• Hi, I am the owner and main administrator of Styleforum. If you find the forum useful and fun, please help support it by buying through the posted links on the forum. Our main, very popular sales thread, where the latest and best sales are listed, are posted HERE

    Purchases made through some of our links earns a commission for the forum and allows us to do the work of maintaining and improving it. Finally, thanks for being a part of this community. We realize that there are many choices today on the internet, and we have all of you to thank for making Styleforum the foremost destination for discussions of menswear.
  • This site contains affiliate links for which Styleforum may be compensated.
  • We would like to welcome House of Huntington as an official Affiliate Vendor. Shop past season Drake's, Nigel Cabourn, Private White V.C. and other menswear luxury brands at exceptional prices below retail. Please visit the Houise of Huntington thread and welcome them to the forum.

  • STYLE. COMMUNITY. GREAT CLOTHING.

    Bored of counting likes on social networks? At Styleforum, you’ll find rousing discussions that go beyond strings of emojis.

    Click Here to join Styleforum's thousands of style enthusiasts today!

    Styleforum is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

Talking stocks, trading, and investing in general

patrickBOOTH

Stylish Dinosaur
Dubiously Honored
Joined
Oct 16, 2006
Messages
38,393
Reaction score
13,643
Why do you want to be able to live on the returns and not draw down principal? You planning on leaving a nest egg to your Chinese food delivery guy or something?

Security I guess?

Isn't the goal to live just off returns and reinvest an inflation factor?

Is anyone else considering "geo-arbitrage," i.e. moving to a cheap location, as part of their plan? I'm not sure I'm going to be able to talk Mrs. Piob into it but I'd sure like to move to Spain for at least a decade.

No.
 

Piobaire

Not left of center?
Joined
Dec 5, 2006
Messages
81,723
Reaction score
63,071
@Piobaire - I'm having trouble understanding how the Piob needs to move to Spain to retire. There seems to be a disconnect between the brags/humblebrags and what appears to be the projected outcome [not trying to be judgmental]. I understand you are looking for margin of safety, but based on the admittedly limited view we have into your finances (hundreds or possibly thousands of posts), it seems like you should be all set. I would think without kids to worry about, and given your wife's pension, y'all's 403(b) accounts, the residue of your recent deferred comp payment and whatever after-tax savings you have from being "the boss" for the last few decades would already have set you up to retire (even though as you mentioned before you got a bit later start in life).

Is there something we're missing? Do you have another family you are supporting? Are you paying nieces' and nephew's college tuition or something? Given how angsty you seem to be, I figure there must be a reason but it doesn't add up based on what you've shared.

I'm pathologically afraid of ending up elderly and poor (again.) I've seen way too many people in their 80s with 100+k a year senior living bills and they blew their corpus traveling in their earlier retirement. There's a couple from one of our wine tasting circles, early 80s, she's in the start of late stage dementia. He's shared with me they blew all their money traveling and he can't afford to put her in a memory care, in fact, he says his house is mortgaged to the hilt. Extreme case but makes ya think...

Then there's healthcare and I plan off current conditions. Medicare has some pretty steep co-pays for hospitalizations and limits in terms of rehab care, home care, etc. As we all live longer the odds of expensive healthcare needs late in life rise.

All that said I also have no plans to live like a pauper and intend to enjoy my retirement. I want to be able to do that with as little angst about spending too much as possible.

ETA: Forget to connect the dots. A move to Spain provides a new local place to explore and serves as a low cost center to explore Europe in general. I figure being based in Spain would decrease the cost to extensively travel Europe in comfort by 50% or more while continuously getting to experience a new culture. Also, as someone mentioned, wine and food galore. One of the places I'm focused on is Logrono in la Rioja which checks a lot of boxes.
 
Last edited:

jbarwick

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Messages
8,695
Reaction score
9,634
My FILs mother was in a nice nursing home paid for by Medicaid because she was considered poor. My inlaws paid like $100 a month to have her room upgraded. Some of these elderly people need to consider a Medical Divorce where if they don't want to spend all their assets on healthcare, the sick one needs to transfer assets to the healthy one and the sick one goes on Medicaid or something similar.

The elderly ***** about taxes but will stick to their religion. Just because you are divorced according to the state doesn't mean you are divorced in your religions eyes. Come on now.
 

otc

Stylish Dinosaur
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
24,451
Reaction score
19,024
I kept telling my GF she should stay on Medicaid rather than go on my insurance. Medicaid is free... My plan costs money and is a high deductible plan which isn't really ideal for her current level of healthcare usage.

But Medicaid kind of sucks. If you can afford an alternative, you probably want to pay up. So in 2020 we will see what my insurance is like.

Unfortunately the plan deductible and out of pocket max double when you another person. Since I hope to continue not using much healthcare, she is really just facing a super high deductible. Hard to convince her to see the math... Even if she pays thousands out of pocket for care, she will still come out ahead of the plan the school was offering her (~4500 premiums, plus copays, plus a requirement that you route everything through the student clinic which we live nowhere near).
 

Omega Male

Stylish Dinosaur
Supporting Member
Joined
May 30, 2013
Messages
16,763
Reaction score
38,315
This is why people feel so squeezed in general even under the current favorable economic conditions. Although overall inflation has risen only modestly in the last two decades -- and generally in line with average earnings -- there have been huge jumps in the cost of the things that families can't really afford to do without, namely health care and education. Also, these are typically among the largest and lumpiest expenditures in a household budget, so there is a multiplier effect (Say my TV has doubled in size and halved in price, saving me $2,500. Yay. But also say my kids' college tuition has doubled in price and they now have to go to grad school too to get a foot on the ladder, costing me another $250,000. D'oh.)

price-changes-in-usa-in-past-20-years-947e.jpg
 

jbarwick

Distinguished Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Messages
8,695
Reaction score
9,634
What's the difference between hospital services and medical care services? Also where do prescription drugs fall?

I've learned from personal experience, Americans love to take every last breath no matter the cost or quality of that breath.
 

brokencycle

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Nov 21, 2008
Messages
28,287
Reaction score
29,993
Do trusts at all help in some of these situations? When my mom had her stroke, I tried setting up a special needs trust to shield her retirement savings, but a judge denied it because I was the trustee (I had power of attorney), and I could have kept control of her money if I wanted. That would have allowed her to keep her savings while still getting on Medicaid.

As for high deductible plans at work, ours definitely subsidizes families with lots of kids. There are four rates: employee only, employee + spouse, employ + children, and family. The premium and deductible is the same regardless of people covered. The family rate is marginally more than employee + spouse, and employee + children is less than employee + spouse. So a single parent could cover 5 kids for less than me to add my wife and have the same deductible level.
 

NorthCoast

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2015
Messages
708
Reaction score
146
Do trusts at all help in some of these situations? When my mom had her stroke, I tried setting up a special needs trust to shield her retirement savings, but a judge denied it because I was the trustee (I had power of attorney), and I could have kept control of her money if I wanted. That would have allowed her to keep her savings while still getting on Medicaid.

As for high deductible plans at work, ours definitely subsidizes families with lots of kids. There are four rates: employee only, employee + spouse, employ + children, and family. The premium and deductible is the same regardless of people covered. The family rate is marginally more than employee + spouse, and employee + children is less than employee + spouse. So a single parent could cover 5 kids for less than me to add my wife and have the same deductible level.

Exactly what drives me nuts about our coverage at work. I'd like to pay my premium based on my family size of 3.

Thing is, it's 'un-Merican' to dis-inencentivize having as many kids as you want.

It's also 'un-Merican' to have the state pay for them. (conceptually)

In 'Merica we get to have it both ways! (cognitive dissonance be damned!)
 

Coffandcig

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2011
Messages
716
Reaction score
1,788
Do trusts at all help in some of these situations? When my mom had her stroke, I tried setting up a special needs trust to shield her retirement savings, but a judge denied it because I was the trustee (I had power of attorney), and I could have kept control of her money if I wanted. That would have allowed her to keep her savings while still getting on Medicaid.

As for high deductible plans at work, ours definitely subsidizes families with lots of kids. There are four rates: employee only, employee + spouse, employ + children, and family. The premium and deductible is the same regardless of people covered. The family rate is marginally more than employee + spouse, and employee + children is less than employee + spouse. So a single parent could cover 5 kids for less than me to add my wife and have the same deductible level.
There's a 5 year clawback period when a trust is setup that must be eclipsed to shield assets from Medicaid spend down provisions. A proper estate planning attorney will know how to navigate that scenario.
 

Featured Sponsor

How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 35.5%
  • Half canvas is fine

    Votes: 60 38.7%
  • Really don't care

    Votes: 17 11.0%
  • Depends on fabric

    Votes: 27 17.4%
  • Depends on price

    Votes: 28 18.1%

Forum statistics

Threads
505,195
Messages
10,579,243
Members
223,906
Latest member
alphadriveusa
Top