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ed
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 6:45 am Post subject: retirement plan |
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are you in your thirtys? going to retire in your sixtys?
what's your plan? how are you saving for retirement?
my wife and I are thinking about how to save for retirement and we have found about fifty different options and we don't know what to choose.
your wisdom, please? |
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CarolinaTHeels
Joined: 07 Apr 2011
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| pick the most practical, logical, and fruitful one....... |
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West Coast Tatterdemalion
Joined: 31 Aug 2010
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 8:23 am Post subject: |
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| Retirement is the most overrated thing in the world. You live once. You may keel over from a heart attack while driving on the highway in your late 50's. So much for all that retirement planning. Your kids will reap the benefits and probably piss it away on big screen tv's or vacations to Cancun. Besides, by the time you are retired, you'll be old and getting around won't be as easy. You won't get to enjoy it with that youthful vigor like you had a few years earlier. It's okay to prepare for the future, but not at the expense of the moment. Balance is the key. |
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maladict23
Joined: 17 May 2011
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 8:37 am Post subject: |
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| West Coast Tatterdemalion wrote: |
| Retirement is the most overrated thing in the world. You live once. You may keel over from a heart attack while driving on the highway in your late 50's. So much for all that retirement planning. Your kids will reap the benefits and probably piss it away on big screen tv's or vacations to Cancun. Besides, by the time you are retired, you'll be old and getting around won't be as easy. You won't get to enjoy it with that youthful vigor like you had a few years earlier. It's okay to prepare for the future, but not at the expense of the moment. Balance is the key. |
Jesus wept. I'll look out for you in 30 years. You will be the dude sleeping in the cardboard box in Seoul station right? |
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Adam Carolla
Joined: 26 Feb 2010
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 9:47 am Post subject: Re: retirement plan |
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| ed wrote: |
are you in your thirtys? going to retire in your sixtys?
what's your plan? how are you saving for retirement?
my wife and I are thinking about how to save for retirement and we have found about fifty different options and we don't know what to choose.
your wisdom, please? |
I plan on retiring well before my sixties, before I turn fifty depending on how things work out.
Korea is an excellent place to start working on your retirement. The ability to save upwards of half your salary in a given year can allow you to catch up and surpass people in your age bracket living back home. (They may be building equity in a home, but initially, the equity builds incredibly slowly since the majority of your payment goes towards interest.)
However, you really need to invest your money into something. When I first started researching investing, I found that index funds were a relatively safe and well-performing option. You can google the stats if you like, but apparently 90% of all managed funds fail to beat the overall stock market in any given year.
Anyway, here's my investment history, which I don't mind sharing. I bought $3000 of the Vanguard Emerging Markets index fund back in, oh, 2004 or so. It scared the hell out of me risking that amount of money. Anyway, in about a year so, I cashed out $5000.
A couple years later (around 2006-07, not sure) I invested about $30,000 in another Vanguard fund, ended up selling it right before the big crash of 2008 for around 50k.
After the crash, I ended up investing in real estate. I bought a house with cash and got financing to buy a 4-plex apartment building. I rented both out immediately and had a pretty decent income from them. I sold the apartment in 2010 and had a cash on cash return of something like 400%.
With that said, I will say that I've been extremely fortunate, and the results are certainly not typical. However, they wouldn't have been possible without taking the first step. |
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PatrickGHBusan
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 11:18 am Post subject: Re: retirement plan |
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| ed wrote: |
are you in your thirtys? going to retire in your sixtys?
what's your plan? how are you saving for retirement?
my wife and I are thinking about how to save for retirement and we have found about fifty different options and we don't know what to choose.
your wisdom, please? |
Good question and the answer is it depends on you.
What are you goals when it comes to retirement: full stop on work or keep working?
When to retire?
Where?
Lifestyle?
Do you have kids?
These all factor in.
We plan mid-term for the most part (5 years or so ahead, sometimes 10) and long term for general goals.
Following this logic we made choices: live a balanced life, within our means and make certain sacrifices for the future.
If you want concrete examples here is what we did....
We bought a house in Canada in the early 2000s. We were living in Korea. We put it on a 10 year morgage, rented it out and it paid for itself in well under 10 years. Having moved back to Canada in 2008, we renovated the house and live in it now.
During that same time frame, we bought a revenue earning appartment building in Canada (we refinanced the house to do this) and it paid for itself in under 10 years. It is now turning out a tidy profit each month. Thats going towards retirement, kids school fund and other things.
So in a short 10 years or so, with some planning, we ended up living in a house morgage free, built up some equity and gained far more financial options.
We also invested part of our earnings in stable revenue earning ventures.
Did we live like monks? Certainly not. Did we blow all our money on fun...nope.
As was said before: balance.
We also make choices and adapt our goals over time. Now that we live in Canada, we travel to Korea once per year for a family visit for 4-6 weeks. That is a financial burden with two kids. Thankfully, by planning ahead and investing in real estate like we did, we are ina confortable position to deal with this.
Everyone is different so the level of planning will vary from one person or couple to the other.
As for our retirement, I for one do not plan on stopping working when I am 60. I will transition into something else and keep working. We are thinking of opening a small business or I could scale back and keep consulting. There are so many options out there.
You could indeed keel over tomorrow morning or you could live until you are 90....odds are you will live somewhere in between tomorrow and 90 so planning is not all that dumb. |
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ed
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 7:53 pm Post subject: well |
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thank you all for your replies!
we are so busy that we never have time to plan for the future but once in awhile we sit down and talk and we have decided we don't want to end up living in a box at the subway.
we don't know anything about real estate or the stock market and the idea of completely stopping working doesn't appeal to us so we were thinking a long term high interest savings account at a bank somewhere in the world might be best but we're not sure. |
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Ramen
Joined: 15 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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put away 30% of your total income and forget about it until 60.
hopefully, you'll be healthy enough to enjoy it.  |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| West Coast Tatterdemalion wrote: |
| Retirement is the most overrated thing in the world. You live once. You may keel over from a heart attack while driving on the highway in your late 50's. So much for all that retirement planning. Your kids will reap the benefits and probably piss it away on big screen tv's or vacations to Cancun. Besides, by the time you are retired, you'll be old and getting around won't be as easy. You won't get to enjoy it with that youthful vigor like you had a few years earlier. It's okay to prepare for the future, but not at the expense of the moment. Balance is the key. |
Do you have children? |
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