Where do you draw the line between living now and saving for a future that may never happen?

I'll have to check into a financial adviser. We went to one a few years ago and things seemed to be going good until he said that he wished the government would just forgive student loans. I was like :eek:.
 
I have to say I've adjusted how I think about spending money now that I am retired. You may think living on a fixed income would reduce my spending, and that I might have to penny pinch to go on vacation, but this actually isn't true for me. I did some savings, more after the kids were grown, but not a whole lot. I have a pension, which I have because I went back to school, got a degree and got a good job. Not a great, high paying job, just good enough to provide me with a modest pension. I have always been challenged by figuring things down to the last penny, and not spending, because I tend to feel certain things are not worth the cost. So I've decided to change how I look at value. I look at what overall pleasure I'll derive from the trip or the activity, not whether I think it's a good value. So I tend to do more and spend more money for the pure pleasure of the activity or vacation and not whether I think it's a good value. It's definitely enhanced my life and my vacations. Value is definitely different for everyone, so the most important thing is whether you feel it is a good value, and decide how you want to spend your money. If you achieve satisfaction, with no regrets...it was a good decision.
 
There is no way to know. You just have to make a decision and hope it is the right one for you.
My MIL died unexpectedly (heart attack in her sleep) at age 64 before she retired. She spent her life partying and being social, always her treat. Her IRA had $120,000 in it when she died. No way she could have lived on that, she spent the money as she earned it, and in the end, that was the wise thing to do.
My mom died at age 90 after 28 years of retirement. She pinched every penny always found the bargain vacations packages like off season cruises averaging about $300 for a 7 day. Or 14 days touring Europe (with 1 meal a day included) for $3,500. Her IRA had $60,000 left in it after 28 years of withdrawals. Could she have splurged on some of the trips? Gotten an outside cabin on the cruise instead of an inside? Yes. But, she found a way to do all the things she wanted to do and still have money left.
 
I'm a big believer in living for today. My husband and I have good jobs that give us plenty of vacation time that we work hard to use. We do save for the future, but we have no interest in pinching pennies at the risk of tomorrow. My husband also loves his job and will likely work well past traditional "retirement" age, although I'm sure he'll work less.
 


I'm a big believer in living for today. My husband and I have good jobs that give us plenty of vacation time that we work hard to use. We do save for the future, but we have no interest in pinching pennies at the risk of tomorrow. My husband also loves his job and will likely work well past traditional "retirement" age, although I'm sure he'll work less.

You bring up something our financial adviser talked to us about.
When do you want to retire, and do both spouses want to retire at the same time?
Our financial plan is set up so we both can retire in 3 years at age 62 1/2.
My wife would have retired decades ago if we could have afforded it. Her main reason, no woman in her family has ever lived past age 64.
I'm not so sure I will be ready to retire, and my financial adviser sensed that.
I may "retire" from my current job, but continue to work, maybe part time, in something fun.
My wife, despite her desire to retire has come around to that view point too. She worked in a movie theater in high school and college, and is now saying maybe she'll try and work a few hours a week in a movie theater.
Let's face it, work can be a whole lot more fun when you don't need the job.
 
There's really no way to tell. Everyone will have their own comfort level of spend vs. save. My father died at 59 years of age. Type A. Workaholic. Saved his money, looking forward to retirement, which he never had. Left my SAHM mother well fixed. My DH died at 61. Complete opposite of my dad. But, partly because of my dad's example, we decided to travel while we were young. Looking back at it now, I'm so glad I have those memories to cherish.
 
You bring up something our financial adviser talked to us about.
When do you want to retire, and do both spouses want to retire at the same time?
Our financial plan is set up so we both can retire in 3 years at age 62 1/2.
My wife would have retired decades ago if we could have afforded it. Her main reason, no woman in her family has ever lived past age 64.
I'm not so sure I will be ready to retire, and my financial adviser sensed that.
I may "retire" from my current job, but continue to work, maybe part time, in something fun.
My wife, despite her desire to retire has come around to that view point too. She worked in a movie theater in high school and college, and is now saying maybe she'll try and work a few hours a week in a movie theater.
Let's face it, work can be a whole lot more fun when you don't need the job.


Both of my parents have worked part time in retirement, and even now in their late 70's barter for free golf twice a week (they come early & get all the carts out of the charging shed).


Both are people who need "something to do" even though they have a very active social/golf life. Dad cuts grass for several neighbors when snowbirding, and for me when he's home. Mom's crafty, so she has sewing projects & such. Their snowbird church is also active building ramps & such for disabled folks in the area, so they do that as well.
 


My parents were terrible with money and despite my best efforts to get them to stop kept spending like there was no tomorrow. Now they and we are paying for it. They have to live in a pretty crappy apartment (they had to abandon their home because they couldn't sell it before it would have been foreclosed on) and my father has to work some even though it's physically harming him to work. My mom has major medical problems which are very expensive to treat even with Medicaid. We give them money every month and could give them more but the amount we can barely afford to give them won't make up the shortfall when my dad stops working.

After seeing what a trainwreck my parents have made of their finances I've become not totally frugal but very aware of our financial situation. We have a financial advisor who has done much more than just manage our investments. When we sold our previous home and bought our current one he secured for us much better financing than we could secure on our own despite our excellent credit. He's also managed our money in concert with our accountant to minimize our tax burden each year, helped us figure out exactly how much we needed to save for college for the kids and provided my sister with free financial advice as a favor to us. When we have a disagreement regarding some major financial issue he serves as an impartial mediator. That's help strip a lot of tension out of our marriage.
 
My personal case: travel was always our number one priority -- even more than upgrading rooms in the house or adding an addition, etc. We both make a decent middle class living and have been traveling since the day we met -- 42+ years. We have done all 50 states and many provinces in Canada, a dozen Caribbean ports and many Med and European ports all with our daughter. As we have aged, and health issues started to surface in our early 60's, we came to the realization that our bucket list would have to be drastically reduced -- crossing off trips like Australia and New Zealand simply as too expensive in retirement and too long to travel. We have never regretted the money we spent on travel and the experiences we got out of it -- while we have been criticized and condemned by many family members for not putting more money into our house.

Well, lo and behold, my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease last month. A shock to the system for sure -- but also the reality that that long term travel in our retirement years won't be as long as we thought.

As of today, if we could never travel again, we feel very fulfilled by what we have done and have zero regrets! We know we have a few more years to get more sites in, but glad we did what we did over the past 40 years.

All I can say if you want to see it, do it! But I would recommend doing Wyoming, Montana and Utah on your own -- we rented an RV two summers in a row for 30 days each and that is how we finished the 48 states. Wyoming was our absolute favorite one. You could do a family road trip for way less than ABD.
 
I lived in a small town and worked for years for a small company that didn't have pension plans and couldn't pay high wages. All my/our income went to the basics of life, raising our daughters, getting them through with a good education, food, shelter and transportation. I was in my 50's before I was ever able to put money away for retirement. A good portion of it was an inheritance when my Mother passed away. Without that, I doubt I could have retired when I did. However, I did a lot of traveling including 44 trips to WDW, two trips to Europe (50 years apart), 38 of the 50 states, quick stops in Guam, a visit to Japan (Tokyo and Osaka) and my all time favorite year long tropical vacation in Vietnam. All the provinces of Canada from Ontario to the east coast, and The Bahamas. In Europe I have been to London, Lisbon, Rome (2), Barcelona (2), Madrid, Pompeii, Paris (2) and a number of small tourist towns in the Mediterranean. Pisa, Tuscany, Florence and Venice (2) and probably some others that I have forgotten. With the exception of the last trip to Europe, most all of the big stuff happened when in college and the service. Still managed to see a lot. Now, I have gotten older (70 in just 9 months and if you count from the point of conception, I'm 70 already.) my desire to travel has quickly diminished. The only thing that I would like to do is to take a cruise through the Panama Canal. Otherwise, what I can't get to with an easy road trip, I'm no longer interested in doing.

I do wish I had put more effort into putting money away. I now work part time to try and keep my balance up for as long as I am healthy enough to keep it supplemented, but, I think that I am going to stop that on or around my 70 birthday and just take a break from working for the last 54 years. I'm not working hard, but, just having to get ready to go to work is causing massive flashbacks to those work or starve years.
 
(I haven't read all pages of this thread. ) Rather than using ABD for your trip to Wyoming, why not just skip the ABD, and go to Wyoming on your own. Seems like that might cut out a huge chunk of money that you'd be spending.
 
A very similar thing happened to me recently with my father dying at age 62 from pancreatic cancer. He was very frugal & saved all his life for a future that he’ll never have. My sister & I inherited his money but could careless as we would rather have him. So, now I’m in the camp of living life while you can. I don’t live irresponsibly, but I do try to live life to the fullest. But I agree going Wyoming should cost $12000!
 
I'm a big believer in living for today. My husband and I have good jobs that give us plenty of vacation time that we work hard to use. We do save for the future, but we have no interest in pinching pennies at the risk of tomorrow. My husband also loves his job and will likely work well past traditional "retirement" age, although I'm sure he'll work less.

I could say this exact same thing! :)

My MIL taught me to live more for today than for tomorrow. Yes, we have a retirement plan and actively add to it yearly but we want to do our traveling NOW, while we can, rather than putting it off for "someday" as that "someday" may never come. She passed away when she was 62 years old, after a long and courageous battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). So many trips she never got to take, so many things she never got the chance to do/enjoy.

My husband is a farmer and has always said they will "probably haul my dead butt off the tractor." He has no plans to ever fully retire, from farming or his second job as a crop insurance adjuster. He has co-workers in their 80's still doing crop adjusting. I'm sure he will slow down, and eventually he and his brother-in-law will give up their rented land and just farm what they own, and he will slow down on the number of insurance claims he does every year too. But for him to fully retire I just don't see that happening. His own Dad is 80 and still helps out on the farm during planting/harvesting.

As for the travel now or save for the future, we do both as best we can. I really don't care if we would have to pinch pennies when we're old and our health doesn't allow for travel anymore. I would be happy to sit on my front porch rocker and look through my photo albums of all our wonderful past trips/vacations, rather than sit in my rocker and say "gee, I wish we would have traveled when we could..."
 
I lived in a small town and worked for years for a small company that didn't have pension plans and couldn't pay high wages. All my/our income went to the basics of life, raising our daughters, getting them through with a good education, food, shelter and transportation. I was in my 50's before I was ever able to put money away for retirement. A good portion of it was an inheritance when my Mother passed away. Without that, I doubt I could have retired when I did. However, I did a lot of traveling including 44 trips to WDW, two trips to Europe (50 years apart), 38 of the 50 states, quick stops in Guam, a visit to Japan (Tokyo and Osaka) and my all time favorite year long tropical vacation in Vietnam. All the provinces of Canada from Ontario to the east coast, and The Bahamas. In Europe I have been to London, Lisbon, Rome (2), Barcelona (2), Madrid, Pompeii, Paris (2) and a number of small tourist towns in the Mediterranean. Pisa, Tuscany, Florence and Venice (2) and probably some others that I have forgotten. With the exception of the last trip to Europe, most all of the big stuff happened when in college and the service. Still managed to see a lot. Now, I have gotten older (70 in just 9 months and if you count from the point of conception, I'm 70 already.) my desire to travel has quickly diminished. The only thing that I would like to do is to take a cruise through the Panama Canal. Otherwise, what I can't get to with an easy road trip, I'm no longer interested in doing.

I do wish I had put more effort into putting money away. I now work part time to try and keep my balance up for as long as I am healthy enough to keep it supplemented, but, I think that I am going to stop that on or around my 70 birthday and just take a break from working for the last 54 years. I'm not working hard, but, just having to get ready to go to work is causing massive flashbacks to those work or starve years.

I was in my 50's when all the retirement seminars, 401K, Roth -- all that great information started coming out to inform us that we need to save for retirement. It was too late for me -- one shouldn't start in their 50's LOL. We do have pensions and 401Ks, but I really wish I had also saved more over the 50 years I have worked. We will be "comfortable" in retirement, but I will probably get a part-time job to supplement. I hope we can still travel -- I'm not worried about the financial as much as the physical ability -- even small long-weekend trips would be fine with me.
 
I was in my 50's when all the retirement seminars, 401K, Roth -- all that great information started coming out to inform us that we need to save for retirement. It was too late for me -- one shouldn't start in their 50's LOL. We do have pensions and 401Ks, but I really wish I had also saved more over the 50 years I have worked. We will be "comfortable" in retirement, but I will probably get a part-time job to supplement. I hope we can still travel -- I'm not worried about the financial as much as the physical ability -- even small long-weekend trips would be fine with me.
I was over 50 before I was able to start putting anything away for retirement. The year I turned 63 I went to an AARP convention and spoke with a number of representatives of financial retirement planners and retired shortly after that trip. My overall ability was, to some degree hampered by my divorce because I no longer had the double SS check to help support my lifestyle. I downsized, not to a refrigerator box and and evening dinner of Alpo, but, a much more modest situation. My SS covers my two bedroom apartment in a nice, comfortable apartment complex. No more paying for appliance breakdowns or building upkeep, I downsized on my automobile to a comfortable, but, economical mid-sized car, and I did many other things that helped spread my savings out. Although I have gone through a sizable chunk of my savings in the 7 years since I retired, I have yet to touch my 401's and I still have 30 to 40k of my standard savings available for use.

To help the situation I took a part-time job, three nights a week that not only filled a lot of idol time (idol time where you have a lot of time to dwell on every little ache and pain) and have not touched any of my savings since then. One of my big advantages is that as a veteran I get extremely good health care from the VA Administration at a very low out of pocket cost.

That has enabled me to live, like I said, in a very comfortable apartment, have a new car and travel on occasion. The thing is that since I got older my desire to be a traveler has diminished with the biggest being a shared expense month in Europe with a trans-Atlantic cruise, 6 or 7 road trips to Florida visiting Disney and Universal, plus other exploring along the way, Trips to Dollywood, Augusta (the masters tournament), Atlanta (another AARP convention), Myrtle Beach, SC (next week actually) and a road trip back up home to Vermont once every two years. Believe me when I tell you, I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't do everything 5 star. I do comfort, cleanliness and cautious spending. But, I still do stuff and enjoy it immensely.
 
I was over 50 before I was able to start putting anything away for retirement. The year I turned 63 I went to an AARP convention and spoke with a number of representatives of financial retirement planners and retired shortly after that trip. My overall ability was, to some degree hampered by my divorce because I no longer had the double SS check to help support my lifestyle. I downsized, not to a refrigerator box and and evening dinner of Alpo, but, a much more modest situation. My SS covers my two bedroom apartment in a nice, comfortable apartment complex. No more paying for appliance breakdowns or building upkeep, I downsized on my automobile to a comfortable, but, economical mid-sized car, and I did many other things that helped spread my savings out. Although I have gone through a sizable chunk of my savings in the 7 years since I retired, I have yet to touch my 401's and I still have 30 to 40k of my standard savings available for use.

To help the situation I took a part-time job, three nights a week that not only filled a lot of idol time (idol time where you have a lot of time to dwell on every little ache and pain) and have not touched any of my savings since then. One of my big advantages is that as a veteran I get extremely good health care from the VA Administration at a very low out of pocket cost.

That has enabled me to live, like I said, in a very comfortable apartment, have a new car and travel on occasion. The thing is that since I got older my desire to be a traveler has diminished with the biggest being a shared expense month in Europe with a trans-Atlantic cruise, 6 or 7 road trips to Florida visiting Disney and Universal, plus other exploring along the way, Trips to Dollywood, Augusta (the masters tournament), Atlanta (another AARP convention), Myrtle Beach, SC (next week actually) and a road trip back up home to Vermont once every two years. Believe me when I tell you, I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination. I just don't do everything 5 star. I do comfort, cleanliness and cautious spending. But, I still do stuff and enjoy it immensely.

You've encouraged me to look more forward to retirement ;)
 

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