• 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Did anyone face ACTUAL financial hardship after retiring?

#1
I am seeing a lot of folks on this forum who have actually retired. Some have had a lot of retirement years under their belt. However, I have not come across a single incident of a retirees who faced actual financial hardship after retirement - at least on this forum. It is not that we have not had market problems in the recent past.
 
Is it that if you have a reasonable sense of how your finances work, you are able to adjust here and there and be comfortable?
OR / AND
Are all of us who are close to retirement just frozen scared by the so called exerts and their calculations?
 
Would like to hear your opinion on why no one in this forum seems to have faced real hardship - where they had to cut down on essential or even discretionary expenses. I plan to retire in three years and wonder if I am feeling concerned for no reason.
 
How did you guys overcome this concern?
  Reply
#2
Would like to hear your opinion on why no one in this forum seems to have faced real hardship - where they had to cut down on essential or even discretionary expenses.
Sampling Bias

I plan to retire in three years and wonder if I am feeling concerned for no reason.

 
What's your Fidelity retirement preparedness score? 
  Reply
#3
So are you suggesting that all of us on this forum are financially savvy and well off so the question below is true.
 
Is it that if you have a reasonable sense of how your finances work, you are able to adjust here and there and be comfortable?

My preparedness score varies between 97 and 109 based on a few changes that I make in my expenses and retirement age.
  Reply
#4
1. Why do you think this forum is representative?
2. You define a hardship as cutting back on discretionary expenses?
 
We have been retired since age 39;over 24 years ago. Spending patterns and needs/goals have changed throughout that time. Large medical costs might cause a reduction in travel or other spending, as would college or other education costs being higher than planned or having  un-budgeted house expenditures, costs for parents etc.. A large stock market correction such as in 2001 or 2009  resulted in a expenditure pullback for us which I think is normal for many situations i.e.I think sticking to some constant spending rule is not done in practice.  I would not consider these real "hardships" as we have set up a situation where we can enjoy life on a minimalist budget if necessary.
 
I think it is pretty normal for people to fret over the retirement decision but my experience is that many people realize later that they worried too much.  Paralysis through over-analysis
  Reply
#5
IMHO.......Everybody makes mistakes and most will experience some financial "hardship" and forced to make adjustments to counter the miscue or bad judgement.  Assuming we learn from our mistakes, by the time we reached retirement these issues that create hardships should have been resolved and old-age (senior citizen) wisdom prevails.  If not, and one continues to experience financial hardships, I would not think that demographic, individual,  is not likely to be interacting on this forum - especially on a level of disclosing personal failures to financially successful contemporaries.  There may be a forum for the dark side of investing and financial life, but personally I think you would be hard pressed to find it here.
  Reply
#6
What we found was that our expenses actually went down when I retired.  I was no longer driving back and forth to work, buying lunches, work clothes and eating out as we didn't have time to prepare dinner at home, etc.  We slowed down going on nicer vacations, although we do drive to see our daughter and granddaughter in a neighboring state which we now have the luxury of time to do, and have taken many day trips to see attractions in our own state that we didn't do many years ago, however we no longer plan the international and luxury vacations to "get away" and des-stress as we no longer have the need.  We do go out for a nicer dinner once in a while, but not nearly like we did when I was working.  It also helps that the kids are all out on their own doing well and we don't have a house or car payments any more.
 
No hardships but we did plan pretty well, are living within our means and are very happy with that!  It took a little getting used to not having to get up and go to work, but the trade off we made to live "smaller" is well worth the freedom of time I haven't had since I got my first real job at age 16.  Getting into trading is something that does give us extra money for any luxuries, but we really like just hanging out around our home, making nice dinners at home (amateur gourmet style) and we put in a home bar so drink some nice adult beverages, all of which cost a lot less than going out as we used to.
 
In summary, it can cost a lot less to live when you retire, and unless you have visions of living large plus taking constant luxury vacations all over the world, you might be surprised how inexpensively you can live, but that is where you have to decide what you want retirement to look like and what will you be happy with?  Of course, as my wife would tell you, I am Scottish by heritage and so am frugal.  
  Reply
#7
My sense is that forum members exceed the top 1% average of $1.08M.
  Reply
#8
I would tend to agree.
  Reply
#9
RETIRED forum members probably do exceed the top 1% in many cases.  Interesting article...so many dysfunctional planners for retirement out there.  It can not be for the lack of information; rather a desire to live beyond one's means...'live for today' mantra will cost dearly.
  Reply
#10
I have mentioned it before on a different question, and I mention it again. You probably do not realize that with your almost 25 years of 'young' retirement experience have a treasure trove of information for the rest of us.

You could easily write a book or have a very popular blog - if you want to do that as a part of retirement.

1. Why do you think this forum is representative?  -- I agree it is not, but I wanted to see if anyone would share a good plan that did not pan out. Going by what you other two have mentioned below, it looks like we may all be in decent shape and this is a forum for increasing out financial knowledge. Nothing wrong with that.
 
2. You define a hardship as cutting back on discretionary expenses? -  I meant - essential or even discretionary expenses.

In summary, it can cost a lot less to live when you retire, and unless you have visions of living large plus taking constant luxury vacations all over the world, you might be surprised how inexpensively you can live

Can I ask you in percentage terms over the years of retirement, what was the drop in expenditure? I have read that in the initial years it is not so significant, but then it drops quite a bit.
  Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)