Community Manager

👴👵 What Are YOUR RETIREMENT CONCERNS today?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 13, 2023
70 replies
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***READ comments and/or ADD a comment***

(1) Still WORKING - what are YOUR concerns while planning? 🤔

(2) RETIRED - YOUR concerns? 🤔

Thanks, Nicole 👴👵 (Retirement Forum)

C

ChaviB814890restAuthor

Community Manager

2 comments(1/13/23) I have always worried about dying alone here in my Studio Apartment and no one caring until it is time to pay rent/lol. 😂🤣 Also of late sad that I have not seen my only child who lives in Florida since 2019. 😪 But I am working on getting things set up to hopefully move back to Florida this year 2023 or next year 2024. Never thought about dementia and other old age stuff until this week. It is like, how do I know I have dementia living alone? Does it happen while I am out driving - forget where I am? Lol, with the famous Senior Moments, I am use to forgetting where I left stuff or why I came into a room in my apartment. 🤣😂 Nicole

Therapist4u

Community Champion ⭐

Hi@Anonymous 🙂🌸

Those are real & important concerns for many of us!

It’s even more of a concern for those of us who are elderly, poor, alone, & with disabilities!

On the more positive side.....you aren’t totally alone...

because you have us! 😀

Take care 🌄 ~Allen 🌇

C

ChaviB814890restAuthor

Community Manager

WE "appreciate" you stopping by @Therapist4u !!!! ‌💃‌🥳, Nicole 🙃

▶️@Therapist4u wrote:
Hi@Anonymous 🙂🌸
Those are real & important concerns for many of us!

It’s even more of a concern for those of us who are elderly, poor, alone, & with disabilities!

On the more positive side.....you aren’t totally alone...
because you have us! 😀

Take care 🌄 ~Allen 🌇◀️

C

ChaviB814890restAuthor

Community Manager

3 comments(1/14/23) DREADING turning 65 this September 2023 and having to "deal" with all the MEDICARE DRAMA! 😪

fffred

Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

@Anonymous

I didn’t have much drama with Medicare when I enrolled or later. I liked Medicare, thought it was great.

I had a Medicare Advantage plan for a couple years. Then my doctors’ practice (very large group in Florida) would no longer accept Blue Cross Advantage. I was able to switch right away to a Medigap plan, more costly but I like the Medigap better over the Advantage plans.

edit: I had a really helpful woman at the Social Security Admin help me sign up for Medicare. On the whole, I’ve found the SSA staff to be more competent than those at the Medicare agency CMS. …then again, my recent experiences with the SSA have been mostly awful.

J

JJC1957

Contributor ⭐⭐

I've been leaning toward the BCBS advantage plan but after reading this, I think I'll be talking to my provider first. I'm looking at advantage out of concern to have prescription coverage and the $0 monthly on the BCBS plan caught my attention. I guess I should go back to looking at prescription only coverage?

C

ChaviB814890restAuthor

Community Manager

2 comments(1/15/23) This June 2023, I will need to start the process of MEDICARE = looking for a NEW doctor and dentist. 😭

fffred

Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

@Anonymous

If I remember correctly, Medicare does not cover dental, so that may not force you to change dentists. Depending on how you cover dentists now with any insurance.

When I was on Medicare there was no effect on my doctors, i kept those I was seeing.

Although…I had a Blue Cross Medicare Advantage plan and after a few years my large medical group gave up that Advantage plan (likely not getting paid enough) and I had to switch plans (I could have switched doctors but I didn’t want to). I went with a mefigap plan; I think it was Plan G or H. I was very pleased with the medigap plan.

I have a comment on dentists but will have to come back later for that.

K

k40013h

Contributor ⭐⭐

Yes, there should be more communities for elderly people to bound together. Perhaps, AARP could start one. My brother and I took care of my Mom and Dad for 11 years when health deteriorated. It was a lot I wouldn't wish it on any one. Now I have to plan for my brother and myself without safenet of other family. I sure hope they advance in robots soon.

C

ChaviB814890restAuthor

Community Manager

WE "appreciate" you stopping by @k40013h !!!! ‌💃‌🥳, Nicole 🙃

▶️@k40013h wrote:
Yes, there should be more communities for elderly people to bound together. Perhaps, AARP could start one. My brother and I took care of my Mom and Dad for 11 years when health deteriorated. It was a lot I wouldn't wish it on any one. Now I have to plan for my brother and myself without safenet of other family. I sure hope they advance in robots soon. ◀️

M

MsElleElle

Contributor ⭐

At the moment my biggest concern is how late I am in starting to save for retirement (51, single, no kids). I never saved much for retirement and what I did save was swindled away from me by my ex-fiancé (who also left me drowning in credit card debt).

Any advice would be appreciated!

fffred

Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

@MsElleElle

I'm sorry about the disruption with the fiancé situation. Awful. That's surely a setback. But the bright side is that you now have only yourself to be concerned with...no (ex-)spouse, no kids (college, etc).

No better time to start than today! Yeah, it might've been easier to start years ago but there's no point in remorse about that. Right now you have 16 years until your Full Retirement Age for Social Security (age 67). 16 years is a enough time to make use of the power of compounding your invested money with some reasonable investments.

Don't go for the get rich quick schemes. Invest in some simple, inexpensive stock and bond Index funds from Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, etc. Invest only in investments that you can track in the "newspaper" every day; that was the mistake that Bernie Madoff's clients made...they were too greedy and invested in something that was not reported in the public domain. Don't know who Bernie Madoff is? Well, take 10 minutes and read up on this recent history before you buy any investment from anyone. At this point in time you can't afford to lose money to crackpot investment schemes or crooks (my brother-in-law has done both of these several times over and it is not a good plan).

My suggestion, join the "Bogleheads" financial forum and read it regularly. Read their "wiki" (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started). Heck, you don't even need to "join", just read and learn. Then you can post and ask questions. These people are straight shooters. There're are tons of other useful financial forums on the internet but this is one of the more prominent.

(why "Bogleheads"? They follow the concepts of John (Jack) Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group of mutual funds, so a bit like "Deadheads", those people who followed the Grateful Dead around). Bogle was a proponent of low cost mutual fund investing and started Vanguard in that vein; this was revolutionary in the 1970's. He also was an early developer of low cost "index" funds. He is highly regarded in the investment world.

Why "index" funds? Investors need to diversify; why? for safety, in the event your one fave investment craters...think Enron (another one to read the history), et al. Nobody knows what the future holds for investments. Nobody knew ahead of time to buy Microsoft, Apple, Dell, or Google...there were tons of other computer/software companies, nobody knew which ones would survive (many didn't) and thrive. So you buy a "basket" of stocks (or bonds). And most effective, over the long term, is to "buy the index". They talk about the "Dow 30" or "S&P 500", so don't buy just one stock from those indices, or even 5 or 12. Buy them all by using an Index fund that tracks the particular index. Such funds are very economical... no fees to buy them (oh, please, do NOT buy a mutual fund for which you have to pay a commission! there are so many good funds available without such fees) and have low ongoing expenses.

(Don't listen to Dave Ramsey. Maybe he helps a certain type person get out of debt, but his investment advice is abysmal and misleading. Don't listen to Suze Orman either. There are some very good financial columnists out there in the Washington Post, New York Times, etc, and they are on the web too. Don't invest with Edward Jones.)

Be suspicious or skeptical of those who want you to invest with them. Many such have only their own best interests at heart. Same goes for financial columnists or advisors. You need to go through a crash course on this. ...see that link to the boglehead wiki I put above; that's a good place to start.

You have 16 years until the finish line (unless it comes up sooner by some tragic event like layoff, disability, etc). There is time but you really have to buckle down and get serious about this. You'll need to determine how much of a nest egg you may need or want and then determine how much of a nest egg you can realistically expect to obtain based on those 16 years and how much money you can save and invest.

Good luck!

J

JJC1957

Contributor ⭐⭐

I'm very concerned about the republican attack on social security and medicare.

I jump on AARP and nothing - not a peep about something that will leave us with no healthcare and no income. I'm gone when my membership expires. Do something of real value AARP.

Discount coupons are meaningless compared to the current political agenda.

Kerfey

Contributor ⭐⭐

AARP does organize letter writing campaigns to Gov’t officials. Not sure if they employ lobbyists. I do know that if AARP were not backing retirees, who would?

Kerfey

Contributor ⭐⭐

It’s the sheer number of people our age that keeps politicians in line. A shame that so many vote for people who do not support Social Security and Medicare.

K

k40013h

Contributor ⭐⭐

I am worried about taxes in MN they are outrages. I never really notice while I was working but now that retirement is near wow. I really don't want to move but may force to at some point. The 25,000 that is not taxed isn't enough. When you spend all your life trying save and paying taxes I don't know why Fed tacking money from us if we worked that hard. We should be able to enjoy stress free but this not the case.

C

ChaviB814890restAuthor

Community Manager

WE "appreciate" you stopping by @k40013h !!!! ‌💃‌🥳, Nicole 🙃

▶️@k40013h wrote:
I am worried about taxes in MN they are outrages. I never really notice while I was working but now that retirement is near wow. I really don't want to move but may force to at some point. The 25,000 that is not taxed isn't enough. When you spend all your life trying save and paying taxes I don't know why Fed tacking money from us if we worked that hard. We should be able to enjoy stress free but this not the case.◀️

fffred

Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

My concern is that the front line representatives at the Social Security Administration are nowadays generally rude, disinterested, and uninformed. This is a change from 5 years ago when the reverse was true.

When I signed up for Medicare at age 65 I had to work with an SSA representative...I don't recall exactly why, but this was after I had worked with some Medicare representatives who impressed me as being not too swift. The SSA representative at that time wholly impressed me! very capable, knowledgeable, and friendly.

Over the past 2 years I've dealt a lot with the SSA when applying for my own retirement benefit and also on an issue that had come up with my wife's SS account. That latter required, well, it induced a lot of heartburn, as we had to send her passport to the SSA office, from Canada to the SSA office in the US. In this latter case one smug SSA representative claimed that other original, irreplaceable, documentation was required as well as the passport. But this wasn't my view from the SSA documents. I later spoke with another representative who had been very helpful for me and she confirmed that only the passport was required.

(In fact, in that particular passport incident the SSA actually highly impressed me! I sent the passport by Federal Express 2-Day business from Canada to the SSA US office on a Monday. We received the passport back from the SSA on Friday that week. Amazing!)

But I digress. In the months waiting for my retirement benefit I spoke numerous times with a number of representatives who were rude, slow, uninformed, unhelpful, uncaring, disinterested, well, you get the idea. Further, what's more maddening is their distributing false and incorrect information! That is the killer.

I also had another issue that I wanted information on. I had searched all through the SSA's documentation on-line and not found my needed information...and they really do a great job with their online documentation, in my opinion. Those interested can really dig into the POMS, the directions by which SSA operates, and even the "CFRs", the Code of Federal Regulations, which are the laws established by Congress addressing Social Security. This information is golden. I digressed again.

So the SSA indicates to call their friendly helpful representatives when our questions aren't answered by the online references. So I called about my question. A high-energy lady answered, full of enthusiasm. I thought this was great! I start asking my question, she interrupts to give me an answer...to an entirely different question! Granted, her answer was correct. But unhelpful. I finished my question and she paused and said "That's a good question. I really don't know". She then put me on hold for a moment, then came back and authoritatively gave me an answer that was obviously and patently incorrect; maybe in her mind she had further information that may have justified her spoken reply. In any case, her reply along with some further babble once I questioned her answer, was obviously wrong and she obviously had no clue. I thanked her and "have a great day!" and hung up.

I would say that I've spoken with 12-15 representatives over the past 2 years. Most were lazy and uninterested. Some had energy but ended up being rude and their information incorrect. I can recall 2 who were actually friendly and helpful with accurate information. So 2 out of 12? that's not a good ratio.

So that is my retirement concern today: The exceptionally poor customer service provided by the SSA by their front line staff. But again, I view their website as being very helpful, bearing in mind that it's a continuing work in progress.

GailL1

Community Champion ⭐⭐⭐

@fffred

Add the IRS into that same category of DUH!!

One of those SSA reps who posts on Reddit said that SSA has lost many seasoned employees - some retired, others just left the position when they were asked to comeback into the office to work.

Others have left for more money at a private co.

Do you think that more funding will help cause more is coming their way but I just don’t know - I will agree that it is a mess right now but not just at SSA.

Kind of scary - when you think about it - what if this goes further into other depts. - ??????

IT‘S ALWAYS SOMETHING . . . . .. . . . Roseanne Roseannadanna

fffred

Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

@GailL1 I'll have to comment later. but this customer service plummet is not just the SSA (though that one is especially scary because it's our financial future). I had to make some changes with my Vanguard mutual fund account this week and while on the phone I was thinking "hmmm, I don't know which one is worse, Vanguard or the SSA?!"

It is like virtually every place I call these days has a telephone announcement about "high call volumes" etc etc, oftentimes the agency or company blames things on "the pandemic". Yes, pandemic threw a huge wrench into things. But customer care was going down well before 2020 and the pandemic; plz don't make excuses.

er, so yes, Gail. Money (pay) is part of the issue but likely is not the whole issue. For example, I deal with both Vanguard and Fidelity. Vanguard is, call it, "the low cost champ". Fidelity is more profit-driven but consequently may invest more in customer service. People complain about Vanguard all the time. And their service is variable, long wait times, etc. OTOH, I'm not sure that I am better served by Fidelity. Their website is a confusing mess to me (maybe 'cause I'm an old geezer?) and their phone reps... well, seemingly they are driven by a corporate profit mode (though there have been some notable exceptions some people were really very helpful to me).

It seems that Management, of whatever agency/company, needs to have a clear plan for handling service over the phone. I think some few companies handle this well but most view "support" as something that is just a cost sink and no one really takes much interest (or excitement) in developing quality systems for their high volume support centers.

Yeah, more pay will certainly help attract better staff, but the staff (new and existing) need to be supported with systems where they can provide correct help and assistance to the caller and on a timely basis. I suspect that such systems are rare.

I actually worked phone support for some years, supporting our engineering software. Some of our clients calling in where real jerks but most were quite polite, etc. But the experience did make me decide to treat people on the other end (when I was the one calling in) much more considerately than before.