations or 12+ hour shifts) due to no way to pay for it plus their living expenses, books, lab fees, etc. Graduate students are limited to $100,000 which might work if the graduate student has a grad assistantship (masters students usually don't, just PhD students) and based on the fact that it takes, on average 5-7 years to finish a PhD many of these students will struggle to pay for school. In my opinion we are damaging our ability to have highly trained professionals that some fields need like in STEM, college faculty, doctors, etc.
Post: What to Know About The One Big Beautiful Bill
Link to comment from July 12, 2025
I think one big issue is finding meaning in life after retirement if our job contributed to that. And doing things that we find challenging that we also enjoy as that adds to our feelings of accomplishment and self worth. The problem again is if our job was part of that finding other things that can fulfill that aspect of our lives. If our work friends were a large part of our life due to interactions at work, finding others we interact with frequently to fulfill that need as work friends start to vanish also matters. These things can take some thought and planning.
Post: When the Spreadsheet Gets Real
Link to comment from June 7, 2025
Considering what the median amount is that people have saved for retirement I am not surprised. The median social security amount a month isn't enough for anything but a very basic lifestyle where you are one car repair away from disaster. Back when I was teaching college student (mostly traditional age) one of them said that everyone needed to retire at 40 to give young people a chance. I immediately said that was a great idea; I'd enjoy 50 or 60 years of retirement at their expense. Most of the class laughed or looked horrified at the thought. I have found that younger people have trouble imagining their future. Part of that has to do with the fact that one's frontal lobe doesn't fully develop until you are about 30 (helps you anticipate long term consequences of current choices) and part of it, I think, has to do with having a great deal of trouble imagining themselves as, for example retired and what that entails. Because of that I had one of their projects be to talk to someone in retirement, 5 years out from it, and 10 years out from it and ask them a number of questions, including what they'd advise younger people to do with respect to having enough for retirement. I then had them write about if anything anyone said affected their thoughts on how they'd plan for retirement, what their plans will be, and what the HR department of companies should do because of what they learned from whom they talked with (it was an intro to management class; they also had to add some business journal articles on the subject too). Most of the students found this eye opening and many thanked me for that assignment. I think people have trouble planning because we don't make this part of every day life from when people are young that we talk about. My parents used to hate that I worked in outdoor adventure (paid below minimum wage due to giving us room and board). I loved it because I got to work in a number of states and countries. They told me I'd regret it when I was retired (eg bring down my income average for social security). I shrugged them off because I couldn't afford to travel without working in other countries. Of course as I was older (and I did change my career at 40ish because of this) I realized what they said was true - oops. That meant I had to be incredibly frugal to "catch up" in what I had in my retirement accounts. I also waited until 70 to take social security as I needed the higher amount (I could have used it sooner due to career wrecking cancers). I think we need to figure out how to get younger people understand the reality of retirement, decisions that need to be made when they are younger (like my students learned with their class assignment), and not ignore how difficult it is for younger people to actually imagine what their reality could be given different decisions they make now with respect to retirement.
Post: Do You Worry About Money Every Day?
Link to comment from June 7, 2025
We boomers break everything we touch due to being part of the population bubble. When enough of us reach the age we have to take money out of our retirement accounts it is going to affect the stock market due to the smaller size of the groups of people who start to be able to focus on putting more money into retirement. That difference will not be made up by the twenty countries who have invested the most in our stock market as they also will be having their own boomer problem. It won't be made up by 3rd world investing in our market (they aren't in the top 20). We need more, not fewer, younger immigrants who can pay/buy into the "system" to shore it up and make up for the fact that we have too few people in some of the decades under us.
Post: Do You Worry About Money Every Day?
Link to comment from June 7, 2025
I kept a Dodge Grand Caravan 25 years and 3 months. Likely I should have sold it about 2 years before I sold it to the junk yard (blew an engine bearing so I dumped it). Overall I saved a lot of money keeping it although I had to pay more several transmissions (it was the era of the bad transmissions). I knew it had been well taken care of and so it was worth repairing. I saved a lot of money overall in the long run. My kid called it the ghetto van as it was also from the era of the peeling paint and looked like crap but when she was learning to drive I wasn't worried about a dent in the bumper (van was 18 years old at that time) from her backing into a post in the mall parking lot while learning to back up.That was worth something too. And liability only insurance is cheap. My current vehicle is a Toyota Sienna that is 15 years old (actually built Aug 2009 but is a 2010 model). I just had to replace the transmission (expensive to rebuild but broke right on schedule for how long they last and broke how they usually do per the transmission place) but again I know it has been well taken care of, has nearly 200K miles on it and is good for at least 100K more. Many years it just needed routine maintenance and occasionally expected repairs as things wear out. Overall all it has been cheaper than buying a new vehicle or another used car where I wouldn't know how well it was taken care of. Yes a year here and there has been expensive but the average I have spent is pretty low. And insurance is cheaper too. I think what one does depends on the reputation of the car for longevity, repairs, etc. and taking the long view. I wouldn't dump a car just because something that you know will break soon and is expensive to repair breaks. It if appears to be a lemon then likely it is worth dumping it sooner rather than later. I also factor into my decision both the replacement cost (and if buying a used replacement the usual things you have to immediately fix) and the overall cost per year averaging what I have spent so far.
Post: How have you decided when it’s worth it to fix an old car?
Link to comment from May 24, 2025
It would devastate me to lose my cats. A friend lost his cat in a house fire (it wouldn't come out from under the bed and he couldn't get it, he left only when the fire entered the bedroom) and he sat outside hearing it cry until it died. Hopefully of smoke inhalation and not by being burned alive. I can't imagine having to go through that.
Post: What Would You Take?
Link to comment from March 15, 2025
Growing up my cousins lived in the LA fire zones. Each kid was allowed one box to put in there whatever they wanted to take. They had a carry on suitcase for clothes. Having to do that their entire childhood made all three of them not be collectors of a pile of stuff. And all 3 of them moved out of CA. On a personal level I'd take cats and enough of their necessary stuff I wouldn't need to find a store immediately, the money, computer, important papers, photos, etc. people have already mentioned. Enough clothes for a week, sleeping bag/pillow and camp pad or similar for the weather (I have a minivan and I'd dump the seats), a box of food I could cook on camp stove and a pan to do so (and matches), water, and a cooler with whatever I happened to have that could fit. Given time and space I'd pull a few pictures from the wall, a couple of knicknacks, and give time and space anything on the "second priority" list that would fit. Stuff can be replaced but memories do matter so I would include some sentimental things that couldn't be replaced.
Post: What Would You Take?
Link to comment from March 15, 2025