Calling Net54 Retirees....tell us how Retirement has influenced your hobby activities

[SyrNy1960]

One of the great things about being in the military is being able to travel and be stationed in different places. I grew up in New York and have always been a huge New York Yankee fan and collector. I have always been a player collector, so being stationed in different places, I found myself watching teams and following players that I normally wouldn't have. When I was in Texas, I watched the Texas Rangers a lot. I liked Juan Gonzalez, as he was a pure power hitter, and I started to collect his cards and memorabilia. Hence, this picture shows just how much my Juan Gonzalez collection grew. I even had the opportunity to meet the Texas Rangers Owner, Tom Hicks, when he visited our squadron. Before ebay, the Navy gave me many opportunities to visit local cards shops and shows in other states, giving me more opportunity to find stuff I wouldn't normally have been able to find at home. Now retired, I have more time to search for memorabilia and also focus more on my collection.

[brunswickreeves]

Any USAF Net54s stationed in Aviano, Italy in late 70s/early 80s, or in Ellsworth, SD in the mid 80s?

[butchie_t]

Originally Posted by brunswickreeves

Any USAF Net54s stationed in Aviano, Italy in late 70s/early 80s, or in Ellsworth, SD in the mid 80s?

A bit further north for me. Why not, Minot AFB. I worked on the comm equipment in the launch control facilities from 81 - 86.

B. T.

[Exhibitman]

You Boomers are going to be the last generation that can really plan a retirement. Us Gen Xers, not so much. By the time we came up, traditional pensions and defined retirement benefits were all but extinct. We've been forced into the equities markets and they've crapped the bed several times since I started working, which has really messed with planning. Most of us cannot afford to retire on any sort of schedule. If things fall out just right for me, I might be able to quit when I am able to get on Medicare and Social Security. If not, I will have to work until the end of whatever boom-bust cycle we are in at the time.

I intend to unwind my collection when I retire as a way of generating cash flow and having some fun.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

You Boomers are going to be the last generation that can really plan a retirement. Us Gen Xers, not so much. By the time we came up, traditional pensions and defined retirement benefits were all but extinct. We've been forced into the equities markets and they've crapped the bed several times since I started working, which has really messed with planning. Most of us cannot afford to retire on any sort of schedule. If things fall out just right for me, I might be able to quit when I am able to get on Medicare and Social Security. If not, I will have to work until the end of whatever boom-bust cycle we are in at the time.

I intend to unwind my collection when I retire as a way of generating cash flow and having some fun.

I've got no pension or defined benefits except $1500 in social security. Also, my 401k has been in a money market the past 10 years drawing close to zero interest, because I was burned badly in the 2008-9 meltdown and that reserve is something I cannot risk. So I don't agree with your thesis.

The key is to make more than you spend, and save for the sake of saving. Develop side revenue streams, like buying/selling cards, maybe get an inexpensive house, cabin, or boat or two and rent them out, or get a few wooded acres in a rural area and spend your weekends having fun cutting and splitting firewood to sell.

A side business or two not only adds to your savings, and provides tax benefits, but it also means your retirement can also include having that extra income rolling in. My retirement, for example, includes rental income from a couple properties I've been able to pick up over the past 20 years, some modest hobby income, and some assorted small, safe ventures.

It's easier to save a dollar than to make one, so if you're looking forward to your retirement, keep in mind, if you can figure out a way to save just one dollar a day (simple, right?) that's $365 dollars a year, or $3,650 per decade. Get a cheaper phone service, cancel TV cable or streaming services you can live without, buy used cars and furniture instead of new, and so on.

If I was suddenly 35 years old again, I assure you, I could count on being retired at 60. But you have to want long-term fiscal security more than current gratification.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Mark17

I've got no pension or defined benefits except $1500 in social security. Also, my 401k has been in a money market the past 10 years drawing close to zero interest, because I was burned badly in the 2008-9 meltdown and that reserve is something I cannot risk. So I don't agree with your thesis.

The key is to make more than you spend, and save for the sake of saving. Develop side revenue streams, like buying/selling cards, maybe get an inexpensive house, cabin, or boat or two and rent them out, or get a few wooded acres in a rural area and spend your weekends having fun cutting and splitting firewood to sell.

A side business or two not only adds to your savings, and provides tax benefits, but it also means your retirement can also include having that extra income rolling in. My retirement, for example, includes rental income from a couple properties I've been able to pick up over the past 20 years, some modest hobby income, and some assorted small, safe ventures.

It's easier to save a dollar than to make one, so if you're looking forward to your retirement, keep in mind, if you can figure out a way to save just one dollar a day (simple, right?) that's $365 dollars a year, or $3,650 per decade. Get a cheaper phone service, cancel TV cable or streaming services you can live without, buy used cars and furniture instead of new, and so on.

If I was suddenly 35 years old again, I assure you, I could count on being retired at 60. But you have to want long-term fiscal security more than current gratification.

Yeah...I am going to sort of disagree with you there. Your buck a day with another buck a day compounded over 30 years at 3.15% (the average Treasury interest over the last 30 years) is the princely sum of $18,575.51. It is a drop in the bucket. In the United States, assisted living costs an average of $4,300 per month, according to the 2020 Genworth Financial Cost of Care Survey. For the mathematically challenged, that is $51,600 a year. Your dollar a day nest egg vanishes in four months. You either have to sock away far more money, work much longer, or you have to chase a higher ROI. That means equities, and they've crapped out multiple times since I started working. The last crash punched a ten-year hole in our retirement (it took ten years for the inflation-adjusted value of our portfolio to return to where it was in 2007). The average time in assisted living is 28 months; the average long-term care insurance runs three years. It covers 40%-60% of costs. And did I mention health care inflation, which vastly outstripped regular inflation over the last two decades. Even an inflation rider on a long-term care policy will be overrun unless you pay (through the nose) for an indexed rider. Take the typical 3% rider and you are losing 1% a year to inflation even in normal times. Skilled nursing, the next stage of care, averages over 150% of what assisted living does. My father, who passed away recently, spent nearly a year in assisted living at $6,000 a month plus all life expenses, then two months in a skilled nursing facility at $9,750 a month. And if you or your spouse need dementia care, well, throw another 25% or more onto the number. My mother is in dementia care at $8,000 a month. Between the two of them they were chewing through your $18,000 nest egg every month. Now, go to a region where most people actually live and the cost is even higher. But wait, how about that long term care insurance? Sure, price it out. My wife and i just got it (mid-fifties). 3% inflation rider. We are going to invest $6K a year just to pay for a policy that is likely to pay about 40% of the monthly costs of assisted living 30 years from now. That's another $180K to account for. But if you run out of money the government will take care of you, right? Wrong! That safety net has been shredded since 1980. I live in Cali, which has one of the more generous care packages. You must first be truly destitute then you can apply. But try finding a Medicaid facility that isn't a hell-hole and you will find a waiting list stretching 6-12 months.

Here's a suggestion: before making blithe pronouncements about it merely being a process of wanting it more, try actually pricing out what you are likely to need in terms of goods and services if you become one of the millions of infirm elderly, then back into the actual savings numbers to cover that downside so as not to be a burden to your children. The result will shock you.

I do agree with starting early and being disciplined though. I am so happy that I religiously saved into my IRA and SEPP in the 1990s instead of buying more vintage baseball cards. Er, wait...

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Yeah...try putting a kid through an Ivy grad school while paying for your own health insurance and working no-benefit jobs, then tell me about nickel and dime savings again.

Is the Ivy grad school going to pay off? If so that money isn't lost. Tell your kid it's a zero interest loan that he can pay back, over time, when he's on his feet. If it isn't going to pay off (like, if he/she is a philosophy major) then why are you wasting your money? Let him/her put himself/herself through a cheaper school.

When I was in my mid 30s in 1994, my baseball card business died with the player strike. The only job I could find was making plastic bags for $6.00 an hour in a small factory in my rural area. I spent almost 4 years there, eventually moving into the office, but never making more than $9.85 an hour.

As soon as I took that job, I enrolled in the local community college and took computer classes. I knew nothing about computers before that. I spent 8 hours a day on my feet, pulling bags of that screaming, antiquated machine, fanning them so the melted seals didn't stick together, boxing them, over and over, and then went to class smelling of plastic. I took school more seriously than anybody; I bought the compiler (Pascal) for $50 (more than a full day's pay) and worked with it almost every minute I wasn't at work, in school, or asleep. After acing several classes I got into a grad program in computer science, worked and studied my tail off, and got a job with a Fortune 200 company 2 weeks after my 40th birthday. Salaried at $45,000, it was the first decent "real" job I ever had.

Just saying, you can be positive about your future and life in general, or you can be pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, you will not likely be successful because in your mind, failure is your expectation and that's what your outcome will be.

You control your life. People come to this country with nothing and succeed every day.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Mark17

Is the Ivy grad school going to pay off? If so that money isn't lost. Tell your kid it's a zero interest loan that he can pay back, over time, when he's on his feet. If it isn't going to pay off (like, if he/she is a philosophy major) then why are you wasting your money? Let him/her put himself/herself through a cheaper school.

When I was in my mid 30s in 1994, my baseball card business died with the player strike. The only job I could find was making plastic bags for $6.00 an hour in a small factory in my rural area. I spent almost 4 years there, eventually moving into the office, but never making more than $9.85 an hour.

As soon as I took that job, I enrolled in the local community college and took computer classes. I knew nothing about computers before that. I spent 8 hours a day on my feet, pulling bags of that screaming, antiquated machine, fanning them so the melted seals didn't stick together, boxing them, over and over, and then went to class smelling of plastic. I took school more seriously than anybody; I bought the compiler (Pascal) for $50 (more than a full day's pay) and worked with it almost every minute I wasn't at work, in school, or asleep. After acing several classes I got into a grad program in computer science, worked and studied my tail off, and got a job with a Fortune 200 company 2 weeks after my 40th birthday. Salaried at $45,000, it was the first decent "real" job I ever had.

Just saying, you can be positive about your future and life in general, or you can be pessimistic. If you are pessimistic, you will not likely be successful because in your mind, failure is your expectation and that's what your outcome will be.

You control your life. People come to this country with nothing and succeed every day.

+1, that is the right attitude to have. When we fail it is our fault. When we succeed it is our fault. I have found that even when I am failing, if I am trying to get better, I still feel pretty good. It's not doing anything that is paralyzing and makes me feel bad
.. ...
.

[Exhibitman]

Oh, I do not discount one's own role in both failures and successes, and I am not sitting still despairing over my circumstances, but regardless of what I plan to do, the universe may have other plans. My mother has dementia. No one planned on that. All you can do is plan mitigating moves for that as best as you can.

[Mark17]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Your buck a day with another buck a day compounded over 30 years at 3.15% (the average Treasury interest over the last 30 years) is the princely sum of $18,575.51. It is a drop in the bucket.

I am not saying that if you save a single dollar a day your retirement is secure. It is an example. Obviously.

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

In the United States, assisted living costs an average of $4,300 per month, according to the 2020 Genworth Financial Cost of Care Survey. For the mathematically challenged, that is $51,600 a year. Your dollar a day nest egg vanishes in four months. You either have to sock away far more money, work much longer, or you have to chase a higher ROI. That means equities, and they've crapped out multiple times since I started working.

I have no equities because I got clobbered the last time they crapped out. So instead, I cobbled together a down payment of about $40,000 and bought a rental house in 2005, then did it again (with $50,000) in 2017. They cash flow about $950 each now. So, that's $22,800 per year. Early social security ($1500/month) is $18,000 per year. So, if I can make $1,000 a month, which I do, that comes out to about $52,000 annually. That's passive income ($40k) and leisure, hobby income ($12k.)

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Here's a suggestion: before making blithe pronouncements about it merely being a process of wanting it more, try actually pricing out what you are likely to need in terms of goods and services, then back into the actual savings numbers. The result will shock you.

I am not being condescending, I am trying to be encouraging. I was at rock bottom at the age of 36 and retired by 61. Right now, my net worth (savings) grows by abut $2500 each month because I am very frugal. So I'm well aware of the potential very high costs that could come about in the later years of life. Retirement doesn't mean you start drawing down savings and assets - you want to try to always grow them.

But if you prefer to not have your negative outlook on life challenged, that's your decision.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by 3arod13

One of the great things about being in the military is being able to travel and be stationed in different places. I grew up in New York and have always been a huge New York Yankee fan and collector. I have always been a player collector, so being stationed in different places, I found myself watching teams and following players that I normally wouldn't have. When I was in Texas, I watched the Texas Rangers a lot. I liked Juan Gonzalez, as he was a pure power hitter, and I started to collect his cards and memorabilia. Hence, this picture shows just how much my Juan Gonzalez collection grew. I even had the opportunity to meet the Texas Rangers Owner, Tom Hicks, when he visited our squadron. Before ebay, the Navy gave me many opportunities to visit local cards shops and shows in other states, giving me more opportunity to find stuff I wouldn't normally have been able to find at home. Now retired, I have more time to search for memorabilia and also focus more on my collection.

I am with you about Juan Gonzalez. I always liked him. One of the few modern era guys who would have fit in back in 50s, 60s, or 70s. Great collection, sir, looks fantastic!