Are you saving for retirement?

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Woh , bummer dude . Seriously though I appreciate this and the spirit it was intended in . I'm going to have a think about this .

My first thoughts are that I'll have $500,000 in cash and half a property in Australia which I inherited with my brother (My half worth maybe $180,000 at the moment) . My rent is paid up till 2040 and is , as you say , subject to ongoing political stability in Indonesia . I completely forgot that I'll also have superannuation accrued .

I have pretty simple tastes . I basically just want to surf , ride motorbikes and travel till I have a heart attack . If things do go bad I can always get a job selling cars , but being a broke 60 year old salesman terrifies me .

Assuming that my savings , super and unit are safe , what other pitfalls should I be considering ? I'm stressing out now and have to get ready for a days work . But I would appreciate your input.

 

[Antilogic]

I don't save for retirement, I invest to realize future investment income; ...

While I will probably retire or at least start working part-time when I'm old, this is how I'm working with my money now. Debt level is nil and I'm accumulating wealth every month, so things are good on that front.

 

[Janig]

Simply put no.

Im in my early 20s and Im in my 3rd spell of planned retirement: Im living on savings and Im not jobhunting. I use my time between jobs to expand my skillset so that I may continue my career.

Saving for retirement is really important to me, but in a different way to you.

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?

If Chazumi is a specialist in the military its probably confidential

 

[MjM]

If Chazumi is a specialist in the military its probably confidential

I don't think that was in the OP? If that was stated somewhere else in the thread, I must have missed it. Don't think it was however, which is why I asked.

 

[Janig]

No Chazumi's career is not defined in this topic; however he's obviously infantry. The attractive pension scheme is just one reason why Im in military recruitment.

 

[MjM]

No Chazumi's career is not defined in this topic; however he's obviously infantry.

How is this obvious?

 

[Chazumi]

If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for a living?

US Army 6 years. Plan on doing 20+ and getting a degree while I'm in, probably something with computers. I can retire at 40 so it leaves me a lot of time to start a second career.

Edit: I was infantry for a few years. After several purple hearts I found working with satellites had a much higher life expectancy

 

[FriendlyFire]

Rental income - I bought my first home last year. Though I live in it now until I transfer I bought it specifically to rent when I leave. If things work as planned the rent will pay for at least the mortgage and I will let it sit and gain equity (if not outright profit). I plan to continue aquiring these properties ever couple years for the next decade or so so that I will have them paid off by at the latest my planned final retirement age of 60 and be pulling in at least $8K a month in rental income. Or I can just sell them and invest the cash in low risk investments to draw retirement income out of.

Dosnt the arm services provide housing for service personal? (In Australia they do)
Just dont over stretch yourself cause you can lose it all. I need to also get a few properties before for my retirement.
I think about 4k a month is sufficent for self funded retirement.

 

[mangxema]

As far as actual retirement goes, not too much. I'm getting the maximum match on my TSP (like a 401k, but gov't), because hey, free money FTW. Mostly I'm focusing on paying off debt, though, of which I have about $40k, from student loans and my car, mostly the former. I've also got a significant amount in savings that I really ought to put somewhere. I admit that I could do better, but I've been delaying gratification for a long time, and I'll be damned if someone is going to try to make me feel bad for enjoying life a little.

I'm comfortable though, partially because I am extremely thrifty. It take me forever to get me to the point where I'm convinced I actually need something. I just bought a dresser, after not having a proper one in my apartment for over 2.5 years.

 

[Mise]

Woh , bummer dude . Seriously though I appreciate this and the spirit it was intended in . I'm going to have a think about this .

My first thoughts are that I'll have $500,000 in cash and half a property in Australia which I inherited with my brother (My half worth maybe $180,000 at the moment) . My rent is paid up till 2040 and is , as you say , subject to ongoing political stability in Indonesia . I completely forgot that I'll also have superannuation accrued .

I have pretty simple tastes . I basically just want to surf , ride motorbikes and travel till I have a heart attack . If things do go bad I can always get a job selling cars , but being a broke 60 year old salesman terrifies me .

Assuming that my savings , super and unit are safe , what other pitfalls should I be considering ? I'm stressing out now and have to get ready for a days work . But I would appreciate your input.

I think the thing you really need to worry about, if you move away from Australia, is that, at 60, your health is going to get worse and worse and worse. How well is the Indonesian health-care system going to take care of you? How are you going to pay medical bills? My grandparents in America get amazing health care (god bless entitlements); if they were living in their native Guyana (3rd world country, dirt cheap to live there, but a genuine tropical paradise), they'd both be dead by now. No point sugar coating it. Moving to America when they retired wasn't cheap and it certainly wasn't easy getting citizenship. They had to give up a massive house in the Guyanese country and a 4 bed apartment in the city where all their friends were to move to a pokey little 2 bed in the middle of an Arizona desert. But at the end of the day, the fact that they are still alive now, pushing 90, after many, many medical scares, operations, and so on, is testament to the quality of healthcare in the west.

I really think that living to 90 instead of 70 is worth working an extra 10 years when you're 50.


Remember that you don't have to live abroad to travel. My parents are retired now, and I swear to god they spend more time out of the country than in.

 

[Patroklos]

Dosnt the arm services provide housing for service personal? (In Australia they do)
Just dont over stretch yourself cause you can lose it all. I need to also get a few properties before for my retirement.
I think about 4k a month is sufficent for self funded retirement.

You can get housing in the military but depending on your situation it can be harder or easier to make it. They don't have room for everyone, and since I am unmarried without children I would be at the bottom of the list.

The military does provide a Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) which is a cash payment to people over a certain rank/years. Its basically a big cost of living compensation and varies depending on where you live. Its actually cheaper for the military to pay most people this allowance to encourage living off base than to provide military housing. If you accept military housing, you do not get BAH.

I hear you on the overextended thing, and I learned a lot from this first property acquisition. I probably bought too much property this go around and even though everyone always warns you about it and I did attempt to anticipate it the myriad incidental costs of owning. I went high end with this rental with a specific class or renter in mind (young Navy junior officers).

That being said I should be married next year and the duel income will obviously help as well as the efficiency of paying for one residence vice two. But yeah, I will be far more careful when the time comes for property #2.