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Comments:

• Jonathan, thanks for the detailed and fairly upbeat status of your health journey and your affairs. I wish you the best with the medical treatments, tests and dealing with insurance matters. I wish that payment and insurance concerns wasn’t an added stress point of taking care of your health. Bravo on the travel accomplishments and pivoting to fit in what works. I’m glad to hear you are feeling well enough to continue traveling and booking trips! I’m impressed by your pragmatic approach to “decumulating” your life momentos and papers. I’ve started doing the same for different reasons but with the same objective of not burdening my family with needing to do it “later”. It does feel good and gives me a sense of accomplishment (as well as the house lifting up a bit…LOL). Continued improvement and positive outcomes for your medical tests and treatments. 👍😍

  Post: Turned Upside Down

  Link to comment from October 5, 2024

• State and Local plans do not always preclude Social Security. My wife worked for a large city government and has an excellent defined benefit pension as well as retiree health benefits that cover both her and I as a supplemental plan to Medicare, for which we pay zero. In addition, she is covered by Social Security (although not drawing yet). She also had a 403b plan, which included a match. Maybe this is the reason why local governments are in such dire financial condition.

  Post: I’m depressed, not very optimistic about retirement 😱 by R Quinn

  Link to comment from October 4, 2024

• Richard, true, this is a very sobering realization and one that I worry about with my grown kids (millenials) and their families all the time. Yes, they saw what we did as they were growing up to save and plan for the future, but was that enough to "teach them" the steps they need to take to succeed? As for your comment "We could require employers to pay more than 50% of the cost, especially those that don’t offer any retirement vehicle." Good luck with imposing that as a requirement of employers! I think its time to shift the burden of the retirement planning "partnership" back to the employers as it was before the 401k boom of the 80's. Who will do it and fix Social Security so it is adequately sustainable? The Government? We need a new Ted Benna (the Father of 401ks) to step forward and somehow develop the new paradigm of Employer/ Employee savings to include annuities in lieu of traditional pensions.

  Post: I’m depressed, not very optimistic about retirement 😱 by R Quinn

  Link to comment from October 3, 2024

• Man, I’m keeping busy reading the many books recommended here. I’m currently reading the Morgan Housel book Same as Ever, borrowed from My local library and have requested Christine Benz’s new book when it becomes available. Whether you agree with all aspects of these authors or your positions or not, they do provide useful knowledge to consider in our own retirement planning. I appreciate the different perspectives.

  Post: Retiring Smarter

  Link to comment from October 1, 2024

• Jonathan, timely article. I just read this related article/quiz in the todays Washington Post-
  Do you spend money more like a millennial or a boomer? Take this quiz to find out https://wapo.st/3XFsLFb My results came out across the board…not much like a Boomer !

  Post: My Spending Rules

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• Good points about the "hidden costs" and increases for health insurance, but please be careful of switching to or signing up for Medicare Advantage plans. We have heard some awful stories of friends NOT being able to get needed tests and treatments due to the Insurance Company not approving some of these. We have never had (nor heard of) any such denials from Traditional Medicare. We are very happy with Medicare and our supplemental policy.

  Post: My Spending Rules

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• I just put the book on Hold at my library. It sounds like a great read (even the other chapters not dealing with risk. Thanks for the recommendation.

  Post: Sequence of Return Risk

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• I would recommend reading “The Bucket Plan” by Jason L. Smith. This book was given to my wife and I by our Financial Advisors before we engaged them. It explains the approach that they take to putting together a retirement plan for their clients. As per the book’s website, Readers will learn:

  • The three biggest dangers for your financial future and how The Bucket Plan helps protect from them.
  • A formula for calculating whether you will have an income deficit in retirement and, if so, how much money is needed to prevent it.
  • A surefire way to avoid taking on too much investment risk on money you may need in the near future.
  Our portfolio was structured in this way to give us several years of “safe” assets needed in the SOON bucket without taking on risk that could cause our retirement to be impacted by market shock. We don’t worry about market downturns as that part of our portfolio that is subject to market risk is funds we don’t expect to need until many years from now (LATER bucket). Good luck.

  Post: Sequence of Return Risk

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• Great points and “rules” to live by in retirement. As to #6… 6. A gradually rising standard of living is a great pleasure. One of my mantras in retirement has become…”If we don’t fly first class (or lie flat seats) our kids will!” Enjoy your UK trip, Jonathan!

  Post: My Spending Rules

  Link to comment from September 28, 2024

• Jonathan, it sounds like the journey to Hope Cove is part of the draw. Sounds amazing. My recommendation would be, Jerusalem. We finally made it to Israel 5 years ago and the tour was awesome. The highlight was visiting Jerusalem for several days. Being immersed in this city where so many religions call their sacred past was a unique experience. Seeing where these sites coexist you can feel the history all around you. Seeing the diversity of tourists and pilgrims who come to visit and pray adds to the emotional reaction most have when visiting. I happened to be there on the anniversary of my father’s death (34 years earlier) and said the mourners Kaddish prayer at the Western wall (wailing wall) of the temple among strangers I had never met but made me feel like part of a community. Just an amazing moving experience!

  Post: First Place by Jonathan Clements

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024