Does money have the same value no matter what age you are?
Recently I've been playing around with
cFIREsim.com and
maximizemysocialsecurity.com looking at various scenarios and trying to decide what kind of future I want for my family and myself.
One part of me says, live now. Quit working, travel around the world while we're still young enough we can enjoy the adventure. Take SS benefits as soon as possible, as this will take pressure off of our investments, allowing them to continue growing and hopefully last for our entire lives with a bunch of money left over for our daughter after my wife and I are dead.
Another part of me says, I should keep working for a few more years, save more money, delay taking SS until my wife and I are 70 years old to get the maximum benefits. Delay doing the things we want to do now so that later on, when we're in our 70's, 80's and 90's we'll have a more comfortable, secure retirement.
A while ago, an old boss told me about a book he'd read which described the 3 stages of (traditional) retirement as the "go-go years", the "slow-go years," and the "no-go years." He said that in the early "go-go" years retirees were still relatively young and healthy and they spent the most money on satisfying a pent up demand for fun trips, toys, etc. During the "slow-go" years of retirement, my boss said, retirees began to travel and play less, therefore spending less money, but medical expenses tended to go up a bit. Later on, during the "no-go" years, retirees mostly sat on porches in rocking chairs or laid in hospital beds, hardly spending any money on fun things but spending lots of money on medical expenses.
As I crunch the numbers for my own family's retirement plans, we have to decide what's best for us. Should we delay taking SS benefits until we're in our 70's and 80's? Will the extra money matter as much to us then as it will if we take the money in our 50's and 60's, while we're still healthy and young enough that we can use the extra money to travel and live a better lifestyle than we may feel comfortable with if we're having to withdraw all of the money to fund our adventures from our investments?
Our decisions about how to move forward with our lives can't help but be influenced by our life experiences and the scenarios we've seen played out in our own families. Right now my soon to be 74 year old father is dying of cancer. He doesn't have much in the way of retirement savings, but it wouldn't matter if he had millions of dollars well invested, because he isn't spending anything right now. He barely has enough energy to get out of bed and go for a ride with me into town, once a week or so, to go to Subway to get his favorite sandwich. Mostly he just sits in his room and watches tv.
Recently my wife went to visit 2 of her elderly aunts who she hadn't seen in a while. Both aunts are in assisted living facilities. Apparently the younger of my wife's two aunts, who's in her late 80's, had a little more retirement savings and/or a bigger pension, and she lives in a "really nice" facility. The other aunt, who's in her early 90's lives in an assisted living facility that's not quite as nice as her sister's, but it doesn't really matter too much because she doesn't seem to really know where she is or who is visiting her anyway....
Just curious if any other members have pondered these questions as well and how you've decided to live your lives? Spend money now and enjoy ER? Wait, save more money, delay taking SS, live frugally in ER, so that you'll have even more money when you're 70+ years old?
