Retirement VS working

[Boatboy24]

Vous etes tres gentil!

And your trees are very gentle as well!

 

[Rotundifolia]

My husband and I moved around for work every so often. We made friends and then moved away. We bought a retirement home during the last housing crisis and then work remotely from there before it became popular with covid. We retired the year before covid. During covid we realized how precious local friends were. We have made friends with people who have lived here thier entire lives and have many more friends. Very rich lives. We are fortunate to have landed in a place with good people, but for those of you are looking to move for retirement, keep in mind all of the people you are leaving behind. Is it worth the lower cost of housing? Perhaps so. Just saying people make a life rich and retirement is about living a rich life (not monetary).

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

I did my time. Upstate NY by @winemaker81. Foothills of the Adirondacks. School in Syracuse NY. Very snowy. Drive 40 minutes to work every morning. Worst part is when it was -26° and you sit on your car seat to start the car hopefully and the seat was hard as a rock. Foam rubber didn’t do well in cold.
shovel driveway (later could afford snowblower) so I could get out of driveway, come home from work and do the driveway again so I could get in the garage.

moved to Cape Coral Florida 12 years ago and never regretted it. Even after Irma in 2017 and now Ian which actually passed over our house with 140 mph wind.
and now this week the weather is finally turning to beautiful low 80’s and low humidity and window weather at night for sleeping. And the new roof is going on right now, the trees are putting out new leaves and flowers and I would not want to be anywhere else. Bonita is right down the road. A few trailers (manufactured housing for snowbirds) got scraped off the pad but still going strong. Two weeks ago at 3:30 am as I was out getting ready to start the generator I looked up at the stars, it was wonderful, no lights anywhere, beautiful.

 

[jswordy]

My husband and I moved around for work every so often. We made friends and then moved away. We bought a retirement home during the last housing crisis and then work remotely from there before it became popular with covid. We retired the year before covid. During covid we realized how precious local friends were. We have made friends with people who have lived here thier entire lives and have many more friends. Very rich lives. We are fortunate to have landed in a place with good people, but for those of you are looking to move for retirement, keep in mind all of the people you are leaving behind. Is it worth the lower cost of housing? Perhaps so. Just saying people make a life rich and retirement is about living a rich life (not monetary).

You hit on the key when moving. Always check out whether the place you are moving to is friendly to you or not before you move. Ask me how I know, lol... It is amazing how moving just 50 miles can change everything.

 

[cmullin]

I retired about 3 years ago from the University of California in Los Angeles. Every vacation from the past 15 years my wife and I would see if this was a place we wanted to retire and could afford. We looked all over California(especially the central coast) , Arizona, New Mexico and southern Oregon. Most we didn't like (Santa Fe NM was great , but really dry and cold) Then we did a vacation in the Willamette Valley, just loved it. I was somewhat familiar with Oregon, went to grad school here 25 years ago. My wife had never been here. It was great, we moved here. Now we have a hobby farm near Corvallis. Gardening, fermenting(both foods and drinks), and rockhounding plus other things. Setting up a place for wine and cider, and planting more fruit and grapes. Its been hard to meet friends locally because of covid, but we are managing. We don't miss work or LA at all. If you can retire you should, as soon as possible. At least for us worked just sucked, and the commute sucked too.

 

[ibglowin]

I retired about 3 years ago from the University of California in Los Angeles. Every vacation from the past 15 years my wife and I would see if this was a place we wanted to retire and could afford. We looked all over California(especially the central coast) , Arizona, New Mexico and southern Oregon. Most we didn't like (Santa Fe NM was great , but really dry and cold) Then we did a vacation in the Willamette Valley, just loved it. I was somewhat familiar with Oregon, went to grad school here 25 years ago. My wife had never been here. It was great, we moved here. Now we have a hobby farm near Corvallis. Gardening, fermenting(both foods and drinks), and rockhounding plus other things. Setting up a place for wine and cider, and planting more fruit and grapes. Its been hard to meet friends locally because of covid, but we are managing. We don't miss work or LA at all. If you can retire you should, as soon as possible. At least for us worked just sucked, and the commute sucked too.

UC Pensions are the best!

 

[cmullin]

Anymore I

UC Pensions are the best!

Anymore it feels like they are the only pensions.

 

[jswordy]

@ibglowin and @cmullin: Gotta remember, any U.S. citizen who can claim the word "pension" is a rare bird in the USA these days, I don't care what the pension benefit is. The percentage of workers in the private sector whose only retirement account is a defined benefit pension plan is now 4%, down from 60% in the early 1980s. Overall, 15% of American private sector workers have pensions. Meanwhile in Canada, for women, the 2021 pension coverage rate rose 3.3 percentage points to 43.3%, while for men it increased 2.0 percentage points to 36.5%.

My wife and I are fortunate to have 4 pensions of varying sizes between us, plus a lifetime worth of gains from investment portfolios – and still, she is full of angst that when I retire, we will not have enough money. Sigh...

Which brings me to a question: For those on Medicare who are on prescriptions, too, how the heck are you handling these high Part D drug prices and deductibles? I have been shocked about that.

I'm thinking I'll just buy the cheapest Part D plan and then not use it, buying my drugs instead directly from Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company. What do you do?

 

[wood1954]

With soc security and our pension my wife and I make half of what we did when we were working and some in our 401k and we seem to have more free cash now. Medicare advantage plans pick up a lot of costs for my wife’s drugs. For some really expensive drugs there are orgs that give grants to cover the cost. Her weekly injections cost around $8k and the insurance paid for it. Her cancer pill that cost around $21000 a month was also covered by a grant and insurance. The so called donut hole is around $4600 or so. Her cancer treatment has cost close a million so far and our out of pocket cost is less than $10k. Get a good advantage plan and you should be fine. Get any large expenses out of the way before retirement and you’ll be fine.

 

[ibglowin]

You must have come in the Winter or early Spring. We live very close to Santa fe and visit our daughter, SIL and grandkids (Burbank) very often now that we are retired. When we go to socal I can't believe how HUMID it seems compared to home. It is pretty nice in the Winter (socal) I have to admit compared to living in the southern tip of the Rockies at 7000ft EL. But the sunshine 350 days plus combined EL make the Winters very tolerable. As we age and our blood thins we will probably be spending more time out there in the Winter (best of both worlds).

Most we didn't like (Santa Fe NM was great , but really dry and cold)

 

[jswordy]

With soc security and our pension my wife and I make half of what we did when we were working and some in our 401k and we seem to have more free cash now. Medicare advantage plans pick up a lot of costs for my wife’s drugs. For some really expensive drugs there are orgs that give grants to cover the cost. Her weekly injections cost around $8k and the insurance paid for it. Her cancer pill that cost around $21000 a month was also covered by a grant and insurance. The so called donut hole is around $4600 or so. Her cancer treatment has cost close a million so far and our out of pocket cost is less than $10k. Get a good advantage plan and you should be fine. Get any large expenses out of the way before retirement and you’ll be fine.

After over a year of research about Medigap vs. Medicare Advantage, we are going Medigap. I'll be Plan G. My wife qualifies for F, which is a better deal than I can get. I would rather pay a higher monthly rate than a large deductible expense plus copays for a serious illness that is assuredly in my future as I age, and Medicare Advantage folks often try to change to Medigap after they get seriously ill at advanced age – only to find that they can't. The Part D drug part of it is the only part that I am still messing with.

 

[jswordy]

It's pretty interesting when I check my maintenance drugs on Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs and see how much I can save by just buying them outright there instead of going through the copay/deductible route. I think that's the direction I will be going, with a cheap Part D just in case I do happen to need some super-expensive drug in the future, but buying my daily meds from CPD. I shared the addy with a cardiologist friend, who was amazed and is recommending it to patients. Others may want to check it out, too, so here ya go. Knowledge is power.

https://costplusdrugs.com

 

[jswordy]

For anyone peeking in here who is approaching retirement, one of the first things you'll find with your Medicare is that it is very difficult to be advised by anyone impartial who does NOT have "skin in the game." Anybody who will make money off your decision is not the best advisor. I have even heard stories of people who had their friends advise them to get into plans not to their best interest simply in order to collect a commission.

Fortunately, there is help! A federally-administered program called the State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) is staffed by well-trained volunteers who are backed by computer programs designed to help you find the best fit, least-cost options for you. We ran all our Medicare plans past a SHIP advisor in our town, and we learned three things that we did not know, even after studying up on it for over a year in our planning.

To find out more about SHIP in your state, start here: Home

 

[winemanden]

Since I retired I worry about whether I worry too much

 

[jswordy]

Since I retired I worry about whether I worry too much

That's a nice problem to have!

 

[sour_grapes]

That is great, thanks. I did not know such a thing existed. (Although I have a number of years left to figure it out! )

 

[jswordy]

That is great, thanks. I did not know such a thing existed. (Although I have a number of years left to figure it out! )

You're welcome. They are a cadre of volunteers vs. well-funded insurance corporations, which is why more people don't know about them. Believe me, once you get close to age 65, you will be INUNDATED with Medicare pitches. SHIP is a valuable free resource.