tshort

Comments:

• I am in a very similar situation - 64, just set up a 4 year MYGA ladder. Due to the size of the rungs and other sources of income, I’m not concerned about IIRMA. However will be watching this thread to see what others have to say about your question. You may want to try your question over on Bogleheads forum. That’s where I first learned about MYGAs. Lots of discussions about them over there.

  Post: How to unwind a 3,4, and 5 year MYGA ladder.

  Link to comment from June 22, 2024

• Jonathan - My heart sank as I read this. Thank you for sharing your news and your perspective. You continue to teach us.

  Post: The C Word

  Link to comment from June 16, 2024

• Or as I like to say, repeating one of my all time favorite quotes,

  Pigs get fed; hogs get slaughtered.

  Post: Don’t Be a Hero

  Link to comment from June 5, 2024

• Y’all might want to check out Airalo for international cell data. They have a great selection of regional data-only plans covering nearly every country you can think of. Very cost effective. For voice calls we use either WhatsApp or to call a landline, Skype.

  Post: Our Nomadic Life

  Link to comment from June 5, 2024

• Regarding your interest in historical fiction, that’s one of my interests, too. Any faves you’d recommend? (Some of mine: Killer Angels, Space, Centennial).

  Post: Delayed Reaction

  Link to comment from May 15, 2024

• We’ve been on ACA for the last 2 years, live in a high tax state, and my younger wife will still be on ACA for 8 more years after I start Medicare this year. Between the high state tax and ACA premiums that can swing from $0 to $12,000 per year based solely on MAGI income, it makes the ROTH conversion math hard to justify for us. Word to the wise - it may be more cost effective to do ROTH conversions when you’re still working if you think you’re going to need to use ACA for healthcare to bridge the time to Medicare.

  Post: Paying to Avoid Pain

  Link to comment from May 11, 2024

• Buy low, sell high. In hindsight, is far and away the worst advice I ever got. Why? Because it implicitly presumes that you know when low is low and high is high, which you don’t and can’t. This in turn gives one a stock picking mindset, which is a fools errand for 99% of amateur investors and probably a good percentage of those who consider themselves professionals. Over the years stock picking has cost me tens of thousands of dollars in either actual losses or paper losses where if I’d hung on for another stretch of time I’d have made a lot more than I did. The best advice I ever got was to abandon a stock picking mentality and instead to invest in simple index funds, and only the minimum number of those at that.

  Post: What’s the worst financial advice you’ve ever acted on?

  Link to comment from April 13, 2024

• I like opensocial, too, and based on the calculations I did with it I’m claiming in January 2025 at 65 and 2 months as well for 95% of maximum. The NPV for the 5% we’re giving up over our lifetimes is just $5,000. Interesting this squares well with my own homebrewed spreadsheet analysis I did a few years ago. I tried various scenarios including both die early, one early one late, both late. The odd thing I found is that the total value of SSA payments we receive actually declines for a couple of years after I turn 65 before it goes back up again as I approach 70. To me it’s a no brainer to claim at 65. I’ll feel better, sleep better, and spend better while we’re in our go go years. I can’t wait.

  Post: Stories We Tell

  Link to comment from April 10, 2024

• I used https://opensocialsecurity.com/ to evaluate our SSA claiming options. If you graph the total lifetime return based on various claiming dates, you may find the resulting curve is u-shaped, with maximizing benefits occurring with both early and late claiming dates, and showing a distinct dip in the middle. I can claim when I’m 65 and will achieve 95% of the theoretical maximum lifetime SSA payment value, while having 5 years of additional income coming at me during a time when I am most physically active. Psychologically this is very comforting, even if a little bit sub-optimal financially. I’ll take it.

  Post: He Asked, I Answered

  Link to comment from March 9, 2024

• Interesting answers. Regarding replacing 100% of one’s base pay, that seems to me to be an outdated idea premised on receiving a pension on top of social security. Now that pensions are no longer common among private sector employees, saving for retirement is now the mechanism by which people who are working can ensure that they can continue living in retirement at the standard they had when they were working. By definition the amount of income needed in retirement will therefore have to be less than their base pay was when they were working, given that they had to have been saving a significant portion of their pay the entire time they were earning.

  Post: He Asked, I Answered

  Link to comment from March 9, 2024