THE NEW REALITY OF OLD AGE IN AMERICA

[Pieere]

On 11/10/2017 at 1:21 PM, eddie1261 said:

That joke would have really landed had you worded it as it is usually told!! 10 our of 9 Mathematical Professionals agree.

Just like how 38% of all internet statistics are made up 94% of the time.

Ask me if i care?? Not! 

[Blues]

RV_, most people won't read your entire post, although they should.  But I'll pull this tidbit out:

On 11/11/2017 at 11:29 AM, RV_ said:

Those other first world nations will also transition to renewables and then to no jobs and the basic income system we know is coming with the rise of the machines more easily than the nations who scapegoat their poor while holding them in vicious almost unbreakable cycles of poverty.

The transition to the basic income system in the U.S. is going to be cataclysmic, and if you think things are ugly now, just wait.  I'm glad I'm unlikely to be around to witness it.

[RV_]

Thanks Blues, I appreciate that. And agree it is going to get ugly here. My sons will be right in the thick of it. They're both BSRNs and working on practitioner. at 65 I'll be here when the temps go 2° over. The freakish weather now is from the 1° over we have already hit. Back in the day there were moneyed interests that did not want us to outlaw the Freon refrigerants that caused the ozone layer to get a giant hole in it. But science and the American free press were taken seriously in those days. Since we stopped using and emitting the gases that caused it, the ozone hole is healing fine and will eventually be all right. If only . . .

 

[Dejae]

On 10/4/2017 at 7:55 PM, eddie1261 said:

This phrase pretty much stopped me.

"People are living longer, more expensive lives."

More expensive lives? Compared to what? And isn't that a choice to live MORE expensive lives that when they worked and lived in their house?  I don't understand what that means. I can't think of anybody who retired and thought life was going to be champagne and caviar. Typically you sell out of your house to get out from under a mortgage. That should be saving money. Obviously things will vary depending where people come from, but since all I can speak to is me, I will be moving from a house in a horrible neighborhood worth only maybe 60k to an RV, point being that I was never any kind of affluent with the $350,000 house in a gated community, and maybe people who came from that and bought a $200,000 RV are perhaps wishing they had gone more spartan. So I just don't know what that comparative "more expensive" means. My life is certainly not "more expensive" now that I am retired. At the moment it is exactly "as expensive" as it has been for the last 15 years or so, but pending a major RV calamity every month when I hit the highway, I should be in a better place when I hit the road. That may just be me coming from an extremely vanilla first 66 years of life, not really treasuring "stuff". I wear sneakers for 6-7 years at a time and eat on the tightest budget ever. I haven't paid to see a movie in about 15 years, and don't remember the last time I was at a restaurant of higher quality than a Denny's type place. I get all I need for the year on Veteran's Day when I load up on freebies.....  But that's just how I learned to live poor and it stuck with me.

I am also not up to speed on health care costs. I have used the VA for almost 20 years, so I never had to bother looking at ACA or anything else. I already have the list of clinics and hospitals in every state saved on my computer. Not everybody has that available, and I get that. And everybody's situation is unique, and I get that too. I just didn't really get the gist of the article, and lost interest completely when they started making it political.

I personally took it as we are living longer but more expensive because there is no choice. Years ago, you could choose to buy bread or spend less and make the bread. Now a days the supplies to make bread are so expensive that it is almost cheaper but more like the same cost to buy the loaf. Plus you save on Gas/Propane/Electric to bake the bread. I don't think they are (IMO) meaning we are living more expensive meaning more extravagant lives...I think they mean with no choice, it is more expensive to live than our retirement even comes close to affording and we have to now do it longer because we are living longer.

[Barbaraok]

Actually it costs more to keep us alive longer.  Cancer is now often a chronic disease - I know several people with reoccurring cancers who are 'in remission' for 2-4 years, then another year of chemo, more 'remission', then more chemo, etc.   50 years ago cancer was a death sentence. HIV infection is now a chronic problem.    Replacement parts for just about everything are now routinely used.  Transplants, while not routine, are getting better all of the time.  

 

[Dejae]

On 10/8/2017 at 7:37 PM, Barbaraok said:

Do you know how many families end up in bankruptcy because of medical bills?  Have you ever had a life threatening illness?  My dauther was a premie, 32 weeks.  Do you have any idea what the bills are like, even with insurance.  And if the insurance isn't all that great, then people end up bankrupt.   Thousands of people lost everything in the market downturn in 2008.  We have friends who were over invested in real estate,  lost over 1/2 of the retirement.   Think of all of the people who had retirement funds tied up with Madoff - through no fault of their own, because their bosses bought into the scam.  

You lack of empathy is staggering.   Must be nice to think that nothing bad happens to good people.

I agree with you on this Barb.

Sorry for the long story and the vent. I don't usually share personal this deep but just felt the need in this case. My husband is 77 and I am 60, we have been married 35 years and have 4 kids....that worked while in college to feed and cloth themselves while in school....but we paid for their schooling along with some scholarships they got.

 I inherited Xerox stock from my parents, my dad worked for them for 26 years and part of his pay was in profit sharing. My husband is a retired 26 yr police officer with a decent retirement that got a cost of living increase yearly along with being a Vietnam Nam vet. We had decent money, average investments (we don't need to get in depth), owned a successful candle mfg business and DH continued to work at a company after retirement. We built a new home in 1998, we bought it w/DH VA, no $$ down. We had the house 10 years when the recession hit. Business took a severe nose dive as only necessities were surviving and candles were not a necessity. Couldn't sell it, lost the total business and the income we were using to put our 4 kids through college. That put me out of work...and at the same time DH had a knee collapse and needed a total knee replacement immediately. Thank God...Medicare and his Police retirement insurance covered the surgery and rehab 100% but...in Nevada (the right to work state)....he was told he would get 3 weeks off and then be terminated. So we got no income for the 3 weeks but he was in fact terminated after the 3 weeks as the doctor had told him from the beginning 6-8 weeks out. There went income number 2. Xerox stocks fell so low, it was a wonder they still existed. Still have about 50 of them at a value of around $12. each. The average investments with what money we had to invest with....well like most things that were invested in, some went to the toilet and the rest we had to cash in with early penalty to survive. So, we were left with.... Me, no income, DH with a pension...minus investments, minus stocks, minus business. Which led to using what liquid savings we had in the bank for cash emergencies, what investments we could cash in to live on. A car payment we had, yes, we only had one car and it was one year out from being paid off. 3 college loans, a mtg payment, property taxes (this was the biggest bill and took alot of the income) and a small (but now felt really big) business loan...money was getting thinner and thinner. I became a coupon queen, we ate alot of super cheap meals including peanut butter and jelly. By 2012, 4 years of financial fighting. The mtg company, the Veterans Association, our governor down to our mayor....no relief, no help. The car was paid off, so we were told the only answer we had was find a miracle job (that hadn't happened in 4 years of looking and begging for one.) In order to get rid of the business loan we had to claim personal BK with the business because even after getting rid of the business loan....we had no money left and the most we could get away with before eviction was 4-6 months of no payments on the taxes but we still had to pay the mtg at least. So we rode it out with hopes that in that 6 months, something would come our way but it never did. We were now declared the hardest hit state in the US, just in front of Florida. Should have kept those 6 months payments and left then but we were in the fight for the long haul till the bitter end.

So, for years we tried to be do gooders and save, invest, even stuff the mattress but when shit happens....things start to fall and sometimes they fall fast and at the same time. As you can see above.

We went from being 820 credit score to after BK 440. They almost don't come lower than that.

We had even sold most of our furniture, my husbands 26 year pistol he worked with. Being our kids were in college, we sold their bedroom sets and when they came home, we bought air mattresses at salvation army and goodwill for the floor and they lived out of tubs and suitcases. We moved into a rental less than half the size of our house. And I started to save every penny I could find, even ones on the ground (no joke). When I finally got an extra $25. saved, I used it to get us a secured credit card and used that card every month for 6 months. Started a new business with $150.00. (a good faith loan from a guy that bought wholesale from us in our candle business, paid him back 3 months later). Then finally qualified for a high interest card from capital one. Used it every month and paid if off every month. Then went from there. 3 years later bought another house. Kept the house till last year, sold it and sold the current business. Bought our Motorhome (not for cash but financed at a very low int rate of 3.5% but did save enough to put down a good down payment.) Yes it is a USED 40' with 4 slides. As now we have another business we starting up and needed the room....once established will be an income that will increase our ability to save.

We now have 11 Credit Cards with our highest interest rate of 14.7% along with having a few CD's with Ally that we are growing and will eventually move and we still have those $12 Xerox stock.

Are we rich? no....not at all

Are we poor? no....not really

Am we happy? Yes, happier than I was in 2008 when we lost a big chunk of our lives.

Moral to the story...be careful how BULLY FOR YOU, you become as tomorrow the shoe could drop on YOUR head. How great is it that we have people in this world that are so self assured AND walk on water too. Not everyone's chips all fall in the right place all the time, even though we try to guide them there.

 

[Zulu]

2 hours ago, Dejae said:

DH had a knee collapse and needed a total knee replacement immediately...in Nevada (the right to work state)....he was told he would get 3 weeks off and then be terminated.

Classic. A former neighbor developed mesothelioma which appears to have been caused when he was in the Navy cleaning ship bilges that were loaded with asbestos.

So he underwent cancer surgery and had one whole lung and part of another removed. Soon after he had to go back work or lose his income. He wasn't at work long and died soon after.

To quote Betty Davis, "Getting old ain't for sissies". 

[RV_]

“I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam.”
― George Carlin

[Jack Mayer]

Dejae, your story is the story of many Americans. There are many things that contribute to a family that is doing well, doing all the right things, and then ending up with little to nothing. You can talk to many homeless people and hear similar stories. Yes, some homeless are there from their own negative actions...but MANY are not. 

You can go from being comfortable to basically having little/nothing in this world pretty easily. Wise people realize that. Even taking measures to mitigate the risk does not mean it won't happen. 

I'm glad to hear things have turned around for you. Thanks for sharing your story.  I'm confident it will help others - even though you will never know who.

[GlennWest]

We came from a rather poor community. It is difficult to make money where there is little. I started my own business and my wife protested greatly. I should have listened to her. I made the mistake of falling in love with my business. I also went down with the ship. Went back to doing what i know best, welding. This, on the east coast,  is a dying trade, at least making good money is. Just not a great demand. So here I am at 61 building back up some sort of retirement. My fault, yes. Intentional, NO. Just ignorant poor choices. We chose this lifestyle so I could be mobile and make good money. We do also enjoy this lifestyle. I will likely work until health fails. Bright side of this, I like my job. I will add, in our small rural town we lived in, no one knew how to invest. Not until the internet  came to be did I realize how badly I had done. Also we not bitter. I do believe we will be able to survive well. Will have to be frugal.

[sandsys]

5 hours ago, Jack Mayer said:

Dejae, your story is the story of many Americans. There are many things that contribute to a family that is doing well, doing all the right things, and then ending up with little to nothing. You can talk to many homeless people and hear similar stories. Yes, some homeless are there from their own negative actions...but MANY are not. 

You can go from being comfortable to basically having little/nothing in this world pretty easily. Wise people realize that. Even taking measures to mitigate the risk does not mean it won't happen. 

I'm glad to hear things have turned around for you. Thanks for sharing your story.  I'm confident it will help others - even though you will never know who.

x2

Linda Sand

[Dejae]

7 hours ago, Jack Mayer said:

Dejae, your story is the story of many Americans. There are many things that contribute to a family that is doing well, doing all the right things, and then ending up with little to nothing. You can talk to many homeless people and hear similar stories. Yes, some homeless are there from their own negative actions...but MANY are not. 

You can go from being comfortable to basically having little/nothing in this world pretty easily. Wise people realize that. Even taking measures to mitigate the risk does not mean it won't happen. 

I'm glad to hear things have turned around for you. Thanks for sharing your story.  I'm confident it will help others - even though you will never know who.

Thanks Jack....

The problem is that no matter how much to try to do it right...sometimes there becomes a false bottom. And it can happen to one person, more than once even if they learned something more from the first time or second and so on.

For sure I worked hard to turn it around but we are still in a red zone as far as not having nearly enough money saved. If DH leaves this earth on me...I get half his pension and only 2 years of his health insurance and then I am on my own. If God forbid that happened in the next year...I would be in real trouble as I could not continue to pay or maintain this MH on half his pension and what little is saved. And buy insurance. But it would have been worse if we stayed in the S&B.

So here again....sometimes no matter what you do or how good you do, some people will still loose in the end.

As we speak even with developing our newest business, I am looking for part time work in campgrounds....as we would like to continue to travel some but most want 40 hours and I can't offer that. So it is not an easy task to seek out.

 

And when you say, going from comfortable to having nearly nothing....or being homeless. I watched it within my own community. I saw people with families go from living in their houses to being evicted, have no work at all and getting a tent and were living on the sidewalk in front of their house till the person that bought their repo forced them to move away.

I had a neighbor that thought she would get ahead of the game as best she could. In 2009 when she was about 6 months from loosing her house. (her job had gone from fulltime to part time) she stopped paying the house and taxes, knowing she would loose it anyway, squeeze 9 months. In that 9 months she and her husband who was elderly, sold what they could, ate minimally and saved every dime. While she still had the job, she went to a local credit union and with some money down, was able to buy a motorhome to live in. CG in Vegas are a premium price unless you want to stay somewhere where you have to keep one eye open all night. Anyway, they decided to live frugal as they could and travel around. Being she had not claimed BK she was able to keep her credit cards. The more they traveled, the more she realized that money was slipping away and credit cards were piling up. She now has a job and is now in a catch 22. They are forced to stay in one place with their MH and pay a monthly rate plus electric. She works, but all the money is spent on RV payment and credit card bills. So to eat and pay rent, they have to use the CC. It is a vicious cycle. She just told me the other day, she had no clue how to make a budget when they started and still doesn't. But soon her cards will be maxed out and she makes enough to make a little more than minimum payments on them but there won't be any source for food or rent.

Granted she got herself into a whole she should have not but goes to show you, when you think you are making a move that will help you, it turns worse. She is getting older and can't get that good paying job anymore. Can't sell MH as she will be homeless then. She can't boondock, MH is not setup for it. They do do alot of store camping and not to have to cook and run generator or use propane, do alot of sandwiches. Buy those precooked chickens at walmart. It is hard to see people in a funk and sinking. Really sad.

EDITED TO ADD:

BTW Jack, I of course don't know all about your life but from what I have read, seems to me that you were Blessed with making the right choices at any forks in the road. God Bless you and Danielle, all appearances seem like job well done!

[Dejae]

4 hours ago, GlennWest said:

We came from a rather poor community. It is difficult to make money where there is little. I started my own business and my wife protested greatly. I should have listened to her. I made the mistake of falling in love with my business. I also went down with the ship. Went back to doing what i know best, welding. This, on the east coast,  is a dying trade, at least making good money is. Just not a great demand. So here I am at 61 building back up some sort of retirement. My fault, yes. Intentional, NO. Just ignorant poor choices. We chose this lifestyle so I could be mobile and make good money. We do also enjoy this lifestyle. I will likely work until health fails. Bright side of this, I like my job. I will add, in our small rural town we lived in, no one knew how to invest. Not until the internet  came to be did I realize how badly I had done. Also we not bitter. I do believe we will be able to survive well. Will have to be frugal.

Glenn, so true...I hear you loud and clear but the truth is...you can't sit and do nothing. You have to do what you think you can to dig out. Granted, sometimes we dig deeper. Like the business I am starting up. It could take me to my grave but I will die trying. Your 61, I am 60. BUT, I have to figure something out quickly to create a stay afloat means as my husband is 77. Not in poor health at all....but know what, doesn't matter. A friend I went to HS with, was in excellent shape, healthy! Day before Halloween her daughter picked her up to come stay with her for the weekend. In the car she was telling her 4 yr old grandson, when we get to your house...you and grandma are gonna have a dance party. Will you dance with me? not 30 seconds later, she fell over in the car. She was gone...paramedics revived her but she remained in a coma for a week. Finally doctors told family, she is never gonna wake up. She was 59. So, one never knows!

[BFT]

On 10/7/2017 at 8:53 AM, Pieere said:

I didn't realize how valuable my military hitch meant until the age of 60 when my severe heart attack occurred. The VA paid for it all and are still keeping my health in check! i now live in an old 1996 5er, drive a 30 yr.old Benz and a 17+ yr. Ford Ranger and like you live frugal. i believe I'm happier than most millionaires, LOL

 

[eddie1261]

On 11/13/2017 at 8:57 AM, Pieere said:

Ask me if i care?? Not! 

Yeah, YOU told ME...   LOL!!

[richfaa]

We just turned 81 in good health  and still on the road.Our success in life Job, Investments, marriage has been due to intelligent well thought out decisions 2% and 98 % dumb luck.

[Kirk W]

16 minutes ago, richfaa said:

We just turned 81 in good health  and still on the road.Our success in life Job, Investments, marriage has been due to intelligent well thought out decisions 2% and 98 % dumb luck.

I think that you sell yourself short. While life has no guarantees, good planning, and good choices go a long way to create good luck. It is true that some people experience disastrous events that no amount of planning could prevent, more often than not it pays off, just as it has for you & I.  Of course, I'm just a young fellow of 75 so you have way more experience than I. Health has interfered with our full-time RV travels but we still manage several months on the road most years.  

[Black]

On 11/18/2017 at 3:43 AM, Dejae said:

... So, we were left with.... Me, no income, DH with a pension...minus investments, minus stocks, minus business. Which led to using what liquid savings we had in the bank for cash emergencies, what investments we could cash in to live on. A car payment we had, yes, we only had one car and it was one year out from being paid off. 3 college loans, a mtg payment, property taxes (this was the biggest bill and took alot of the income) and a small (but now felt really big) business loan...money was getting thinner and thinner...

 

Dejae,

As someone retiring in 8 years with a federal pension, I read your story closely. Although my investment structure is set so that I have multiple diversified investments to fall back on, my plan is to withdraw no more than 2% of investments and use my pension for the other 98%. 

In your situation, what percentage of your husband's pension covered your budget? 

There seem to be several pitfalls to financial freedom and I'm thankful for the ones on the board who have "been there, done that" and don't mind sharing their ups and downs.

[eddie1261]

On 11/13/2017 at 8:57 AM, Pieere said:

Ask me if i care?? Not! 

Wow! YOU told ME, eh? 

That was less funny than the joke. Let's just all say you have no sense of humor and move on. Buh-bye.

[Kirk W]

1 hour ago, Black said:

There seem to be several pitfalls to financial freedom and I'm thankful for the ones on the board who have "been there, done that" and don't mind sharing their ups and downs.

The key to sound finances is more an issue of finding ways to live comfortably on the resources that you have then it is of finding resources to support what you want. We gave up the dream of living in a diesel coach and found a gas chassis RV to meet our needs and as a result, when Pam's health became a problem 11 years later we still had the resources to buy a stick home again and remain debt free. While our investments didn't do as well as we might have hoped in the 2000 - 2010 decade, careful planning and managing our spending has served us well, thus far. 

[Zulu]

38 minutes ago, Kirk Wood said:

The key to sound finances is more an issue of finding ways to live comfortably on the resources that you have then it is of finding resources to support what you want. 

Kirk, this is definitely your theme song as you keep returning to it again and again. While personal husbandry may work for some (many?), it does not work for everyone. Sometimes even the most money wise, responsible people fall on hard times. With the demise of the ACA, I suspect more and more people will be "finding ways to live on the resources" they have. Not comfortably. Just live.

[Black]

1 hour ago, Zulu said:

Kirk, this is definitely your theme song as you keep returning to it again and again. While personal husbandry may work for some (many?), it does not work for everyone. Sometimes even the most money wise, responsible people fall on hard times. With the demise of the ACA, I suspect more and more people will be "finding ways to live on the resources" they have. Not comfortably. Just live.

I've never heard the term "personal husbandry", do you mind explaining what that means?

I also hear about money wise & responsible people falling on hard times and that's what I'm trying to guard against. I have (thankfully) great health insurance, we've lived well below our means and could actually retire now (but choose to stick it out for the pension), have investments that cover our cost of living, have healty 401K, no debt other than mortages, yada, yada, yada.

I'm just hoping to cover all the bases so that I don't have a "I wish I would've known" moment that throws all my planning (I've been looking forward to retirement since 29 yrs old) into disarray.

 

[bigjim]

To husband something is to care for it wisely whether it is a critter or your personal finances. I would say akin to personal responsibility.

[Kirk W]

18 hours ago, Zulu said:

Sometimes even the most money wise, responsible people fall on hard times. With the demise of the ACA, I suspect more and more people will be "finding ways to live on the resources" they have. Not comfortably. Just live.

And this seems to be your theme song.  "It isn't my fault" can happen but it is amazing how lucky(?) people who plan and manage their money are! 

[farflung]

On 10/4/2017 at 7:49 AM, Kirk W said:

I think that they went and picked people who fit the profile that they wished to write about.     

Yes, that's exactly what they did, because the article isn't intended to be a profile of a diverse group of seniors in different financial and social strata. There are statistics that show a phenomenon, that seniors are continuing to work in record numbers out of necessity, and they found a couple to profile in order to humanize those statistics. That's what a journalist should do. Otherwise, numbers are numbers. The dry reality that a large percentage of seniors have to keep working and can no longer afford the upkeep on traditional homes wouldn't make for a very compelling article without some people to drive the point home.  The article is not about seniors who live comfortably and work or volunteer because they want to. It's about the retirement age working poor. 

I'm 57, but I'll be in that group soon enough. I have no savings, absolutely NONE. Neither do most of my friends.