Don't Look Behind You.....It's Retirement Sneaking UP!

Last year, when I began researching the cost/probability of replacing our heating system with a geothermal system, I realized that it made little sense to spend the money to do this since we wouldn't be living here long enough to recoup the expense of said system.


Yes, it was at that moment that I realized that we only have to live in this school district, as of now, for 3 more years!
And going further, I realized that we only have to live in this area near Hubs job for another 7 years because Hubs has decided that he wants to retire early at 60.

All I can keep thinking is, "How did being near retirement age sneak up on me"!?!?

One day I am dealing with a Husband, 3 kids, 4 dogs and life as a suburban Homemaker and I turn around and I'm 52 years old with only 1 kid left at home fulltime, 2 dogs and a husband who is planning on retiring in 7 years.
Wow!

Other than throwing money into retirement/investment accounts before I get the Hubs paycheck every other week(for the last umpteen years), and glancing at the statements that come in the mail quarterly, we haven't sat down and actually crushed any numbers or figured out how much we will have or need to live in retirement.

Hubs use to tell me offhandedly that he wanted to retire at 55.  He comes at that age due to his father, who was a laborer, who worked until he became physically disabled in his 50s.  He was forced to retire in ill health/pain and never got to enjoy his old age fully.
Hubs wants to leave the rat race while he still has his health and wits about him.
And I so get that.

But I didn't pay him much heed when he started spouting off about retiring, because well, geez, 55 is a long way off, right?
But it's here now, knocking on the door and I am not wanting to open that door and let Mr. 55 in!

Then after the last few years of Recession/Foreclosures/Bank Bailouts/Stock Market Dives, Hubs stopped throwing around that 55 number.....especially after our investments took a nose dive in 2008/2009.
Last year he started making noises about retiring at 60 instead.  He said he ran some numbers and with the hit we took in our savings(even with the rebounds lately), he feels secure about making age 60 his new retirement number.

Besides figuring out the savings balance, I am more comfortable with 60 than I was with 55.  Mainly because at 55 we would still have a child in high school and one in college.  So the kids would still be dependent on us for financial support.  Kids + No income=Bad Planning  8-(

So I want to ask all of you dear readers.....
1.  How many years from now do you or does your significant other(if that applies)plan on retiring?   Is it a 'historically normal' retirement age or do you plan to retire early?  Or is retirement going to happen the day you can no longer physically work or drop dead?

2.  And when you retire, do you mean stop working fully?.....Or getting different job--one that is parttime and/or pays less but keeps you active?....or a job that you love?

3.  Besides Social Security benefits, are you putting any money away for your retirement?

4.  If you were to retire, in today's dollars equivalent, how much money do you think you would need to live on for 1 year? (Don't include the cost for major medical care(other than prescription meds and normal preventative care)in this, just the amount you would need to cover your normal living expenses in retirement with no one to support other than yourself and your spouse, if you will have one.)

5.  If you will have savings/cash to live off of in retirement other than SS, do you think you will have enough to support yourself until you die(given no catastrophic medical bills that would bankrupt you)?
How many years do you think you will live until your savings run out?

6.  Where will you 'park' your savings?  Invest it?  Bank it?  CD it?  Bury it in the backyard?  An Annuity?  Do you have a Pension?

Yeah, I know this post is pretty much a downer with all this death and running out of money talk?lol
But I am very curious to see how other people are planning for retirement and what they think about entering this stage of their lives.

Sluggy

$30K Savings Challenge MARCH 2010 Totals.....GangBuster Month!

I have posted my MARCH End of Month 30K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.

I have to report that we finished up March in the Black.

The amount we ended the month of March with was.......$3,673.47

Income
Besides Hubby salary we had a hefty amount in Rebates and some rolled Coins under the Income Heading. Add in a quarterly stock dividend check, a dental insurance reimbursement for #2 son's dental surgery in Feb. and a partial car insurance reimbursement when we took the old car we got rid of off the policy and the income side looks quite healthy!


Outgo
As for the expenses in March.....

The electric bill went down around $100 from last month.  Even though the heating bills should keep going down now until late Fall, I really need to get cracking on finding the new heating system for the house.

 The credit card bill was half of what it was last month, mostly because of less eating out. The previous month had a lot more birthday eating out.  We did have a small bill for #1 son's schooling, a driver's license renewal and an unexpected small furniture purchase(a new file cabinet) this month along with usual gasoline purchases that are put on the card and paid off each month.

We had a few out-of-the-ordinary expenses in March...some additional car insurance due to the car we bought so for a short time we had FOUR cars on the insurance**YIKES!**, a few doctor's visits, quarterly garbage and sewage bills, state tax bill & school related expenses for #2 son.  
All totaled, the out-of-the-ordinary expenses came to about $850.

The Food Budget costs for March are in another post, which is located HERE.  Food/Toiletries spending in March was under the budgeted $250(due to the rebate money that came in last month)and our Savings percentage was a whopping 94.89%!

Looking Ahead to April....
The cc bill is on track to being under $500 this month again, which is always good. ;-)
I am also expecting our federal tax refund to hit the account in April.
On the not-so-good side of things, we have a local tax bill that is due by the end of this month.
The good thing is that the tax refund is larger than the local tax bill so that's good news!

YTD Standings....
We have a Year To Date Total of $8,523.72 in Savings.  To save $30K for the year, we need to put away $2,500 per month average.  We are ahead of our target as the 1st quarter savings total goal is $7,500!

So how was your March financially?  Leave a comment and share with us what you did with your money, both the good and not-so good.   Do you have any tricks or tips that help you to end your month before the money runs out?  Let us know!


Sluggy

My 2010 Savings Goals

Ok, so it's a new year and I need a new set of Savings Goals for it.
But which goals.....and how much?

First, where we stand financially.

We have no mortgage, so no mortgage to pay toward or pay off.  We did that in March of 2006. 8-))
We have no car loans, so nothing to pay toward or pay off there either. 8-)
We have a credit card but it's paid off every month.  Nothing is put on it unless it can be paid that billing cycle.  We don't fritter the money away on making banks richer.  ;-)
We have a fully funded 6 month Emergency Fund(the reason we don't have to put emergency purchases on the credit card), so we don't need to throw money into that fund.  We could put some extra into that though and make it a 9 month or 1 year EF I suppose.

There are 3 Savings Goals I do see we should fund.

First is throwing additional money into the Kid's College Fund.  We have a plan that will allow us to Cash Flow each child's undergraduate college career(4 years to complete the degree). We have told each of them how much they are getting from us and they need to find a school that can be paid for with it or if they want to go somewhere more expensive, they need to come up with the money for the difference through either grants, scholarships, work study, loans or working while attending school.
Graduate school?....that's on their dime, not ours.
We had ESAs for each child but when the stock market fell, those took a hit.  I am hopeful they will recover enough in time before we need the cash so that I can take the money out without a net loss.
We had a cash flow plan with this College Fund but we may come up a bit short between how we are funding it and the exploding costs of schooling.  At any rate, this Fund could use a bit more moolah.

Second we are going to have to replace a car very soon.  Not a new car but a 'new to us' car.  And we will pay cash of course.

Third is paying for a new heating system for our house.  This house was built in the late 1980's.  At the time, the builder got a tax incentive to put a thermal storage heating unit in his homes here.  The electric company had a special lower off-peak/on-peak rate for these systems that helped homeowners have a lower electric bill than the regular electric customers.
This year, the electric company is phasing out this special rate(thank you cap and trade) and in 2011, they are doing away with it completely.  Also, these thermal storage systems were only expected to last 20-30 yrs.  2 of our heating receptables have already died, one at the beginning of last winter and the other at the end of it.  Replacing 1 electric thermal unit was in the ballpark of 5 Thousand Dollars!  There are 5 in the house, along with regular baseboard electrical units in the smaller rooms.   It makes no sense to replace the dead units since the special rate is going away and we'll be a totally electric home with incredibly high electric rates after this year.
So we need a new heating system before next fall when the heat gets turned on again!
Replacing your heating system is NOT cheap....especially if you aren't set up for gas and you have no ductwork in your house already.
Ugh.

I had wanted to put solar panels on the house but that will have to wait as the heating system is more critical.  And heating with solar just wouldn't be realistic at this location or within our financial scope.
At this point I am leaning toward a GeoThermal Heating System.  We may have a problem however, since you need to excavate and lay underground piping next to your house for this type of system and we have buried/underground utility lines here on the property.  We may not have the room for the pipes.

Since I was able to sock away $23K+ last year, I don't feel I should settle for less than that this year.
Tentatively, I am going to set a $30K Savings Goal for 2010.
That's $2500 a month.
I still need to go through the bills for last year and get some final numbers together so I can set a realistic Budget.
Then I need to research more on the heating system options and get some estimates.  How much this bill will cost may help determine what the Savings Goal will be for this year.....or then again, it might not.lol

More later on the Savings Goals after I get a final Budget together.
Have you set your family Budget for the year yet?
Do you have any savings goals for 2010?
Do you have a plan to reach those goals?
Please leave a comment and tell us!
 
Sluggy