Just finished applying for Social Security. Now I really feel old. Ford stops my supplemental coverage (that bridged this since I retired 5 years ago) this month and that's a huge chunk of our monthly pension. Did the caluclations and it's discounted 25% at age 62 in my case (vs waiting 4 more years to age 66). I'd have to live 25 more years (age 87) to break even on that at a 5% inflation factor. Doubt I'd really give a @#$#@$ at that age even if i live that long. (highly doubtful) So, we can continue to also buy food rather than just pay property taxes and gasoline for a few more years. Already gave up one house because of prop taxes, hate to do it again. Trailer park here we come if it happens again! o No:
Hey Dave You can always move to Florida ,Dave their is a Manufactured home gated community in Orlando.They have enclosed garage ,front porches 3 community pools ,etc looks like a regular home with vinyl siding.10 minutes from the local dragstrip.Lot rent about$ 450.00 amonth ;with home price for new in the $120,000.just an idea .Been trying to get a musclecar race here ;itwill never compete with the PSMCDR,or any of the events in Martin .But a long ways for us Florida boys to travel your way;maybe the end of the year races I may be able to make.Our local dragstrip in Orlando and Gainseville just completed a few episodes of pinks;.Chris Teed
Anything's gotta be better than this state right now. Man are the people bailing out. Not just auto people either. Lots of young professionals. Florida is great, but i could never handle the summers there. Have two good friends that race at Gainesville all the time. Dan Macal (of Green Cove Springs) races a black 83 Hurst Olds and Kevin (can't recall his lst name-brain fart) is from Gainesville and races a 78 Cutlass. Both are Olds powered and very fast. Another one is Butch something who used to have a black (before that yellow, before that orange) 68 442 that launched about 4 feet off the ground. He ws running a BBC in that car after breaking numerous Olds 455's. Big time power. Now has the ugliest Olds ever made (maybe even the ugliest car ever made)...a 78 or 79 Cutlass Salon....the original Buttless Cutlass. Hope to see you one of these days. Long way up here, about the same as it is from here to down there. :laugh:
Dave, congrats I think...I too started getting the SS back in November and my wife starts right now...even though she never paid into it, she gets half again what I get. Funny huh? Hey, it's your money..... Len
It is a strange system. My wife will get it in two more years. She did work off an on since we were married, but never made that much. It'll still help, though. It's really a no brainer as to whther you take the money as soon as you can with the discount or wait until you're older to get less discount. It takes 14 years (to age 76) to break even with assuming 0 inflation, even longer than that if you figure in an inflation factor. The idscounts future payments back to current value. I ran it at 5% and the break even point went out 11 more years (to age 87). I actually ended uop with a $500/month increase over what Ford was giving me as an offset suppplement since I retired at 56 (6 years ago) (part of the special early package). They estimated SS at that time and discounted it back.
Dave, I'm 14 years behind you and already worried about escalating property taxes during my "golden years". With my local tax inflation rate, my "golden years" will be the result of me wetting my pants after making the payments. With this in mind, I've convinced the wife to move into a car-barn/house, somewhere between Tulsa and Springfield Mo, as soon as the last kid graduates high school. Let me drive the ramrod every now and then, and your trailer rent will be free. :grin:
Good luck Dave, I hope the taxes don't eat you alive. It's a shame the way they tax folks out of their homes. :rant: Steve, I'm a year behind you, but I don't think holing up and living on a fixed income with rising costs is our only option. I have been giving this alot of thought lately. At our age we still have time to provide for living the good life when we are 65+, but we need to get busy on it now. Here is what I figure the plan is. Leverage existing assets into rental property. Either commercial or muliti unit residential. It has to be big enuff to justify proffesional managment, so you are not tied down, and be in an area of growth and rising values. Say you sell or refinance some existing assets to raise the down payment on a 50 unit apartment building. You pull in a 10% cash on cash return, and that goes up each year with inflation. Then you get it paid off in 20 years when you turn 68. So if you collect rent of 600 per month per unit, and pay half of that in taxes, maint, mgmt, etc, that leaves you with income of 15,000 per month for the rest of your life. This is sounding really good. :beer
I was told in Alpheretta GA. that you house property taxes drop to 500 or 600 a year when you reach the age of 65. If that is true that is something all states should do for people that reach retirement age.
Topless, we're looking for a good candidate for governor here this year. Come on out and you have at least one vote............and even more than the politicians of either party realize. Ford, GM, and Chrysler have forced just about everybody over 50 into early retirement over the last 10 years. Started in Ford in 1995. Immediately, a whole lot of people that were making very comfortable bucks went from paying a lot of income tax (State, Federal, City, County, etc. etc.) to paying no income tax except what DerSchlictmeister addedon our retirements. As soon as we hit 62 (like I did a coupla weeks ago, we also start drawing out of the account with the FED. Not everybody left the state, but ditched the high property tax monsters and moved upstate or beyond commuting range where the property taxes are still reasonable. Mine were cut in half when I moved to Brighton from Farmiongton Hills. Smaller house, but 4 times the property, over twice the garage space (used to have a 3 and a single), now have a double, a quadruple (that I just built), another double out back, and put up a tent storage type place that could get another one inside if neessary. Think they'll find that out real quick in the Fall elections. To coin a phrase: Read OUR lips..........no new taxes. Don't really care what they're for! Joel: Or..you could just buy a few Hemi's and sell them off in the future. :TU: :TU: Before all this trend to lay off your people to make budget (and your own greedy bonuses) started, the average number of pension checks for Ford Management retirees was 13. That's one year and one month. We all knew that and put up with a lot of crap (some of us more, some of us less, than others :laugh: :laugh: :laugh with that in mind. I just passed 5 years (that's 60 checks) and still chugging. Never would have made it this far if I hadn't been broomed out the door at 56.
It does sound good and folks do it all the time.... Renters can be such a pain though.......and I say CAN be. My folks rented my Grandparents house to the daughter and son in law of a longtime friend of Dad's. Anyway they were renting to buy......didn't matter, the house got destroyed. Among other things....holes cut/smashed in walls...The riding mover, snow blower and roto tiller they were left for their use destroyed....Dog piss in the carpet so bad when I ripped it out I could smell it upwind as I dragged it to the dumpster....the list went on and on. Fortunately......I guess.....they ruined the drain field flushing baby wipes down so they had to vacate. They had a stake in the well being of the house....it just didn't matter. ou:
Brian, don't lump all renters into the same heap. Some of us are decent, upstanding citizens. Well, upstanding anyways. Joel, if it were that easy to make money on a rental, everyone would be doing it. The problem is occupancy. Someone builds another complex right next to yours with the same theory of easy money as you. Too much supply, not enough demand, and you're left trying to make your mortgage payment with only 80% of your units rented. Dave, you should've moved to the west side of the state when you last packed your bags. The politics over here are more to your liking (if it's possible to actually like politics), and property values aren't quite as high (though there are areas that are ridiculous). Problem is, you'd have to convince your grandson to come with you. Maybe you could dangle the keys in front of him. Do you really think all you geezers p will vote out Jenny next fall? I thought most of you moved to Florida. Besides, she just single-handedly convinced Google to build their new tech center in Michigan, thanks to the fantastic high-tech business environment she's created here. I know it's true, because I read it in the newspaper.
Keys........ Funny you should mention that....The Ramrod keys are MIA...again. Along with a lot of other unexplainable things in our house and also our sister-in-law's house nearby. She lost her husband to cancer a few months ago. He was always a prankster and I'm starting to wonder myself just WTF is going on...??? So far there've been 4 totally wierd incidents in their house (3 with keys) and 3 in ours (only 1 with keys...this one)..In all the other cases, they appeared out of nowhere, kinda like Hillary's billing records from Rose law firm on her nightstand (after two years MIA) but so far not the Ramrod keys. They all show up exactly where you just looked 2 or 3 times. No hot wiring this time. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I have one set left. Next move will not be to another area of Michigan, that's for sure. Even if they could get figure out what to do and get agreement, it's at least 10 years off and they haven't hit bottom yet. After today and tonight in Dearborn, it may get a whole lot worse very soon as Little Fallujah explodes in protest of the Israeli retaliations. Not a pretty sight. Then Detroit will explode since they're not getting all the press anymore...then UAW....help........ So, WTF are my #$%^&@#^#$^ keys? Ken was buried in his "Superman" jockey shorts (his son Matt's idea). Right now I'm picturing a bullseye on his ass for my foot if I can ever prove this. (not much chance, I know).
Quick .... somebody call a priest! I find that the best way to exorcise a demon is to reach for another beer. :laugh: Of course, since he's a benevolent demon, you might want to crack a second beer and invite him to sit down with you.
Just curious, Steve. You at all related to the "Hodges Dodges" race car teams of the glory days? They were tough!
That's why I said: "Renters can be such a pain though.......and I say CAN be." Renters can be.....not....Renters are. :Smarty: I also know someone who did the "no money down" yada yada yada. He quit work to do it full time. Not to say the system can't work, but he had two big problems: 1. A lot of others are doing the same thing, so the bargains became more and more in areas that were......lets say.......not desirable.......where others wouldn't go. 2. Too much money was pulled out of the properties to fund livable growth. I ended up giving him his job back. Kinda like the buddy who got a Snap On truck.......selling the tools was easy. Collecting the money.......well that was hard.
Not that I know of, if I were, maybe I'd run a little faster. My relatives were still riding mules in the 60's :laugh:
Mules are cool. When we lived in Western Ky in the 50's, my Dad hired this farmer to plow up our yard and level it off. Not knowing he didn't own a tractor, but a team of mules. They are HUGE. My older brother had a dynamite clay basketball court with lighting where the 4 high shcool teams from our county practiced all summer at night since it was too hot in the daytime. Never forget the look on his face when he came home and saw his basketball court plowed in and the goal was about 12 feet high at that point. We dug a trench, dug under the pole (old telephone pole), and dropped it down to the proper exact height after levelling the area (it was like a dusty pool table). Must have worked as out school, North Marshall High School, won the State championship the following year with 2 high school All Americans, and 2 others that went on to play ball at Vanderbilt and UK. They didn't have classes then, so everybody played everybody in district, then regional, then State finals. Pretty slick! All thanks to those damn mules......... :bglasses: :bglasses:
