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stelea99

After graduating from UC Berkeley with a business degree (emphasis accounting and economics), spent 4 years as a USAF Titan II ICBM Launch Officer.  Worked for 30 years for one company in property/casualty insurance world.  Retired a long time ago at age 55.  During career, did many different things including underwriting, marketing research, corporate planning, and managing a merger.  Have traveled quite a bit including Australia, China, Europe and Eastern Europe, and a lot of the US.  Fortunate to have two successful sons and a number of grandchildren. If you are ever in Tucson, check out the Titan II Missile Museum in Green Valley.  See an actual Titan II launch complex.  Get a feel for the Cold War and the kind of place where I used to spend over 250  hours each month.  

    Forum Posts

    Does Charitable Giving Make Things Better?

    28 replies

    AUTHOR: stelea99 on 1/27/2025
    FIRST: R Quinn on 1/27   |   RECENT: Chris Pillmore on 2/5

    Would You Rebuild?

    32 replies

    AUTHOR: stelea99 on 1/11/2025
    FIRST: Dan Smith on 1/11   |   RECENT: GaryW on 1/18

    The Twenty Billion Dollar Problem

    20 replies

    AUTHOR: stelea99 on 1/9/2025
    FIRST: Jonathan Clements on 1/10   |   RECENT: stelea99 on 1/17

    Why US Healthcare is so Expensive.

    29 replies

    AUTHOR: stelea99 on 12/16/2024
    FIRST: Dan Smith on 12/16/2024   |   RECENT: R Quinn on 12/17/2024

    Dealing With Tech Changes

    26 replies

    AUTHOR: stelea99 on 11/4/2024
    FIRST: G W on 11/4/2024   |   RECENT: stelea99 on 11/10/2024

    How might early retirement at say age 55 affect your FRA SS benefits?

    12 replies

    AUTHOR: stelea99 on 9/23/2024
    FIRST: Jonathan Clements on 9/23/2024   |   RECENT: William Perry on 9/30/2024

    Comments

    • Your math is flawless. However, I would like to point out that having a Roth in parallel with a Trad IRA allows you to stack the deck so that the math can make your Roth relatively more valuable over time. When i began my Roth journey at age 58 20 years ago, I had 100% of my retirement account in my Trad IRA. Between age 58 and age 69, when I started SS, I had converted 41% of my age 58 Trad IRA value. I made these conversions by transferring equity ETF shares from the Trad IRA to the Roth. Now 20 years later, the total value of the two accounts equals 2.25X the age 58 account value. However, the Roth represents over 54% of the total value. Of course since age 70.5 I have been doing RMDs as well. So, today, when you look at my asset allocation, you see that the Roth is 100% equities, and the Trad IRA is 100% bonds. So, if as we all assume, equities continue to grow faster than bonds, the Roth balance will continue to be a larger and larger % of the total value of the two accounts. And, every year, My RMD is only 46%(or less) of what it would have been without the conversions. However, you must do the math to see if doing a conversions is right for you. Today, if you retire before Medicare eligibility, you have to negotiate your health insurance. With 30 years at my employer, i enjoyed retiree medical coverage. I think this is mostly no longer available. Additionally, until beginning SS, we lived on investment income, and withdrawals from our taxable account, and some inheritance $$. So, our tax bracket was low.

      Post: Quinn ponders taxes, laws, freebies and the future of retirement. Logic need not apply.

      Link to comment from February 10, 2025

    • Depending on who will ultimately be withdrawing funds from the Roth, it might be advantageous to do conversions even when the apparent tax rate seems higher. If your children are going to be the probable recipients, and IF they are very successful and you know they will be paying tax at a higher rate than your current bracket, from a family wealth point of view, doing conversions now might be a good thing to do. And, let us not forget that there are many, many widows and widowers out there who will out live their dead spouses for a significant time. Paying tax as a single person is going to be painful experience for the survivor.

      Post: Quinn ponders taxes, laws, freebies and the future of retirement. Logic need not apply.

      Link to comment from February 9, 2025

    • Mr. Quinn, you might want to read this: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/income.asp

      Post: How important is Social Security?

      Link to comment from February 8, 2025

    • Since you were not a participant in the study, your personal definition of income is not material. You didn't design or conduct the survey. Without the survey definition, one cannot compare their personal situation to the survey results. This is a very fundamental concept. One cannot assume that everyone else thinks/believes or has the same values or should have the same values.

      Post: How important is Social Security?

      Link to comment from February 8, 2025

    • This is why the definition of what is "income" is important.

      Post: How important is Social Security?

      Link to comment from February 7, 2025

    • Given that Roth has been available since 1998, more than 25 years ago, everyone has had the opportunity to participate if they chose to do so. You could have done Roth conversions and then you would also be enjoying this benefit. And, even though Roth distributions don't count in IRMAA, I think most folks with Roth accounts are not taking them......so, there isn't any "income".

      Post: Quinn ponders taxes, laws, freebies and the future of retirement. Logic need not apply.

      Link to comment from February 7, 2025

    • These studies are interesting, but you are not providing the definition the study authors used for total income. Was it taxable income, pre-tax income, did it include dividend income from Roth accounts, what about muni bond interest???? Without the definitions, how does one know how to do the calculation?

      Post: How important is Social Security?

      Link to comment from February 7, 2025

    • Somewhere a long time ago, I read something that suggested that potential users of LTC might be divided into three groups based on their net worth: 1) The low net worth group. These folks have (pick a number) say less than $500k. When faced with $10-12k monthly bills for care, they will try to arrange their affairs so that they qualify for Medicaid. The current challenge to this approach is the possible reduction in federal support for state medicaid plans by the administration. 2) The high net worth group. Again, (pick a number) these people have net worth of $2M or more. They will write checks to cover the cost of LTC. As private pay customers they are highly desired by providers of LTC services. 3) Those between the high net worth and low net worth groups. When I read this half-forgotten article a long time ago, LTC policies were readily available, and reasonably priced. Of course, today this isn't so true. So the advice of the past for the folks in the middle to purchase LTC policies and transfer some of this risk to insurance companies is more difficult to execute. This is the kind of topic for which an hourly fee-only financial planner might be consulted. Such a planner would be able to take data about your assets and expenses, and do some modeling for scenarios where you might need to pay for LTC. I know nothing about any of the insurance options which have been discussed in some of the responses to this forum article. But, it is the kind of thing where a lot of caution is necessary. Anything you buy which provides benefits far into the future contains risk.

      Post: How Are You Planning to Pay for Potential Long Term Care Expenses?

      Link to comment from February 5, 2025

    • I would never argue that higher expenses for index ETFs are better than lower expenses. And, any lowering of expenses for investors is wonderful. That being said, a .01% reduction in an expense ratio is de minimis. On a million, it is $500. For someone investing $1000, it is fifty cents. Vanguard already had better expense ratios in comparison to most other fund families but it is only when compared to active management that the difference is really motivating. The real importance of this kind of move is that it continues the pressure on other fund families to reduce expenses, and it provided Vanguard an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the idea.

      Post: Some Good News

      Link to comment from February 4, 2025

    • Alternatively, it could also be more workers via immigration…..

      Post: Social Security vs. Private Investment Accounts – RCC runs some numbers.

      Link to comment from February 3, 2025

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