AUTHOR: Wayne Proctor on 7/20/2024 FIRST: Matt Morse on 7/20/2024 | RECENT: Wayne Proctor on 7/27/2024
Comments
My wife and I have two children, ages 40 and 38. At this point in their lives they are financially independent from us. We are hopeful this status will continue the rest of our lives. Our daughter, the youngest, has been extremely good with money decisions. She is a bank manager, so that definitely helps. However, before she was married, my wife helped her with her first house downpayment, and we helped her in other smaller ways. About 4 years ago our son made a decision to move back to our home town to work in the family hardware business. Since I had the financial means, I helped him get a house so that he can build some financial equity. Unlike our daughter, he struggles with saving money. Yet, other than birthday and Christmas cash gifts, we don't help him or our daughter. And while we expect that one day they will inherit our assets, we aren't yet convinced that either one of them will handle them as well as we have done.
Without a doubt, the greatest joy is giving it away. I semi-retired at the end of 2024, but am doing a part-time job (serving as an interim pastor) for the next year or so. The money paid to me by the church will be used for giving to charities and investing. My idea is that my investments grow, my giving can grow. Plus, it's good to have some extra money available for emergencies.
I met with my financial advisor on Thursday to deposit my maximum IRA contribution for 2024 as well as purchase a new stock for my Investment account. I am age 71 and fortunately I don't have to be drawing from these accounts. They are part of my retirement buffer, so the ups and downs of the stock market are not devastating to me - if the stock price goes down, the dividend percentage goes up. Regarding the tariffs, they may do more harm than good short term - this is a long term strategy to level the global
playing field.
Thank you Ken. You were wise to increase contributions to retirement plans rather than argue with your wife. Like you, I am a saver and my wife is a spender. Yes, we argued too much about money when we had a joint checking account. Upon my decision, I created my own account so she could have hers without me knowing what she spent or why. Since she earned as much as I did career wise, this solution worked much, much better. As far as children go, our daughter takes more after me and our son more after my wife regarding saving money and investing in different retirement accounts.
I have thought about this quite a bit over the years but my basic answer is "no." Between my wife and myself we have invested in a number of strategies to provide good monthly income in retirement. They included her pension, Social security, three IRA'S between us, my 403b account, investment accounts which includes a national municipal bond fund that has been steady for the past dozen years, and now, land rental income. Our goal was $8,000 income per month, but it looks like we're going to be at around $10,000. Of course, my wife worked to age 65, I'm still working at age 70, and last year my wife and daughter bought the family hardware and gifts business, including the properties. We started talking retirement three years ago, in a serious way, and have actually continued working longer than we would have expected.
Hi, I apologize. The correction to my 403b account, recouping losses, was about 2011-2012. It took about 3 years to fully recoup the losses from 2007-2009.
Hi, to answer your questions, I opted out of Social Security at the age of 28 when I got my first full-time ministerial position. My thought at the time was not ever owing the government anything, or being dependent on the government. Regarding the losses to my 403b account, by 1990, my account had recouped its losses, at least on paper. However, this downturn caused me to become very proactive to discover strategies to NOT lose like this ever again.
Comments
My wife and I have two children, ages 40 and 38. At this point in their lives they are financially independent from us. We are hopeful this status will continue the rest of our lives. Our daughter, the youngest, has been extremely good with money decisions. She is a bank manager, so that definitely helps. However, before she was married, my wife helped her with her first house downpayment, and we helped her in other smaller ways. About 4 years ago our son made a decision to move back to our home town to work in the family hardware business. Since I had the financial means, I helped him get a house so that he can build some financial equity. Unlike our daughter, he struggles with saving money. Yet, other than birthday and Christmas cash gifts, we don't help him or our daughter. And while we expect that one day they will inherit our assets, we aren't yet convinced that either one of them will handle them as well as we have done.
Post: Family Dynamics, Part 2: Supporting Adult Children
Link to comment from July 26, 2025
Without a doubt, the greatest joy is giving it away. I semi-retired at the end of 2024, but am doing a part-time job (serving as an interim pastor) for the next year or so. The money paid to me by the church will be used for giving to charities and investing. My idea is that my investments grow, my giving can grow. Plus, it's good to have some extra money available for emergencies.
Post: Ask Me a Tough One
Link to comment from April 19, 2025
I met with my financial advisor on Thursday to deposit my maximum IRA contribution for 2024 as well as purchase a new stock for my Investment account. I am age 71 and fortunately I don't have to be drawing from these accounts. They are part of my retirement buffer, so the ups and downs of the stock market are not devastating to me - if the stock price goes down, the dividend percentage goes up. Regarding the tariffs, they may do more harm than good short term - this is a long term strategy to level the global playing field.
Post: Tariffs and our retirement assets
Link to comment from April 5, 2025
Thank you Ken. You were wise to increase contributions to retirement plans rather than argue with your wife. Like you, I am a saver and my wife is a spender. Yes, we argued too much about money when we had a joint checking account. Upon my decision, I created my own account so she could have hers without me knowing what she spent or why. Since she earned as much as I did career wise, this solution worked much, much better. As far as children go, our daughter takes more after me and our son more after my wife regarding saving money and investing in different retirement accounts.
Post: Overdoing It
Link to comment from February 22, 2025
I have thought about this quite a bit over the years but my basic answer is "no." Between my wife and myself we have invested in a number of strategies to provide good monthly income in retirement. They included her pension, Social security, three IRA'S between us, my 403b account, investment accounts which includes a national municipal bond fund that has been steady for the past dozen years, and now, land rental income. Our goal was $8,000 income per month, but it looks like we're going to be at around $10,000. Of course, my wife worked to age 65, I'm still working at age 70, and last year my wife and daughter bought the family hardware and gifts business, including the properties. We started talking retirement three years ago, in a serious way, and have actually continued working longer than we would have expected.
Post: Three Significant Moments
Link to comment from July 27, 2024
Hi, I apologize. The correction to my 403b account, recouping losses, was about 2011-2012. It took about 3 years to fully recoup the losses from 2007-2009.
Post: Three Significant Moments
Link to comment from July 27, 2024
Hi, to answer your questions, I opted out of Social Security at the age of 28 when I got my first full-time ministerial position. My thought at the time was not ever owing the government anything, or being dependent on the government. Regarding the losses to my 403b account, by 1990, my account had recouped its losses, at least on paper. However, this downturn caused me to become very proactive to discover strategies to NOT lose like this ever again.
Post: Three Significant Moments
Link to comment from July 27, 2024