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Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

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Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#51

Post by elboru »

tryingagainbro wrote: post #18

Leave USA...$1000 a month goes a long way in a lot of countries, in USA you'll starve. https://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T037-C000-S002-...

Now I get why a lot of Americans come to Mexico to retire, sure we have a lot of problems over here, but with that amount you will be able to live in a good and beautiful town, maybe next to a beach or in a traditional town like San Miguel de Allende [1] (a lot of old Americans go to retire there), maybe you won't live like a king, but you won't have housing or food problems at all. [1] http://cdn-image.travelandleisure.com/sites/default/files/st...

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#52

Post by eropple »

creaghpatr wrote: post #36
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind if I expound on this? My mother died in July at 59 from a brain hemorrhage. I took her in 2 years ago, and I paid ~$1000/month for her prescriptions before the ACA kicked in. After it kicked in, her prescription costs dropped (thankfully, as I was going to Canada to get non-controlled prescriptions) but her provider costs increased. Only because I’m a tech professional in a top earning tier was I able to do this…

So your solution was to shaft the hospitals $48k? Sounds like an applicable solution for the rest of America. This is why healthcare costs are so high.

Wow, that's a really nasty comment. Debts expunge upon the deaths of the debtor. Why would you expect him to pay those debts?

This isn't "why healthcare costs are so high".

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#53

Post by parsnips »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
wincy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if, you know, we had social values where it’s OK to have your children take care of you.

Mind if I expound on this? My mother died in July at 59 from a brain hemorrhage. I took her in 2 years ago, and I paid ~$1000/month for her prescriptions before the ACA kicked in. After it kicked in, her prescription costs dropped (thankfully, as I was going to Canada to get non-controlled prescriptions) but her provider costs increased. Only because I’m a tech professional in a top earning tier was I able to do this…

Those debts clear with her estate.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#54

Post by falcolas »

rayiner wrote: post #20

> But there is little money to see the sights. She earns too much to receive food stamps, and a lot of it goes to groceries. She tries to eat organic food, with her low blood sugar. That rules out cheap but filling Big Macs — as well as the food kitchens whose mass-produced meals, she decided, are unhealthful. Why do newspapers use as examples people who seem to have done everything wrong? Is it because formerly midd…

I saw this the other day on Reddit - I feel it's worth the read, and very relevant to this style of "they're doing it wrong" discussion:

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/7ak7jm/its...

TL;DR: OP shows how a healthy 20-something could quickly overrun a $27,000 yearly income by just living.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#55

Post by 40acres »

pmoriarty wrote: post #39
40acres wrote: post #7

Both of my parents are in this situation, and it's only exacerbated by the fact that my mom had to retire due to spinal surgery and my dad has a bad hip injury that he refuses to get surgery for because he fears missing rent. Despite my willingness to help with the rent and bills I can only provide so much as I live in a high COL area as well. The next 15-20 years are going to be very, very tough for older Americans.

"I can only provide so much as I live in a high COL area as well" Why are your parents living in a high cost-of-living area? Wouldn't it make sense for them to move somewhere they could better afford?

They could, absolutely. My mother has always dreamed of buying a house in Florida for instance but that would be impossible with their finances.

Both of my parents are immigrants from a small country, they immigrated to NYC because it's one of the few cities in America where other folks from our country settled. Moving would undoubtedly allow them to ease up on rent and cost of living, but it would also move them away from other family members, long time friends, church community, etc.

As mentioned, both are very sedentary due to injury despite the fact that my dad works a grueling job, if they moved away from the community that has supported them for ~30 years I could only see their quality of life worsening.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#56

Post by linkmotif »

> That rules out cheap but filling Big Macs

Big Macs are neither cheap nor filling. Fast food is extremely expensive. Anyone who’s ever been poor and collected enough to escape poverty understands this. Americans, as parroted by this journalist, don’t know what poverty is. How is it that you have 17,000 dollars per year and still struggle to survive? If you’re poor and eat fast food and keep your home stocked with disposable utensils: you’re hopeless, you're going to be poor forever.

If you’re poor you can’t eat fast food if you want to stop being poor. You can afford dried lentils. Dried beans. Meat when it’s on sale. Apples when they’re 79 cents/lb or when you can get them for free. Americans just don’t know how to live without getting owned by the man. “Poor” Americans are overwhelmingly people who don’t understand home economics and how not to give all their money to rich people. They make one bad decision after the next. It’s a cultural problem driven by the absense of local community, support structure and values.

What’s happened in the past hundred years is that capitalists have played divide and conquer with cultural systems to make people increasingly alone and isolated from one another, less economically viable and increasingly helpless. Cooking—a thing that every person on earth could do for nearly every meal they consumed–became a thing that's difficult. Cooking: Don't Try This at Home. It's simple: Capitalism doesn’t value consumer empowerment. It values consumer servitude. Instead of being raised by grandparents and community members, American children are raised in daycare. Instead of grandparents helping with cooking, working Americans are tasked with preparing food for the family, a task that is impossible. Things you could rely on from family and community are things today you have to get from corporations. We replaced family and community with government and corporations and this is what we got: A culture that says Big Macs are cheap and writes so as a matter of fact in the local newspaper of record.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#57

Post by alsetmusic »

rayiner wrote: post #20

> But there is little money to see the sights. She earns too much to receive food stamps, and a lot of it goes to groceries. She tries to eat organic food, with her low blood sugar. That rules out cheap but filling Big Macs — as well as the food kitchens whose mass-produced meals, she decided, are unhealthful. Why do newspapers use as examples people who seem to have done everything wrong? Is it because formerly midd…

> Why do newspapers use as examples people who seem to have done everything wrong? Is it because formerly middle class people are somehow more relatable to the readers of the LA Times than people who never had much of a chance to begin with? What about the poor elderly who never went to business school or were born in an area with few opportunities?

It will come as little surprise to many readers that someone who was forerly poor has remained poor. It is more notable when someone who was formerly comfortable is now barely scraping by. The latter will garner more attention from the audience and potentially will have more impact.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#58

Post by quickben »

nkrisc wrote: post #19
wincy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or if, you know, we had social values where it’s OK to have your children take care of you.

And those, like the woman in the story, who don't have children?

It depends. Sometimes people can't, and that's about it.

But lately, I have more and more friends that don't want to have children.

The girls are in their 35s and guys in 40s, add or take five.

They share and attempt to behave as if they are in their twenties.

They enjoy the easy Toronto life, spend everything they earn, cluster together with others of similar lifestyle, and reinforce each own egos that they are doing it right.

In a way, we live in amazing times where that is possible. But sometimes, life changes, and at that point, not having family to take care of you, is just bad.

So, for the woman in the story, if bad luck put here there that's sad.

If it was her own choice, well, it is harsh, but not forming and helping a family, as your parents did with you, and helped out their parents, is a selfish act, and I guess the price is similarly horrible.

Edit: Clarity. English is such a weird and misinterpreted language.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#59

Post by iaw »

epistasis wrote: post #37
nnfy wrote: post #21

>Her savings long gone, and having never done much long-term financial planning And so again we are expected to pay for the mistakes of others. What incentive is there to save if you know you have a social net to save you anyway? Yes, I understand, it is a terrifying way to live, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but if we deincentivize personal responsibility, what stops this from becoming a larger problem? How can this…

There are many nations with a similar level of development and wealth as the United States. How prevalent is this problem in Canada? In Europe? You propose "personal responsibility" as the solution to this, but does Canada or Europe depend more on "personal responsibility" or less than the US?

Ayn Rand, arguably a strong proponent of "personal responsibility", required welfare at the end of her life. She made some justifications for how she could live off of welfare but still did it.

When times are personally good it's easy to make arguments about what people should do, but when you're in a situation with no support things feel a lot different.

Re: Too poor to retire, too young to die (2016)

#60

Post by notacoward »

rabbite wrote: post #25

Five paragraphs in, the root of many of her problems: "Her savings long gone, and having never done much long-term financial planning" Six paragraphs in, the root of elderly problems nation-wide: "Nearly one-third of U.S. heads of households ages 55 and older have no pension or retirement savings and a median annual income of about $19,000" Is it possible that the lack of long term financial planning, aka saving mone…

> Is it possible that the lack of long term financial planning, aka saving money, is the crux of many of these tragic situations?

What if it is? Even if that were the case 100% of the time, which you and I both know it isn't, the results are still something we have to deal with.

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