31–40 of 316 posts
There are a lot of reasons why retirees could wind up spending less money aside form 'hoarding'. For one thing, retirees often have paid off their homes, and have no mortgage payments. In addition to that, having a daily job entails a lot of soft costs that often go unnoticed - without your daily commute, your car (and tank of gas) will last a lot longer, you won't eat out for lunch as often, and even your wardrobe w…
Maybe there is need for a startup that can pool the retirement money from retirees and assure them of a comfortable life style till the time they die. I think this will allow the retirees to enjoy their life much more rather than worrying about "what might happen...".
Fuck. I'm 30, and I just went through this. I quit a bad job to try to do my own thing; after a few months without a paycheck - despite having plenty of saving six ways from Sunday - I clammed up almost completely, not wanting to spend a dime. I was miserable. It's the same feeling as item hoarding in CRPGs. Seems like I either need to never retire, or set up a trust for myself so I have a guaranteed allowance. (Or d…
If so vote for politicians who support better welfare systems and free healthcare (if you don't already), it would help take the edge of this stress.
There are a lot of reasons why retirees could wind up spending less money aside form 'hoarding'. For one thing, retirees often have paid off their homes, and have no mortgage payments. In addition to that, having a daily job entails a lot of soft costs that often go unnoticed - without your daily commute, your car (and tank of gas) will last a lot longer, you won't eat out for lunch as often, and even your wardrobe w…
You're also more likely to need medical care.
> "As a result, millions of Americans are living too frugally" WTF, really? Reminds me of Edward Bernays [1], the "father of public relations", who set out to help Americans become materialistic (and succeeded!). If someone is enjoying their life without blowing all their money, that person is BETTER off. It's just corporations that want to suck the money away from them that need to "train them to spend." [1] https:/…
Optionality has value but it decays over time. If you forgo consumption in favor of savings up until the very end then you haven't been better off, you've been worse off. The dead can't benefit from spending money.
The article implies with the talk about "training people to spend" that other people should be concerned about this, but doesn't say why. I'm not really seeing it. It's not like the money supply is fixed. There are other ways to grow it if the Fed were willing to do it.
Fuck. I'm 30, and I just went through this. I quit a bad job to try to do my own thing; after a few months without a paycheck - despite having plenty of saving six ways from Sunday - I clammed up almost completely, not wanting to spend a dime. I was miserable. It's the same feeling as item hoarding in CRPGs. Seems like I either need to never retire, or set up a trust for myself so I have a guaranteed allowance. (Or d…
http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/
..and I'm about to take another one:
http://penguindreams.org/videos/taking-a-sabbatical/
I think I'm in better shape this time. I'll take a tech job if I drop below $10k (just savings, not retirement). Last time I was on fumes.
I mean why wait till you retire? You could be hit by a truck or slip in your tub and die (or with my luck die of liver failure). Better to spread a year break ever few years.
> "As a result, millions of Americans are living too frugally" WTF, really? Reminds me of Edward Bernays [1], the "father of public relations", who set out to help Americans become materialistic (and succeeded!). If someone is enjoying their life without blowing all their money, that person is BETTER off. It's just corporations that want to suck the money away from them that need to "train them to spend." [1] https:/…
One way to frame this is "corporations want to suck that money away." Another way to frame it is "most participants in the economy are non-rich and would appreciate that money more, so it's unfortunate if it's sitting around making nobody happy and not adding much in the way of security to an already-wealthy person."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Optionality has value but it decays over time. If you forgo consumption in favor of savings up until the very end then you haven't been better off, you've been worse off. The dead can't benefit from spending money.
The benefit of leaving my heirs a legacy far outweighs any 'benefit' I'd get from spending money needlessly...
FTA, the value of the average retiree's estate is ~300k in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Using the 4% rule (make your money last 30 years), that's 12,000 a year, and that's probably skewed upward by the compounding of the super wealthy (20 richest people worth more than bottom 50%, 150 million people). The median is probably much, much lower (I'd wager 50k). That's living off of cat food in both cases, and if you're worried…