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Posts
2
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90
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Getting older means losing mobility, dexterity, and mental acuity. It's not a question of if you will need assistance, it's a question of when you will need it. Most retirees go on living independently for as long as possible until an event. Sometimes they set the kitchen on fire, sometimes they get in the car and get lost, and most often they fall and break a hip. Once they hit this event it changes their life dramatically.

    The best case scenario is that you will have enough money to afford 24/7 care after your event. Idk what the current rates are, but 10 years ago it was $25/hr for CNAs and $50/hr for RNs. This means that the cost to have a CNA care for you around the clock was over $200,000/yr. This doesn't include the additional costs of food, shelter, utilities, insurance. I'm sure that things haven't gotten any cheaper.

    The best case scenario is that your $1M nut grows enough to cover all your expenses before you die. Every other scenario means you will run out of money. So it's really a question of how long you intend to live.

  • My scenario focuses solely on interest income for simplicity's sake. There are other investments one can make to increase your gain, but such investments are more volatile. You could end up doing quite well and increasing your nut, or you could invest in the wrong stock and lose a large chunk of it.

    I also left out other considerations for simplicity's sake like the fact that most retirees are couples and past the age of 65 the odds that one of you will require significant medical treatment increases every year. Some elderly couples are getting divorced so as to only bankrupt one of them when this happens.

    Life is messy and $1M will only work in the best case scenario. It's just not realistic. By allowing people to think that $1M is enough, you're actually leading them into ruin. We need to be aware that retirement is becoming a dicey proposition and we should be taking steps to ensure that the elderly will be provided for in the coming decades, especially since a large number of millennials won't have children to make sure they are properly cared for.

    Source: I worked in the elder care industry in Florida for a decade. I saw what happens when people run out of money.

  • This isn't how retirement works.

    If you try to retire on $1M you're going to end up in a medicaid facility. Interest rates are high right now, so $1M in the bank may get you as much as $5,000/mo if you're lucky. This is $60,000/yr and can be supplemented with social security to allow a person to live well enough at today's cost of living.

    However, inflation is a constant and is ideally restricted to 2-3% per year. This means that every year you live after you retire, your spending power is reduced by at least 2%. So even if interest rates stay high (they won't) then by the time you hit 85 your $60,000/yr will feel more like $24,000. This will still be supplemented by social security, but you will also find that your needs are increasing by this age and you will likely need to start using your savings to pay a lovely nurse or two to help with, well, everything. In-home care and even nursing facilities are quite costly and will eat away at your savings, so if you only have $1M you better start dying soon after needing them.

    This all assumes best-case-scenario. It doesn't account for runaway inflation rates, pandemics, recessions, catastrophic events (it's not uncommon for the elderly to accidentally set things on fire), or other possibilities that can take a bite out of your retirement savings.

    When your money runs out you won't be kicked out on the streets, thankfully. But a medicaid facility in the US can be nearly as dangerous for the elderly.

  • Oxygenation may be a concern, depending on how winded you get. I'm not saying that you'll pass out or anything so dramatic, but studies have shown that even mild hypoxia can effect our ability to make complex decisions, which may be an issue when biking in traffic.

  • It's fairly common for ocean-front condos in Florida to have parking garages that are below sea level. If the surf rises enough to breach the seawall then it will flood the garage levels and not the condos where people are likely sheltering. This is most likely where those Teslas were parked, so it's unlikely that they were subjected to the hurricane force winds.

  • This is already happening in Florida after the hurricane flooded some Teslas. Apparently lithium ion batteries don't like salt water.

    An aside: I support EVs and a renewable future. It's important that we acknowledge and address these issues in this early stage of adoption. Also, call your senator and have them support the Motorcycle Parity Act so I can afford a Livewire S2.

  • Weightlifting.

    I don't particularly enjoy physical activity and so I try to maximize my time spent exercising. I use a couple of those adjustable dumbbells and spend a few minutes every day just doing some reps. If I'm feeling more motivated I will also mix in some calisthenics.

    If you want more data, my wife enjoys walking and insists on walking 10k steps every day since she got her Fitbit 2 months ago. She hasn't missed a day yet.

  • His entire campaign in 2016 was 'locking up' Hillary. If he wasn't able to accomplish that in 4 years, what makes him think he can follow through with this promise now that he has numerous enemies on both sides of the aisle?

    Nothing short of a full-blown Shutzstaffel will fulfill even a fraction of his current campaign promises.

  • Yeah, I understand that it was a legitimate issue for some industries, but at the social level people were saying that all of the world's nuclear weapons would launch simultaneously and we would enter a post-nuclear apocalypse. At some point a legitimate issue was inflated into a doomsday hoax.

  • I grew up in Florida and anytime there was a hurricane coming people would flock to the stores and buy all the generators and bottled water.

    It was kind of like that, but in December.

    Most people I knew personally legit just ignored it. It was just another doomsday hoax like the Mayan calender scare of 2012. Everybody was talking about it, but nobody actually thought it would be an issue.

  • As a millennial who grew up with the early internet and a home computer, I think we'll be fine until we're not.

    When the Chinese hackers find a way to patch our wiping robots with software that sodomizes you while humming Yìyǒngjūn Jìnxíngqǔ, I think we may struggle a bit.

  • Back in 2007 I worked in an office that required basic MS Excel / Word competency. The office manager led her to her desk and instructed her to turn on her computer (nothing fancy, a basic workstation with a large round button).

    She couldn't figure out how to turn it on. The office manager sent her home and she never came back.