Retirement Plans

[The Stig]

How is your retirement plan?

This is an important question.

First, you need income to live post retirement. If you don't set aside money for that now, you won't be able to do that very easily. Further, are you incorporating money into your retirement income stream to continue prepping after retirement?

Catastrophic meltdown might not happen before you aren't able to work full time anymore....are you prepping for that eventuality?

Probably not the sexiest prep topic but one that should be considered.

[bacpacker]

Good idea that I bet a lot of folks aren't giving a lot of thought to. For me, I'm struggling to try to get to the point of being able to retire one day. :)

[Fatty]

This has me torn big time. I've been investing 10% into my 401k with a company matching 60 cents on every dollar up to 6%. But I'm worried of getting bit in the behind if they ever try to socialize 401k's. That part scares me the most about my retirement plans. I assume my pension won't be there by the time comes and on top of that, I highly doubt anyone around my age (30) will ever be able to retire at the rate this FED is going. But everytime I ask myself "why even save for retirement if you don't plan on being able to? I always say "its just like Christ- it would suck a whole lot worse if I was wrong:)

[Sniper-T]

I am diligently trying to get a third job for my wife. If I can pull that off, I can retire comfortably tomorrow. If any large ticket items are required, she can do some overtime.

Wanna guess how well this has been going over?

lol.

buying gold/silver/ammo/ and anything else that can be turned to liquid cash. My company pays 1:1 for our investments, which may or may not endure.

and I just try to have all my ducks in a row. Have all my storage preps set up, the gardens, tools, toys, etc.

Minimize as much of the post retirement costs as possible, pre-retirement!

[Onestep]

This has been our focus now as we are both near an age we "could" retire IF we have enough to sustain, which we never feel we do.
We have been putting as much as we can into our 401k's but as Fatty mentioned, I do worry about those being pillaged by the govt..
Because of that we are trying build up our savings as well in cash. We have our preps in pretty good order including some PM's but I kow once you pull the retirement switch, things will need to be cut way back.

[realist]

First I highly recommend retirement, it is better than the brochure. I have one kid in college and one in a private high school. I work part time so that I can afford this. I have found that I pay that same taxes on my 401k draws as the rest of my income. I figure that we will pay about the same amount of money in taxes as my wife makes. She has one more year to work before she can retire. If they cut her salary due to budget cuts this year it will be sooner. Put away what you can. Remember some of those things that you are putting away are going up in value more than any money that is in the bank.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Retirement is over-rated and was an unknown concept until progressives started touting the concept. I will work until the day I die. I don't want to be like some of my friends and play cards or golf every day with the same folks, or worse yet, start the morning with a bloody mary and sip cocktails all day. It is so common out here that the practice is accepted as normal.

Rather, my idea of retirement is to have enough cash and assets, that I can subsistence farm and not need to make big expenditures on food etc. I want a place where I can do my own thing without HOAs, suburban zoning, nosey city folk complaining about manure smells and squawking chickens. To that end I am exploring a small acreage acquisition (less than 40 acres) in the northern tier of the Basin and Range geomorphic provence. The land is more affordable, comes with water rights (always important in semi-arid regions) and is a lot less densely populated than other places.

If I pull it off, I'll be able to quit drawing a paycheck in a couple of years and retire to the land to work at feeding myself and my livestock. My needs are few, tbh.

[realist]

Grumpy that is what I am doing. I was lucky to find a nice piece of land, bought it out of the paper on a Sunday morning, that I have been able to develop. It is far enough out for people to leave me alone. I have great neighbors who all mind their own business but still watch out for each other. I work to pay for my habits which include the building of a cabin this summer on a piece of property that we have in the middle of no where. I do not know about anyone else but I always like my job. After 33 years I can not remember a day that I did not want to go to work. I might not liked what happened that day but I still liked the work. It is for that reason that I still like to work part-time as well as teach on the side. The nice thing about retirement is you can pick and choose what you want to do. Tomorrow I am helping out teaching a high school class for fun. To me that is retirement.

[bacpacker]

More good points folks. I gave this topic a lot of thought today. If things continue to go downhill economically as it has for at least the last 5 years, in reality for much longer than that. At least since the 1960's IMO. The value of the dollar continues to decline, and has rapidly sped up the last 5-10 years to the point you are money ahead buying things you want to store now rather than 5 years from now. You'll end up with a lot more for your money. Food is somewhat of an exception unless your getting long term storage with a 20-30 year shelf life.
We still need to save for the future without a doubt, but and this is strictly my thoughts, I want to have as many of my preps purchased well before I retire if I get that chance. There are certain things that will probably wait till close to time for retirement, such as a power generation system solar, hydro, maybe wind. I feel like the price for all these will come down over time like tv's, dvd's, and computers. But other things such as food, tools, various types of gear, even older vehicles that would make a good BOV. a BOV for example such as a non electronic truck or SUV are getting harder to find, as are parts to rebuild or repair them. If you wait another 10-30 years depending on your age, this type vehicle may not be available at all.
This topic is a very personal thing to each of us as all our circumstances are different and we are at various point's in our life so there will be a wide variety of thoughts on this I'm sure.

[realist]

One thing about gold and silver is it stays with you. NO I am not trying to get you to buy or sell gold or silver. This is just an observation. I recently had to draw a bunch of money out of my retirement in order to do some major repairs on my house. They kept 20 percent for Federal taxes. After calming down I realized they should have kept at least 40%. Then there is my lovely state, they will want about 10% so that leaves me with 50%. Now I am trying to earn some more money so I will have it in April when taxes are due. So after all these years I now have to look at half of my retirement going to the government for taxes. Now think about this I have a friend that just sold several of gold coins for his mom. The value on the coins were about $1,500. These had been in his family for about 20 years. When he sold them his mom got $1,500 with no taxes taken out. So whatever she had into them they obviously held their value and were not further devalued by having taxes taken out. I should have put all my retirement that was for the long term in gold and silver just to keep my head above water.

[GunnerMax]

Im going to stay in the military until they kick me out. If that is before 20 years, I will use my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering (when I get it, and will get it before I get out of the Military).
after retirement, i plan on being that old fart that did 20 years in the navy, and still use my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering.

[cwconnertx]

I put enough to get the full match in one company plan 5%, 17000 a year in the other, and they take (no option) 7% for the pension plan, which I get back if I leave before 10 years, otherwise I get a pension.

Planning for collapse is all fine, but it might not happen on the right timeline. I will have access to most of the money when I leave my job, and losing a job is a major concern. Only the 5% and 5% match are really retirement planning, the others I just consider savings since I can get it without penalty, only taxes. If I don't need the money, I guess it will be retirement.

[Katrina]

Well, Duh hubs is retired. So far we are doing ok. He had to retire or lose a ton of money if he waited till 62.
Everything we had done, planning wise, was predicated on him retiring at 62 and I'll retire at 65. I got about 7-8 years left to work. We are working to get the mortgage paid off before anything happens.

[izzyscout21]

At 27, I am already retired from the Army. I wish I had been able to put in my 20.

That said, I continue to work and will do so until I can kick the kids out of the house.

I firmly believe that od put me here to accomplish a set number of tasks. As of right now, I'm so far behind, I'll never die.

[mitunnelrat]

I have a general pension fund through work in which I'll be vested in 2.5 more years for a partial pension, and it has an attached annuity that I contribute 7% of my pay to pre-tax. I've learned it isn't wise to depend on employer based plans, especially since I'll need 12.5 more years to draw from them fully, and my job isn't all that secure in my eyes/ experience. So I also have a Roth IRA, and plan to collect more pm's as I go along.

That, in combination with my preps, should be enough to see me through quite a bit. When I'm ready to again, I'll talk to my securities advisor and find out exactly how much money I'll need to contribute to hit a minimum of 1.2 million by 65. It can be done, but the longer you wait the harder it is to do. Compound interest plays a role.

It sounds like a lot, but if you do the math you'll see that 1.2 million only gives you $40,000 a year for 30 years once you start drawing. I may or may not live to 95, but I'm not gonna want to go back to work once I retire, and inflation is going to make $40,000 seem pretty lean.

[Katrina]

cwconnertx, I'm not sure I understand the plan you were talking about. I'd check that out before you pull any money from the one you say has no taxes or penalties.. If it's 401k or something similar then you can take loans (no taxes,penalties) how ever if you don't pay back while working it's considered early distribution and you pay taxes AND penalty before age 59-1/2. IF you take $ and put it into IRA then no penalty but you only have 60 days from when check was cut (date on check)to roll it over for no taxes or penalty.Duh hubs had to take a distribution/loan a few years ago (flood in basement) but due to early retirement we had to pay taxes on what was left to pay back cause we couldn't pay it back when he retired.

[cwconnertx]

cwconnertx, I'm not sure I understand the plan you were talking about. I'd check that out before you pull any money from the one you say has no taxes or penalties.. If it's 401k or something similar then you can take loans (no taxes,penalties) how ever if you don't pay back while working it's considered early distribution and you pay taxes AND penalty before age 59-1/2. IF you take $ and put it into IRA then no penalty but you only have 60 days from when check was cut (date on check)to roll it over for no taxes or penalty.Duh hubs had to take a distribution/loan a few years ago (flood in basement) but due to early retirement we had to pay taxes on what was left to pay back cause we couldn't pay it back when he retired.

I am a CPA and well versed in retirement plans. A friend of mine is one of the top 10 experts in the world on these things and I've consulted him, my deferred comp plan is subject to taxes but not an early withdrawal penalty. While 401b and 401k plans and IRAs are all subject to the 10% penalty, there are other plans which are not.

For the record I did say it was not subject to penalty, I never said no taxes.

I really appreciate your concern, but in this (rare) case I actually know what I am talking about :)

It doesn't happen often... so I'll get back to my regularly scheduled BS.

[Sniper-T]

cwc how are you versed in Canadian Tax law??? I could ask a question or three....

Beyond my initial post, I already have my acreage, which I am paying off at an accelerated rate of my own devise, I am working to gain self sufficiency here. First with the garden, the will be raising some critters. I have a good stock of wildlife which for the most part is all edible and palatable. I just ordered my fish for this year, so will be able to see how much food I will get from them. My ultimate goal, as implied by my first post, is o retire early, work the land, and be as self sufficient as possible.

I have most of my toys/tools to do so, it is just a matter of having the time to get everything set up.

If ShTF sooner rather than later, then it just accelerates the process...

One duck, two duck, three duck, four! they're slowly but surely lining up. Granted winning the lottery would help accelerate the process, but I'll hold off on holding my breathe for that! lol!

[realist]

CW you are right there are different types of plans, I have one that when I retired allowed me to take money out right away. I pulled some out this year and even with no penalty I got hosed. After all the was taken out of our checks I still had to write a check for $8K.

[Sniper-T]

sounds like CW needs to start an "investment thread, to teach the ants the intricacies of investing; without the gov't raping us
...

jus' sayin'


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[bacpacker]

T i second that motion. Of course that would mean me coming up with some cash to invest.
:)

[Sniper-T]

BP.... I've always heard about the value of the first born... :eek:

lol

[bacpacker]

Me to but we never had kids. Oh well! I guess we'll just go ahead and spend the inheritance.

[Katrina]

CW
Sorry didn't mean to offend.

[Stormfeather]

I would like to hear more about investing as well!

[msomnipotent]

Well, our retirement plans were shot to hell a while back, so we are starting over. I'm looking at all options, not limited to moving to a cheaper country or not actually retiring. I plan on buying an annuity for some stability, and buying long-term car policies next enrollment period. That is what will really bite us in the ass in the future, providing that the world doesn't go to total hell. With my RA and both of our family health histories, I can guarantee at least one of us will wind up in a nursing home.

[cwconnertx]

CW
Sorry didn't mean to offend.

No offense taken. My point was more that many people believe that all plans will have a penalty, most people believe that and its detrimental to preparing for retirement in my opinion. Most people are woefully unprepared and part of it is lack of information (with the other part being lack of resources). I can only help with the first part.

I'd be happy to share what information I can, and if I don't know, I know who to ask.

[mitunnelrat]

I can try to help with that too, cw. I'm not into securities myself, but I have someone I know well and trust that I can ask different things if need be.

[20mm]

Been investing in cigarette stocks since the 80s. Mostly Altria (MO). If you are going to deal with the stock market, tobacco is the best!

[Dropy]

Invest is more addiction, death and medical issues that can be avoided by not using the product? No thanx.

[David Armstrong]

May be some moral issues, but investing in man's vices rarely goes wrong. Of course, anyone invested in most any of the mutual funds probably has money in all sorts of morally questionable products and areas.

[cwconnertx]

id invest in products people voluntarily consume, no moral problem there

using elected representatives to take my money and fund abortions, sounds like a real moral issue

invest however you choose, but if you pay taxes, you can't exactly have clean hands

[helomech]

Didn't mean to dislike this post. Not sure how that happened.

[cwconnertx]

Didn't mean to dislike this post. Not sure how that happened.

No problem, I will just have to try harder... I am sure I can say something you'll dislike eventually... back to the drawing board :)


The point of the post is just the its kinda hard to attach morality to investing in my opinion. Just invest to make money and then do go things with it.

[Domeguy]

This has me torn big time. I've been investing 10% into my 401k with a company matching 60 cents on every dollar up to 6%. But I'm worried of getting bit in the behind if they ever try to socialize 401k's. That part scares me the most about my retirement plans. I assume my pension won't be there by the time comes and on top of that, I highly doubt anyone around my age (30) will ever be able to retire at the rate this FED is going. But everytime I ask myself "why even save for retirement if you don't plan on being able to? I always say "its just like Christ- it would suck a whole lot worse if I was wrong:)

I don't know how this would work out for the rest of the world, but when I was building our dome 2006-2007, I took out 2 cash loans to myself and reinvested it back into the system by buying more supplies. At the time, all the investment guys would be on TV, calmly assuring us, the public and to just ride it out. I was checking my 401 every day. I was loosing not only my initial 20%, but also the portion my company matched, and a bite or two out of the original pot. I was loosing approx $100 per week. It turned out to be the best thing
I could have done with my money.

[MegaCPC]

I'm only 22, so I haven't really thought that far into the future. I do have a savings account and a small silver collection (brass and lead too!) that will hopefully grow over the next few years.

I've been following the stock market lately trying to learn the basic tendencies based on events, etc. Once I have a little more money stashed away, and providing the market doesn't fall on its face, I'd like to invest in some stocks to get my feet wet and see what I can do with it.

Right now my focus is on my preps though.