# On the money front



## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

In my frugal opinion or cheap way of thinking I`m glad I stuck to my father`s way of dealing with money; pay interest to yourself and forget credit , buy only was needed, learn to depend on your knowledge for as much as possible , save for those rainy days and look for bargains in everything.
This is another lesson in life that we are always hearing about more often now than ever and that many play deaf to it.
http://money.msn.com/retirement/at-77-former-vp-prepares-burgers


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

It's hard enough to pay cash for everything and not overspend for things like vehicles. It's even harder to save enough money for retirement. The stock market is a disaster waiting to happen. So are government bonds. 

Pensions are a thing of the past in the private sector. I believe my late father-in-law got a $300 a week pension starting in 1985 when he retired. Imagine retiring and getting $15,000 PLUS social security!


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

My mom gets a whopping $75 a month from Social Secuirty.. And yes she paid in every year... My dad, gets surprisingly higher - $250/mo - they both are one retirement plans from teaching... I "think" combined it's like $5-6k a month... If one dies, then it would be cut in half... Luckily, these are 70 year olds who still have combined six digit income generating every year from investments, a business still operated, and multiple rentals and land contracts... Zero debt, too... If my parents hadn't been wise with their investments, learned how to make money with their money, if one of them passed, it would be a financial strain if all they had was pension and SS. 

Now, let me ask if this is fair, my parents who contributed every year of their 30+ years in the workforce paid into the SS system, now at retirement they are getting a joke of retirement simply because of their wealth/income level - why shouldn't they get the max amount according to their overall contributions? Because the system can't afford to do it, it's broken. 

My wife maxes out her SS contribution by September every year. Do you think at 45, she will ever see a dime of that money, when it is time to retire? I also max it out around same timeframe - and I already know that I am at max benefit if I ever go out on disability because of how much I have paid into the system over the years... Will I ever see any of it? Hell, no.

Basically, it is all broken... That is part of the reason why there is so much effort for "wealth redistribution" IMO... Coupled with the fact that a large percentage simply would rather ride the government gravy train than work for a living (again IMO) 

I had a buddy who was a EVP at one of the top money firms back in 2001. He showed me an internal report stating, by 2008 they wanted all clients to have a net worth over $1M and to slowly drop everyone that couldn't be that high by that date - simply because it said with the baby boomers retiring the markets could not withstand the drain as the withdrawals started increasing every year. Why do you thin that article states recommended 4% every year? Imagine if they all started cashing 10% a year. More retirement folks than working folks - aka more sellers than buyers...


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

I agree invision. My ex husbands parents saved their whole lives, paid taxes on time, did everything they were asked to do. Come retirement time they had too much money to get ANYTHING not even old age health care. 
Their home was in need of work and they were getting beyond using some of the very old appliances they had. We told them to spend some of their savings, get the house fixed, make everything easier so they could keep their independence longer. 

They got things fixed up and spent enough of their savings to recieve $1.00 a fortnight pension. This meant they had access to old age health care. Mind you they never used it as they had private health insurance their whole life, it was just the principal of the thing.
These were not wealthy people, Marcus was a meat inspector and his wife a stay at home mum, single income their whole life. They had been left a little bit of cash by their parents but had managed to grow that to just over one million aussie dollars by retirement age.
When they passed away, after care etc they had just their home left, which was given to my exs' sister as she needed it more than anyone else.


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## Tweto (Nov 26, 2011)

Demographics has always been my guide to good investing. Get ahead of the baby boomers and watch the money grow. The baby boomers have turned the corner from saving and investing money to spending their money over the past few years. The bad news is that the future is the great baby boomer retirements and the need for the boomers to spend their money. This will kill the investments for the next 10-15 years.

I was raised by my Grandparents, both were raised during the great depression, so my attitudes about money have always been to only buy what you can pay cash for. The only caveat to my "pay only cash" is when the interest to make the purchase was so low that it would cost me money to use my own. In all cases where I did use other peoples money, I always had the cash to pay it off sitting in CD's. 

Besides being out of debt, it's very important to learn how to do has many home, auto, misc. repairs as possible around the house. To keep retirement costs down, doing your own car repair, home repair, etc. is a must know.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

Invision, I thought teachers paid into a different retirement system than social security? 

The system is set up to reward irresponsible behavior & punish responsible. They don't want us to be independent, they want to control the money to control us & get their cut of it. 

Many people have their retirement money set up where they live off of the interest only, not getting into the principle amounts. Hopefully there's enough of them to stabilize things.

We took nearlyeverything out of the stockmarket in 2008 & put it in RE. Not real sure what else to do with it. :dunno:


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## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

Bargain hunting is my sporting event.

I don't pay cash for things because I keep very little cash in my wallet. After getting robbed too many times in my college/young adult days, I learned that once cash is stolen, it's gone forever. So I use a credit card - but that credit card is always paid off each billing period. We NEVER carry a balance. The credit card company undoubtedly doesn't like us because they never make money off of us, plus we earn the cashback bonuses attached to the card. 

The downside to paying with credit card is in leaving a record of purchases. I do think a person needs to be mindful of that. But in my life, I've never (to my knowledge) had someone track me down via my purchase record. On the other hand, I _have _had someone put a gun to my face and demand my money, so that is far more real to me.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

Wellrounded said:


> I agree invision. My ex husbands parents saved their whole lives, paid taxes on time, did everything they were asked to do. Come retirement time they had too much money to get ANYTHING not even old age health care.
> Their home was in need of work and they were getting beyond using some of the very old appliances they had. We told them to spend some of their savings, get the house fixed, make everything easier so they could keep their independence longer.
> 
> They got things fixed up and spent enough of their savings to recieve $1.00 a fortnight pension. This meant they had access to old age health care. Mind you they never used it as they had private health insurance their whole life, it was just the principal of the thing.
> ...


My dad retired over a year ago and my mom just retired this past June. They are doing everything they can to fix up the house and make it more comfortable for themselves as they age. Since they are both in their mid 60s they are in fairly good health and very active.

Their house is not paid off yet but if one of them dies the life insurance alone would pay off the mortgage and cover the taxes for the next 20 years. They set this up when they went to Israel about 10 years ago. They wanted to make sure if anything happened to them (both or one) I could keep the house and have my a** covered while sorting their affairs.

They still have plans to remodel the house but that is down the road a bit. Mostly my dad wanted the mason work done now so the yard and grounds would be easy to care for. Being in Southern California and 3 miles from the beach he wanted to have a nice lawn(native desert grasses) but not the large 'field' of green he use to have to mow every week.

When any work is done they are paying cash and using tax returns and dividends from investments.


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## invision (Aug 14, 2012)

tsrwivey said:


> Invision, I thought teachers paid into a different retirement system than social security?
> 
> The system is set up to reward irresponsible behavior & punish responsible. They don't want us to be independent, they want to control the money to control us & get their cut of it.
> 
> ...


Your right they do, but my parents also owned their own businesses which generated (some years ) more than their combined salaries of teaching, so my dad always paid into SS for them both through the businesses...

I need to add, he was audited every other year by the IRS for many years because of high gasoline usage - his business not only had trucks, but it used it in manufacturing of the items sold... The double deduction - mileage and actual purchase triggered it was the "explanation". That is until they sat down with the head of the area, who was a neighbor and explained it in English to him...


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