Community Chat

[Junebug54]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this or not but I would not ever give up your car.  We tried sharing a car for about a month.    If you can afford it, keep both!!  

[ALRATIBA]

I've been "on my own" since age 49 when DH died.  I moved back to NYC, rented apartment and got a job ... and retired at 68.  

My criteria for retirement was that my monthly income after retirement (from Social Security, 401k roll-over annuity, and company retirement) was about equal to my regular take-home pay, and that I had a very good cushion in my savings account.  

My standard of living is about the same now as when I was working.  I haven't had to cut back on anything.

[ID2]

We retired 3 years ago. What worked for us was to sell our home and downsize. With the profit from our sold home we were able to pay off all of our debts including the new home we were moving into. So we now live completely debt free and loving it. 

[Jasmine19]

Be careful with magazine subscriptions. Most of them auto renew now without really obtaining your permission. It's a very sneaky practice. The magazines will just keep coming - sometimes for months - unless you officially tell the publisher to stop. 

[Tinkrbl44]

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@AngelPuppy1 wrote:

I have pretty much reached my point!  DH and I have been discussing this for some time and I really feel I am about ready.  We have gotten our finances and budget pretty much where it will be.  We will need to be very frugal but without any really horrible occurrences, we should be able to make it.  

I would like to ask everyone what things did you do or are you doing when you reached this point regarding cutting expenses?

A few small things which I have already done are:  

I discontinued my Ipsy subsciption -- it was only $10 per month--- recently went up to $12.

Stopped buying clothes (this one is really hard) several months ago.  I have worked since I was 18 and am now over 66 so this has been a life-long thing for me. 

My Sirius radio subscription is due to run out in a couple months --- I will not renew.

I am discontinuing all my magazines with the exception of about 3.

I wanted to discontinue newspaper except for Sunday delivery for DH will not go for that!

These are basically small things I know, but I figure everly litle bit helps!  

What are some ways which you have cut expenses and economized in anticpation of or since retirement?

I already think I am pretty careful with money.  Much more so than DH.  We have talked and decided when this happens we are downsizing to one car, so this should help a lot with expenses.  Also, do the same with cell phones, even though we both have tracphones, which we seldom use any way.

Also --- another aspect --- how did the transition go with all of a sudden being at home all the time? DH has been retired for seveal years and he is used to having the house to himself and running the show --- so I think there are bound to be clashes!

I am a little apprehensive about this.  I am looking forward to not having to be on a time schedule every day --- but then, it will be such a big change after all these years of work, work, work!!

Thanks, everyone.  

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@AngelPuppy1

Your assessment makes me nervous.   

Prices will continue to go up and there WILL be unexpected occurrences you never saw coming.  Thinking "we should be able to make it" with one car and one phone, and hoping nothing bad will ever happen sounds (to me) like a recipe for disaster.  

People who go into retirement thinking they will just coast along are usually shocked .... and back working again.   Maybe you need to continue to work for another year or two so money isn't quite so tight.  Not even having your own car or cell phone is taking it too far .....  JMO

[SeaMaiden]

@AngelPuppy1  Again I ask..DO YOU HAVE A FINANCIAL PLANNER?  That is the first step. Not discontinuing a $10 subscription. 

[jlkz]

@AngelPuppy1

As for the 3 remaining subscriptions, why not get an elibrary card and read them for free on line ?

As for the increased time together, why not set up a schedule where you are out for the morning or afternoon twice a week and he the other two.  This way you both get alone time in the house and time to spend outside.

Don’t let minor irritations fester.  Stop them when they occur and brainstorm how to deal with an issue when it arises.  This will make retirement easier and more pleasant.

Much happiness and contentment at this milestone event !

[151949]

I retired in 2008 , my DH in 2010. We knew this was coming so we paid off all our debts - cars etc to retire debt free, and have remained so except DH leases a car, so we do have that monthly payment. We moved our savings out of DH's company's IRA and into the hands of a financial guy who came very highly recommended to us and does nothing but retirement accounts. We are very lucky to have found him and are pleased with our choice there. First winter we came to Florida in our camper to stay the winter and look for a house. Ended up finding the perfect place on the first day, but looked around for 2 months before commiting to build this place. Went back to Pa and sold our house there. Found a camp spot very close to Pittsburgh and leased a year round spot to store our camper in the winter and where we could live for 5 months in the summer so we could snowbird. We had planned for years to do this, so it was just a matter of executing it. We were fortunate to have family here in this town in Florida, that we had visited many times and really loved this area. So no looking all around to find the right town to move to was needed.We both knew we wanted to end up in Florida when we could no longer snowbird. Pa winters are much too hard on my very arthritic body.So that was all the preparation there was for us. DH's family gave us names of favorite doctors,dentists, grocery stores etc. and we were all set.

We did the snowbird thing between our home here and our camper in Pa for 8 years, but last summer DH said it was just getting too hard for him and he wanted to stay put so we sold the camper, & moved lock,stock & barrell to Fl.

We are very involved in our church here which keeps us busy and gives us a lot of social contact. We go to the YMCA to swim and I do water aerobics so we've made a couple friends there as well.

[Blingqueen023]

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@FrostyBabe1 wrote:

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@SeaMaiden wrote:

@AngelPuppy1  My husband and I are both 63.  My husband retired from his job of 35 years June 2017.  I retired in 2013 do to health related issues. 

We we went to a financial planner when my husband decided to accept from his a voluntary layoff with the company company with a bunch of bonuses$$$  and perks thrown in . It basically comes down to  voluntary retirement.

we have medical and dental for life... we have our 401K AND a pension plan....with payouts.

We also had saved about liquid $100,000 cash  have a  good amount ofstock in the company....and we payed off our home in 2016.  No credit card debt. No debt at all.

Even with all of this, we just live comfortably.....nothing fancy...pay all the bills BUT WE HAVE NO WORRIES about running out of money over the next 25 years.   That is the way I want retirement to be.

Our financial planner gave us the green light to go ahead.  If you think just cutting out a $10 subscription will help you..... or stopping Sirius radio will help you then you need to rethink retiring....  that is not a good plan.  

Did you talk to someone to layout the road ahead?  

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I have to say that I agree with this 1000%. Retirement is something that needs to be planned for years in advance in order to enjoy it and be financially sound. If you don't want that $10 subscription or Sirrius radio, then fine, drop it. If you're so strapped for funds that you NEED to do it, then you're not financially ready to retire because it's really not going to make a difference. 

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You answered her question the best here.  

[151949]

I will say this - we downsized to one car and while I admit we really don't NEED 2 cars - I am not happy with this decision. For one thing my DH insists on us having a large full size SUV. I hate driving it and hate hate hate parking it, and we really do not need what is essentially a fancy truck at all. The other thing is - for this to work he has to keep me informed when he needs the car so I don't make conflicting appointments. However, I just can not get him to keep me up with all his meetings and appt.It's just like pulling teeth, so, of course, we get into conflicts of appts, and every time, no matter what I am the one sitting on a bench somewhere in the boiling sun waiting for him to come pick me up. I just get irate! I do not recommend downsizing to one car.