How Closely Do You Monitor Your 401k / Retirement

[RamblingMad]

That's interesting. I am planning for retirement and our financial adviser's software says most retired folks drive less, so my current auto cost is predicted to drop. I know my mom's driving dropped by 2/3 when she retired.

Depends on your commute. I know a lot of folks that drive to more than one national park a year. There is a national park admission pass you can buy as a senior. And some would rather drive than fly.

What do you plan on doing when retired? How good is your health? It’s tough to find a one size fits all for retirement costs.

 

[tvguy]

Depends on your commute. I know a lot of folks that drive to more than one national park a year. There is a national park admission pass you can buy as a senior. And some would rather drive than fly.

What do you plan on doing when retired? How good is your health? It’s tough to find a one size fits all for retirement costs.

We plan to travel, not sure yet if by car or plane. I suspect anything more than 200-300 miles from home will be by plane. So far health is good, but that is a good point that was brought up by our financial adviser. His experience is there is a drop in miles driven when people retire, and a second drop in miles driven when they have been retired 10 years or more. Two people not driving to work will cut our miles a lot, and our insurance expenses will fall also because we plan to cut back from 4 to 3 cars.

 

[RamblingMad]

We plan to travel, not sure yet if by car or plane. I suspect anything more than 200-300 miles from home will be by plane. So far health is good, but that is a good point that was brought up by our financial adviser. His experience is there is a drop in miles driven when people retire, and a second drop in miles driven when they have been retired 10 years or more. Two people not driving to work will cut our miles a lot, and our insurance expenses will fall also because we plan to cut back from 4 to 3 cars.

I asked one of my retired friends about their driving habit. It boiled down to them wanting to save money. They didn’t want to pay for a plane ticket and a rental car.

 

[Searc]

Well other than work, just about everything is within about 2 miles.

FOR YOU!! FOR YOU!! Geez louise.

There are millions of people in this country who do NOT have everything they need within a 2 mile radius. A 2 mile radius from my house puts me in the middle of a cornfield, no matter which direction I go. Same for 5 miles. Same for 8 miles.

I can't even anymore with people who can't get out of their little bubbles.

 

[mrodgers]

FOR YOU!! FOR YOU!! Geez louise.

There are millions of people in this country who do NOT have everything they need within a 2 mile radius. A 2 mile radius from my house puts me in the middle of a cornfield, no matter which direction I go. Same for 5 miles. Same for 8 miles.

I can't even anymore with people who can't get out of their little bubbles.

When we watched "Just Bought a Zoo" with Matt Damon, the funniest part of the movie to us was when he got back from the store, held up the bag, and complained, "9 miles! 9 miles for butter!" We looked at each other and said 9 miles doesn't even get us 1/3 of the way to get butter.

When people asked where we lived, we just responded with 30 miles from Walmart. We were smack in the middle of Walmart 30 miles away to the north, south, east, and west.

 

[kiddo76]

I do get a premium discount. My wife's car has 141,000 miles on it and is 20 years old so falls below the 7,500 mile per year bracket. My car had 29,000 miles on it when I bought it, it has 105,000 on it now and I have had it 12 years so at 6,250 a year so that also falls into the the 5,000 to 7,500 bracket. And our "weekend car" we have had 1 1/2 years, it has 9,200 miles on it so at 6200 miles a year it falls into the 5,000 to 7,500 mile bracket, but that cars premiums just went up because the car it replaced was driven about 3,500 miles a year, so it got bumped up from the 3,000 to 5,000 mile bracket. And my 65 is insured for 500 miles per yet.

Most 2 person households don't have 4 cars. Between the 2 of you, it appears you average about 10,000 miles per driver a year

 

[NYCgrrl]

Most 2 person households don't have 4 cars. Between the 2 of you, it appears you average about 10,000 miles per driver a year

I guess it depends on where you live but my older sister and BIL live in a 'burb of NYC and need a car just to food shop ("Poor them" said the hardcore citay grrl). They went from 3 to 2 when their son moved away and passed on the insurance costs to him since he could afford to pay it.
One of their retirement homes is in FL so the current plan is to send one car down South and leave the other at their Northern home. Won't happen until BIL decides if he'll turn his firm over to youngest son who currently is living in LA and loving it.

The only place I see lots of "lil ol' ladies and men" driving is FL- and I'd rather not. Still trying to get over the trauma of being driven by the man's father and seeing my life flash before me. Eek.

 

[disneychrista]

Sure, if everything you would ever need is within a 5 mile radius.

It is! One of the benefits of living in a small town. Commute to work is 2 miles. Furtherest grocery store is 4 miles.

 

[Moliphino]

It is! One of the benefits of living in a small town. Commute to work is 2 miles. Furtherest grocery store is 4 miles.

My town is small in population, but not in area. In two miles I can just get to a local fruit farm/country store. In the other direction it doesn't even get me out of the woods.

 

[DLgal]

Sure, if everything you would ever need is within a 5 mile radius.

That's pretty much our situation. It's nice to live in a highly developed city. I can literally get anything I need in less than a 5 mile drive. I only drive further when I go to Disneyland or the beach, which are both less than 15 miles away.

 

[DLgal]

FOR YOU!! FOR YOU!! Geez louise.

There are millions of people in this country who do NOT have everything they need within a 2 mile radius. A 2 mile radius from my house puts me in the middle of a cornfield, no matter which direction I go. Same for 5 miles. Same for 8 miles.

I can't even anymore with people who can't get out of their little bubbles.

Well, the reality is that the majority of Americans (by population) live in the population centers on either coast. And in those metro areas, yes, everything IS close by. So, most Americans probably DO have everything they need within 5 miles.

 

[RamblingMad]

Well, the reality is that the majority of Americans (by population) live in the population centers on either coast. And in those metro areas, yes, everything IS close by. So, most Americans probably DO have everything they need within 5 miles.

And you want medical care close too as you get older.

 

[tvguy]

FOR YOU!! FOR YOU!! Geez louise.

There are millions of people in this country who do NOT have everything they need within a 2 mile radius. A 2 mile radius from my house puts me in the middle of a cornfield, no matter which direction I go. Same for 5 miles. Same for 8 miles.

I can't even anymore with people who can't get out of their little bubbles.

Not sure how anyone on these boards can post anything but what is happening in "their little bubbles". Or as I prefer to describe it, from our life experiences. The flip side, while I am a lower end of the driving range, there are people who drive a whole lot less. Or like three of my co-workers, they refuse to buy a car. They only ride share.

 

[tvguy]

Most 2 person households don't have 4 cars. Between the 2 of you, it appears you average about 10,000 miles per driver a year

Well, I am in California. Guy two doors down doesn't drive and he has 3 cars!

 

[DLgal]

And you want medical care close too as you get older.

Yep. My parents have a huge hospital and related medical office complex right at the entrance to their 55+ community. It's handy.

 

[focusondisney]

I’m estimating to have north of $5 million,

You expect to have more than $5 million saved for retirement and you’re worried about buying a car or home repairs? The vast majority of Americans will have nowhere near that amount. I don’t think most of us can relate or sympathize with someone with that kind of money worrying about buying a car.

I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to your worries. Just average people would think that kind of money is the answer to their concerns & would make their retirement stress free. Different perspectives.

 

[tzolkin]

Well other than work, just about everything is within about 2 miles.

Were we currently live, the nearest city is about 25 miles (24mi from our house to work). So that's 50mi round trip basically every time we leave the house. It's mostly highway so its under 30 min drive.

When we lived in rural NY it was about an hour (40mi) to go anywhere. So to us this is way closer.

 

[tex1989]

How often you look is not nearly as important as how often do you act. You have to develop your own style that you are comfortable with. The advice they give is starting out when you are young and till your first life changes (getting married, having kids etc) put it in an index fund up to your companies match level and forget about it. Then even if life needs more money and you may contribute less always try to hit the match level as it may increase with years service and continue in the index fund. It has been many years since I took the class but as of around 2005 the average annual return for the stock market since inception over a 100 years ago was 13%. Even with the stock crashes etc over the years the returns have been very good. Don't try to out guess the market even a lot of pros get it wrong. As you get closer to retirement follow the advice of professionals and reallocate you money to ensure certain wealth preservation. More bonds, government paper and less equities. They give the % splits you should follow. I would encourage younger folks to hit up Roths.

 

[tex1989]

One more note that many are not aware of because it got no press as it passed through congress. When a person with deferred savings (401k and all the other similar vehicles) that has saved pretax dollars passes away with funds remaining there is usually a pay on death benificiary. Prior to 1/1/2020 the law said that you would take age 86 (some version of life expectancy) minus the age of the benificiary and then divide the deferred funds by that number and the results was the dollar value that had to be withdrawn that year. It was meant to prevent untaxed savings to merely pass from generation to generation. So if a couple has $1 million in savings and tragically passes with one 30 year old child then the child would have to withdraw 1/56 (86-30) of the funds in the first year or $17,857. Each year the calculation would change based on him being a year older. No problem.

Well the new law that went into effect 1/1/2020 says that if the same situation occurs as described above that the benificiary now has 10 years to withdraw all the money. So their taxable income on receiving the retirement dollars goes from $17,857 a year to $100,000 a year. And the government gets a much larger chunk of the money via taxes. This was not a partisan political move either as it came out of the house to the senate with only something like 6 dissenting votes. All the folks in Washington agreed they wanted a much larger slice of the pie. Oh and if you say what the heck I won't take it out, remember this. The penalty for failing to take a RMD (required minimum distribution) is 50% of the amount you were supposed to take.

 

[RamblingMad]

One more note that many are not aware of because it got no press as it passed through congress. When a person with deferred savings (401k and all the other similar vehicles) that has saved pretax dollars passes away with funds remaining there is usually a pay on death benificiary. Prior to 1/1/2020 the law said that you would take age 86 (some version of life expectancy) minus the age of the benificiary and then divide the deferred funds by that number and the results was the dollar value that had to be withdrawn that year. It was meant to prevent untaxed savings to merely pass from generation to generation. So if a couple has $1 million in savings and tragically passes with one 30 year old child then the child would have to withdraw 1/56 (86-30) of the funds in the first year or $17,857. Each year the calculation would change based on him being a year older. No problem.

Well the new law that went into effect 1/1/2020 says that if the same situation occurs as described above that the benificiary now has 10 years to withdraw all the money. So their taxable income on receiving the retirement dollars goes from $17,857 a year to $100,000 a year. And the government gets a much larger chunk of the money via taxes. This was not a partisan political move either as it came out of the house to the senate with only something like 6 dissenting votes. All the folks in Washington agreed they wanted a much larger slice of the pie. Oh and if you say what the heck I won't take it out, remember this. The penalty for failing to take a RMD (required minimum distribution) is 50% of the amount you were supposed to take.

This is why my retirement is split between a taxed investment account and 401k/IRA. I can benefit from dividends out of my taxed today if I need to without taking a 401k loan.