More ideas -
One can only tell of his experiences when it comes to health. For most, diet and excercise will do wonders for their health. In general, I find the same affects - as my doctor said they would -- BP goes down with excerise etc etc. I dont take any meds for anything. Got healthy by changes in diet and more excercise (but not excessive). In retirement, staying busy and keep moving is important.
As to places to retire other than where you are now..... I think Scott's example is a bit extream for me. But, many other countries are not that bad. [I would never live in India... they have diseases the Western world has never seen before]. And, if you are on a budget, they deserve serious attention. Most of the countries have very good health care for little or no cost.
I built an excercise room onto my garage.... what was once a wood shop is now a gym with air-conditioning/heating. So when weather is bad I can still do my exercising indoors. If you slack off after attaining the goals, the problems will come right back.
-RM
One can only tell of his experiences when it comes to health. For most, diet and excercise will do wonders for their health. In general, I find the same affects - as my doctor said they would -- BP goes down with excerise etc etc. I dont take any meds for anything. Got healthy by changes in diet and more excercise (but not excessive). In retirement, staying busy and keep moving is important.
As to places to retire other than where you are now..... I think Scott's example is a bit extream for me. But, many other countries are not that bad. [I would never live in India... they have diseases the Western world has never seen before]. And, if you are on a budget, they deserve serious attention. Most of the countries have very good health care for little or no cost.
I built an excercise room onto my garage.... what was once a wood shop is now a gym with air-conditioning/heating. So when weather is bad I can still do my exercising indoors. If you slack off after attaining the goals, the problems will come right back.
-RM
Estate Planning for retirement -
As Scott said, a good person to talk to before retiring is called an Estate Planning Lawyer. he/she will explain the pro-con of Trusts. But do bring up liens. There are many types of lien. The one type which gets a lot of people in trouble after paying for all their rising medical costs is a tax lien. It can happen when you have to decide to get medical assistance and medication (or food) or pay the taxes.
View attachment Tax lien.pdf
I see my Estate Planner next Tuesday.
THx-RNMarsh
As Scott said, a good person to talk to before retiring is called an Estate Planning Lawyer. he/she will explain the pro-con of Trusts. But do bring up liens. There are many types of lien. The one type which gets a lot of people in trouble after paying for all their rising medical costs is a tax lien. It can happen when you have to decide to get medical assistance and medication (or food) or pay the taxes.
View attachment Tax lien.pdf
I see my Estate Planner next Tuesday.
THx-RNMarsh
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That is me. The picture was taken when I built a 200 watt single ended tube powered guitar amp and annoyed the neighbors for about a week before taking it apart. I think it was about 2005. Details on the amp here:
833 SE | Tubelab
Here are two pictures, one is me at 25 years old. The other is me at 59.
I am in a temporary house for about a year while my "retirement" house is being built. The new house will have a wood shop AND a gym. We bought an acre of land with a derelict house and a small mobile home on it. The house will be torn down to make room for the new one. The "double wide" is now used for storage (only about 10,000 tubes and maybe 1000 pounds of transformers). After the house is done the trailer will still be mostly storage but I will build my wood shop there. The gym will be in the basement of the new house. For now we will have to pay for a gym.
And any gains will be lost. I worked in an off campus facility for a few years at Motorola. When we got moved back in to the main plant, we could join the free gym. About 10 of us did, and I was the oldest by about 10 years. I went to that gym for 14 years. One by one all of my friends quit going, or got laid off. For the last 4 years I have gone by myself, and the competitive camaraderie that motivated me was lost, but I kept going. I lost about 20 pounds of muscle during those 4 years since I had no one to challenge me. During the last 4 months without any workouts I have lost 10 more......
Attachments
You look better @ 59 than you were @ 25.
* It is almost the same with me; I look great now (I'm 59), and I was looking super great @ 25.
I built my first speaker @ age 15. I play electric guitar. And I planted over two million trees (reforestation). ...Some of them trees are in the neighborhood of one hundred feet high. ...Mainly all of them on the coast; steeper terrains.
Nice meeting you & keep that shape; physically and mentally.
Cheers,
Bob
* It is almost the same with me; I look great now (I'm 59), and I was looking super great @ 25.
I built my first speaker @ age 15. I play electric guitar. And I planted over two million trees (reforestation). ...Some of them trees are in the neighborhood of one hundred feet high. ...Mainly all of them on the coast; steeper terrains.
Nice meeting you & keep that shape; physically and mentally.
Cheers,
Bob
Tax liens? I don't quite get the idea of not paying for schools, roads, police, sanitation for my friends and neighbors who want a certain quality of life for themselves and their children without getting into the doomsday prepper mentality. I pay right off the top, no effort to shelter anything.
Next thing I'll hear, Mr Marsh turns out to be my next door neighbor (or at least his offshore mailbox is)
Richard, depending on what you are after regarding trusts, one thing you want is protection from creditors at any level. Revocable trusts offers little if any protection, but a properly structured irrecovable protector trust can.
In effect, all your assets go into it, and you no longer own anything and at the same time you have continuous control over who you appoint as trustee over your estate. You now appear to all as someone who owns nothing legally. This is especially important when you face medical issues that can quickly suck everything dry legally on their end be it the state or other wise. You wind up with a new tax ID also and you must pay your taxes within it. The rich do this all the time to cover their as* or assets...,. Which ever comes first or both.
Don,t talk to just any lawyer, but an elder law attorney since you and me are getting older and need this area covered legally depending on your state.
Regards
David
In effect, all your assets go into it, and you no longer own anything and at the same time you have continuous control over who you appoint as trustee over your estate. You now appear to all as someone who owns nothing legally. This is especially important when you face medical issues that can quickly suck everything dry legally on their end be it the state or other wise. You wind up with a new tax ID also and you must pay your taxes within it. The rich do this all the time to cover their as* or assets...,. Which ever comes first or both.
Don,t talk to just any lawyer, but an elder law attorney since you and me are getting older and need this area covered legally depending on your state.
Regards
David
In many cases it is a side effect of the mortgage / foreclosure crisis. In Florida, and I assume most other states an escrow account is established to set aside money from the monthly mortgage payment for taxes and homeowners insurance when the mortgage is issued.
As the economy slid in 2008 the local city governments raised the tax rates in an effort to avoid their own financial crisis. The insurance companies raised rates in astronomical proportions to recover money lost in the crisis and paid out in hurricane claims. Often the combined effects caused people to end the year with a negative escrow balance of as much as $4000.
The bank controls the escrow account, and the insurance bill will be paid first so that their asset (the collateral on the loan) is covered in case of a claim. The tax collection system is slow and overloaded and many banks incompetent, so a missed tax payment can fester for a couple of years until it becomes a lien against the house for $10K or more due to penalties and interest, even if all the mortgage payments have been made. Add in a few missed or late mortgage payments and someone can lose their house without even going to foreclosure.
We always made our mortgage payments on time, and usually paid extra towards the principal, paying our mortgage off 9 years early. During those 20 years our loan was sold 6 or 7 times, finally winding up at a bank in California, who missed TWO yearly tax payments! Granted this happened during the bank failure crisis in the 80's, but twice we had to go down to the Broward County courthouse and pay our yearly property tax bill in CASH (the county doesn't take credit cards and I got 1 weeks notice the first time) because the bank DIDN'T even though there was sufficient funds in our escrow account. Luckily, I had the money available to do this. Many do not.
There have been thousands of (primarily older) people in south Florida who lost their homes to tax liens because they didn't know about a festering tax lien until they didn't have the money to pay it.
We also had a rather extreme run up in property values followed by an abrupt collapse, and a rather slow recovery. The property appraiser's office is understaffed and slow, so many people are assessed at far more than their house is worth. They may also owe far more than it is worth, so they just walk away. The bank holds the property, but it can't be sold until the tax bill is paid, so these show up as tax lien sales.
The short version is, the dissection caused a blood clot to form and block the affected artery, and I had a heart attack. The long version follows:
I described my Saturday ride earlier. I got home feeling pretty good about my quasi-athletic performance on the day. Ate too much for dinner that night, feeling famished from overwork. Had a little heartburn around bedtime, didn't think too much of it, figured I had overeaten. The heartburn was still there at 3 AM when I got up to pee. Still didn't think much about it.
The next morning I was really tired, just wiped out, no energy. I figured I had ridden too hard the day before, decided to skip the Sunday club ride, and slept in a bit later than normal. My wife was out of bed first, which is unusual. I finally got up, made breakfast for us both, and watched the Paris-Roubaix race from the DVR. Still felt tired, like I had nothing in the tank.
After the race, I figured I needed to clear my head and go dressed to take an easy spin. When I got on the bike I was wheezing a bit, not unusual as I have a touch of asthma. Normally that eases up once I get going, but that day it just seemed to get worse. After two miles I was wheezing worse, and around three miles my already easy pace started slowing down even more. Close to four miles from home (which is on a quiet country road, we live on the edge of town), I said screw this, I got nothing today, I'm going home. I turned around but 100 yards later I wound up coasting to a stop, not really intending to, my body just took over and said stop now.
I pulled out my phone and called my wife to come and get me. Don't panic, just give me a lift. Yeah, right. I suppose I was getting a bit fuzzy in the head by then. By the time she got there I was crouched down, leaning on the bike, not really in pain but it was an effort just trying to breathe steadily. I threw my bike into the back of the van, collapsed into the front seat and let her do the thinking. She brought me to the fire station that was a mile or so away. They called an ambulance. The EMT's put me on O2 and hooked up the EKG. They saw a slight irregularity, nothing that alarmed them too much, so they took me to the ER at a sedate pace, no lights or sirens. Did you know they charge extra to run with the lights flashing?
The hospital was backed up, so I waited 1-1/2 hours in the hallway before actually getting any attention. I was still on the ambulance gurney, so the crew was stuck waiting for me. The pressure in my chest was starting to turn to pain. While I waited, a Mexican woman in the first room down the hall passed away, her family in the room crying and praying for her to hang on. They passed me in tears a few minutes later. I was crying too off and on.
When I finally got into a room in the ER, the nurse got me on the bad and hit me with some nitroglycerine. Then things started to happen fast. The nurse had "the blue cart" aka the crash cart brought into the room ("Just a precaution" she assured my wife). The cardiologist arrived, looked at the EKG and immediately started getting the catheter lab team ready to see me ("I don't want to talk to you, I want to see you, NOW"). As he was calling staff, the nitro caused my BP and pulse to drop precipitously - I went into bradycardia. At that point I finally thought I might die, my heart rate was 30 and dropping, I went white as a sheet, broke out in a sweat, serious panic set in. They hit me with a syringe of atropine to kickstart my HR, and I started to settle down again. The nitro helped take some of the pain away as they rolled me out of the ER.
So, into the cath lab for an angiogram. I remember some of it, but mostly that they were in there for over 2 hours, and seemed confused by what they saw. I had no signs of a typical heart attack caused by atherosclerosis-narrowed arteries. My arteries were in fact huge to the point of anuerism and wide open, save for a blood clot completely blocking the RCA. They eventually realized that 1 - they could not get the wire through the, and 2 - even if they did, they didn't have a stent big enough to fit that artery. All they could do was continue to hit me with blood thinners to dissolve the clot.
Fortunately, I had enough 'corollary flow' through surrounding heart tissues that I wound up losing no heart muscle. The blood thinners did their work, a follow-up angiogram two days later showed the artery was now 40% open, and they didn't need to install a stent. That turns out to have been a good thing, with the weakened state of my arteries a foreign object would probably have done more harm than good.
Over a year later, I'm still standing. I'm on coumadin to try to avert any possibility of a new blood clot, plus a beta blocker and ACE inhibitor to keep my BP down and try to prevent more damage to those arteries, and aspirin, and Crestor, and more. I have to keep my HR down, again to avoid stressing those compromised arteries. If another one goes south I may not be so lucky.
That's why the thoughts of retiring as early as possible. I can't say if I'll ever have another problem, but I'd rather enjoy what time I have rather than spend it getting up to go to work every day. The last thing I want is to be carried out of work with a sheet over my face, I have seen that happen at least twice.
Bill
I understand this, I was more thinking along the lines of the general mentality of tax avoidance to the point of questionable practices that might be subject to a future lien as part of financial planning.
I'm sorry for anyone that has fallen on these hard times.
The bank not paying property taxes is a good reason not to use an escrow account for taxes and insurance. We have lived in our current home 28 years (mortgage will be paid off in two ) and we have refinanced for lower rate with same term probably 3 times. Each time we got the bank to agree to letting us pay the taxes and insurance directly without an escrow account.
) and we have refinanced for lower rate with same term probably 3 times. Each time we got the bank to agree to letting us pay the taxes and insurance directly without an escrow account.
That wasn't an option for me since I was 24 years old with zero established credit, not even a credit card. That was my first credit purchase ever.....I just sold that house after 36 years. I will be paying cash for my second new home.
In fact after they screwed up and failed to pay the mortgage the first time I had a fit on them and demanded that they refund the money in my escrow account that I had just spent on the tax bill that they were supposed to pay. They agreed, but the check never came. They would not apply the overpayment to the principal either.
The very next year, it happened again. Could it have anything to do with the fact that my mortgage was at 7% and the current rates were around 14% (1980's). That bank was swallowed up by another California bank in the 90's.
I believe that this combination caused the brain aneurism that killed my mother. My mom went to two different doctors in two different states. One put her on Coumadin, and the other put her on Warfarin they are the same thing so she got a double dose. This wasn't discovered until she was in the ICU. Too many blood thinners can cause internal leakage, bleeding, aneurism and stroke.
When my wife's sister tried to sell her house (way before the 2007-9 crash) the pay-off amount of the mortgage was several times larger than the stated loan amount -- apparently they had been late a couple times, and the loan had been sold about the same number of times.
I hired an attorney and we went at them hammer-and-tongs and discovered that none of the successive banks could demonstrate how the fees were calculated. I had the attorney raise the notion of "fraud" and NY's "Martin Act" -- we settled for a small fraction of the fees. This goes on all the time, and even the attorneys don't have the math competency to figure out how these loan fees should be calculated. Of course, it helped that my firm dealt with a lot of mortgage servicers and knew what kind of record keeping problems to look for.
Keep up the political commentary here and moderation will close the thread. Clean up in progress. Stick to the topic please.Offending posts have been removed along with comments on moderation. Commenting on moderation on the forum is a violation of forum rules. Strongly recommend members re-read the forum rules and refrain from further such comments.
One thing I learned from my hospital experience - you have to be on top of your own care, they will screw things up otherwise. Since my case was unusual, I had to explain everything to every new nurse and doctor that came into my room, and had to continually correct them on what meds I had or had not been given.
After all that, they gave me a prescription and a first dose of coumadin and sent me home. My first INR (clotting time) test was three days later, and it was low. That means I had not yet built up a theraputic level of the blood thinner, and was not protected against clotting. At midnight the same day I woke up with chest pains - the clot was reforming. Another ambulance ride and three more days in hospital while they got things under control.
I have to go for lab work every 2 - 4 weeks to monitor my clotting time and adjust my coumadin intake accordingly. It got a little out of control once, and the evening after a bike ride I started ******* blood. Took 2 days for it to finally stop.
Just an interest,
1. How old do you want to be when you retire?
2. Any thoughts about jacking in and getting the "Good Life" or is it looking a bit doggy..
3. Any pitfalls from those that already have...
Thought it might be fun to see what the thoughts are..
Victor meldrew always comes to mind....
One Foot In The Grave - The Honda Song - YouTube
Regards
M. Gregg
1. 39
2. My philosophy for a happy life: Sam Berns at TEDxMidAtlantic - YouTube
3. Regular/normal life's stuff, you know...getting older, weaker, sicker, poorer, less love, more bad news...and all that jazz.
* Internet forums do help, to unload all the pain, and share all the joy.
...Not just audio stuff, EVERYTHING. 3. Regular/normal life's stuff, you know...getting older, weaker, sicker, poorer, less love, more bad news...and all that jazz.
Sounds like a pretty normal retirement time to me. So bail out as early as you can to take advantage of what good health you might still have. Jump off the work Merry-go-'round even if it moving fast. Don't wait until you are on obvious decline and not enough energy to blow a bubble in water with a straw.
Along with moving to one of the many countries with national medical care is just moving to a property tax free area in USA to live in retirement .... many countries and some USA states do not have any property tax. here in california where i have a residence, my little 2 country acres and house costs about $500/month in property taxes. So, this might be a good $savings move for some retired people.
-RM
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