Any retirement spending regrets?

[imwjl]

I hope this marriage and family humor on spending translates. Again, my 92 year old mother sides with my wife and this month's new car will be two bathroom remodels.

They're correct about my using bathrooms more than I use cars, guitars and other stuff. My method would be some DIY replacing what is there but I am sure I will like a walk in style shower and what my wife has selected.

The theme of RVs, condos etc... in the posts stands out. A biggest gamble we have in mind is razing our very basic cabin for something still simple but usable year-round. That would impact some travel budgeting but we've done a lot of that. That might be a good long-term gamble and way to pass assets to the kids.

[Mr. Jelly]

Quit possibly the type of people that frequent these types of forums are not the type to have gotten themselves in financial trouble at an advanced age.

I can't say I regret any expenditure but if I have anything close, I'd say I might not have bought as large of SUV that I have. A midsize would have been just fine.

[RP]

Did anyone already retired regret some big spending?

No "big spending" but lots of little spending. As my ex-wife used to say, I regret spending money as if I had it...

[SFCRetired]

Been retired over 7 years, downsized our home 2 months ago. Same size house but no acreage to take care of. No regrets. We are not big spenders.

But if we ever need long term care our money will be gone in a flash. Every older retired person I have ever known loses most all of their money if any type of care is needed.

These "homes" will take what a person has in SS for payment but if you have any assets they will take it all until its gone. Those who can pay will pay for those who can't. You have to be pretty wealthy to avoid it, or plan well in advance. Or just get lucky that you can fend for yourself until your final days are upon you.

Who knew dying would be so hard and stressful? These are my pet peeves as I have watched it happen over and over. But I don't dwell on it.

[tbeltrans]

Recently finished building my little "studio" that consists of a whole pile of various kinds of hardware synthesizers and sequencers - no computer involved (though obviously the digital components among that pile have CPUs and firmware. I just nver took to making music on a computer. I even prefer to write arrangements for solo guitar with staff paper and pencil. Weird, considering my career as a software engineer.

Anyway, My inspiration for this was years ago when a co-worker retired and bought himself a Shop Smith for wood working and spent many happy hours in his garage making things from wood.

I put together my studio in our condo in my half of our den. I do have a couple of mics so I can record acoustic guitar parts when I want to. My mixer is a Tascam Model 16 that has a built in multi-track recorder and that is good enough for me.

So, no regrets. My financial advisor kept telling me to buy a new car for a change but I just can't bring myself to do that. I have always bought used and not had a car loan and don't want to start now. But for much less money, I can have years of enjoyment in my studio.

I did way too much travel for work over the courses of various careers and much prefer to finally get to be a "homebody" these days.

Tony

[eyesore]

I'm going to retire in January 2025. My wife is ten years younger. I have a state pension ,already started with SS, and retirement savings. I have seen lots of friends retire and go and buy a big dream house ,only to die right afterwards or just can't afford it.I 'm staying put ! Everybody wants "get out of here"! My 3 kids are here,I don't know anyone far away so I'm not moving "where it's cheaper".Yeah I'm concerned financially but we will make it work!.... not hostile ;but everyone I work with tells me they are moving and I should too!

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by SFCRetired

Been retired over 7 years, downsized our home 2 months ago. Same size house but no acreage to take care of. No regrets. We are not big spenders.

But if we ever need long term care our money will be gone in a flash. Every older retired person I have ever known loses most all of their money if any type of care is needed.

These "homes" will take what a person has in SS for payment but if you have any assets they will take it all until its gone. Those who can pay will pay for those who can't. You have to be pretty wealthy to avoid it, or plan well in advance. Or just get lucky that you can fend for yourself until your final days are upon you.

Who knew dying would be so hard and stressful? These are my pet peeves as I have watched it happen over and over. But I don't dwell on it.

Bingo, a major fear if that's the right word. I don't want to be a burden, and don't yet have specific conclusions or strategies on long term care but know this matter of assets.

[islandguitar]

We've been pretty pleased with how retirement has worked for us. As above, my wife is 9 years younger and this has meant that the aging and passing of parents has been "staggered" and we fortunately were able to handle my folks, and now her folks who are in their 90's now.
Our plan was to "downsize" our home early, (26 years ago), so this issue was not upon us in later years. So, we know the next stop, if health holds will be a small condo, but to date we've done well in managing our modest home after those many years.
We draw from retirement funds and social security, but have manage to take a pretty small percentage of retirement funds, while working a bunch of side jobs to keep things rolling along and allow those funds to grow even as we're retired. It makes a huge difference! The benefits of this allow a lot of social and community involvement while gaining funds that carry our weeks with food and incidental expenses. We rarely hit the ATM!
We'll take a special trip maybe once a year, just after working seasonally from May to Oct, and that really does well for us in covering travel wishes/desires. We're quite near to my daughter/grandkids, so that's a plus.....and we live in an area that has grown to be a resort area, so it feels like we "live where we vacation"!
Regrets...maybe just one or two guitars that were perhaps less needed in the big scheme of things! But otherwise, I think it's been a really good ride so far.

[GCWaters]

My wife and I will probably retire in a year...I may consider a three year, half-time, remote work contract at that time.

House is paid for, should be out of any remaining debt this time next year, with the exception of a small cabin that we bought five years ago. We'll both have SS and my wife will have a small pension, plus we'll have my retirement account, so I'm feeling pretty good about money.

We have two kids about 3.5 hours away, and one about two days drive away. The cheapest thing would be to stay where we are, but we're looking at two other options: (1) Sell our house, use the money to enlarge the cabin so we have bedrooms for everyone, live there. That's my preference. (2) Sell our house, buy something smaller near the two closest kids. Wife would love that, as we'd be closer to our Grandkids. We'd almost certainly have to have a small mortgage, though, and the change in states would cost us about $5k in extra state income tax, so I'm a little leery.

Not at all sure what we'll do, but as my wife says: It's a good thing we don't have to decide right now!

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by SFCRetired

Been retired over 7 years, downsized our home 2 months ago. Same size house but no acreage to take care of. No regrets. We are not big spenders.

But if we ever need long term care our money will be gone in a flash. Every older retired person I have ever known loses most all of their money if any type of care is needed.

These "homes" will take what a person has in SS for payment but if you have any assets they will take it all until its gone. Those who can pay will pay for those who can't. You have to be pretty wealthy to avoid it, or plan well in advance. Or just get lucky that you can fend for yourself until your final days are upon you.

Who knew dying would be so hard and stressful? These are my pet peeves as I have watched it happen over and over. But I don't dwell on it.

At least in my area, the VA has housing for assisted living right across the street from the VA Medical Center. Though our wives probably aren't qualified for this (and I don't know yet how this works), we should be. Might be worth looking into ahead of time to have a plan.

Tony

[Steve-arino]

I retired at 60 years old 9 years ago. Not my choice, I was a senior "Client Partner" at IBM and they wanted cheap, young salespeople. I got divorced a few years earlier so suffice it to say it wasn't an easy time.

I was not prepared to retire but I sure didn't want to stop living.

I sold my condo on the beach in NY, bought a Winnebago View (the 25 ft RV mentioned earlier in this thread) and traveled the country for 6 months. Lots of National Parks (love!) and visited my daughter in Boston and my son in Berkeley, CA. Bought a cheap guitar and had my kindle (which I couldn't live without). Much longer story than that, but if I had not done that it would have been a regret. I never drove a truck before, but I planned the heck out of it before I left and practiced for a few days before I left. I sold the RV right after the trip and moved to Florida. I didn't think I could afford to live in NY, which was where I really wanted to be. Florida was pretty nice actually, but my heart was in NY.

5 years later, I ended up coming to the realization that I could move back to a smaller place on the beach down the block from the condo that I sold. So I moved back to NY.

My plan, which I've stuck to over the years, is know how much you have in your various "savings" accounts, know how much other income you'll receive on a monthly basis, plan, budget, and hope for the best. It's different living on a fixed income; I was not used to that when I retired.

I've always lived on a budget, and I still very much do. That's important when you retire; live to your means, but don't cheat yourself.

One more thought - on Long Term Care. When I was in my 50's, recently divorced, I decided to buy a LTC policy. It's expensive, but I see and hear what other people go through. You might want to check into this if you're younger, I don't know what is offered today. I dread the day when my kids might have to help take care of me.

I'm going on a bucket list trip this Friday. Might be my last, but maybe not. I just updated my will, and a few other items. That was very important to me as well. Keep your important papers updated.

In answer to your question though, there is nothing that I regret spending money on, including all the guitars that I've bought and sold since I retired.

[Acousticado]

imwjl, you seem well-positioned to embrace the next phase of life, so I say, remain sensible, ease into it, then hit the ground running without trepidation. Perhaps my experience addresses what you’re pondering...

No regrets whatsoever. Life hasn’t been without hiccups which were a part of our growth and journey, but fortunately, my wife (of 43 years) and I have made good choices with education, career, child-rearing and worked hard over the years, including me having built our longtime rural family home. Also, some luck thrown in for good measure.

We both retired in 2012 at age 56 after careers in federal public service, so well-pensioned and no debt. Our Canadian health care system has its challenges, but we’re blessed to really have no worries in that regard. Can only imagine the downside of what it’s like to live where health care is not universal and largely covered...by our taxes of course, but it’s sooo worth it, with little risk of losing long-earned assets. We love and hope to stay in our home for as long as possible, but we’ll fairly easily transition to assisted living, nursing home if/when the time comes. We won’t be a burden to our children...and they’re on-track so they won’t be to theirs.

In the 5 years leading up to retirement, my work travels took me to California, Arizona and Florida where my wife would join me and we’d add on a few weeks of convertible road trips. All the while we were observant of where we may want to spend the winter months in retirement away from Ontario, Canada.

We’d considered sailing the Caribbean (we’d bought a boat to sail locally), RVing with a motorcycle in tow (I’d bought a Harley Road King), but in the end, just a few months after actually retiring, we decided to buy a modest vacation home in Fort Myers Beach, FL. We happily wintered there for 10 years before deciding to make a change (enjoyed many visits by family and friends). To our good fortune, we sold at top dollar in 2022 just a few months before Hurricane Ian destroyed the community we’d lived in. Only recently are new homes finally erected or existing restored with electricity and water being reinstated just within the past couple of months, which reveals just how devastating such disasters can be. Some folks never recover, many through no fault of their own.

5 years ago, we downsized to a similar sized home (but suburban bungalow, instead of the Cape Cod rural we’d lived in for 37 years) to no longer have to deal with the rigour of maintaining acreage. Spring, summer, fall...we stay mostly at home to enjoy quality time with family (kids live within a 1/2 hr.), friends around the pool, and volunteer and enjoy more local excursions such as to wineries, a bit of camping.

Rather than 5 months away each winter, beginning this past March, we rented a villa in Barbados for a month, where our two sons, d-i-ls and grandchildren travelled to join us for a couple of weeks. It was spectacular. In the future, we will continue to take such winter family adventures every one or two years at various tropical destinations. We never did get to do the RV thing, so we’ll be exploring occasional rental in the future to scratch that itch to further explore Canada and America by road.

Late 60s, our health remains quite good. I’m quite active with cycling, hiking, swimming, skiing, yard work. All our affairs are in order, right down to owning our burial plot. And almost 50 years of playing guitar and writing songs has been and remains good for the soul!

We don’t take our blessings for granted. We realize it can all change in a heartbeat.

Good luck with transitioning to your golden years!

[Gunny]

Originally Posted by LAPlayer

That's why they have rental companies so smart people who want to use RVs, boats, snow mobiles...... 2-3 times a year rent them without buying them, paying insurance all year, dealing with massive depreciation......

Yep, we have used the Outdoorsy service 2 times and enjoyed it so much we thought getting our own. If you do the math though, we can rent for years and years and still not spend as much as a new RV.

[guitargabor]

Our situation did not involve regret .It was more like a major disappointment that resulted in a 15 per cent loss of our retirement portfolio.

We decided after 30 years, to move from a lovely suburb of St Paul MN to a much smaller city in northwest Washington state.

In our experience, it takes about 2 years living in a certain location to really "figure things out..".

Not infrequently I ask myself the question:" Am I living in the USA or a third world country?...."

After living for over forty five years in the better suburbs of major metro cities, the many downsides of "small town" life(at least in the pacific north west) continue to shock me.


This change would have been more tolerable if our current housing costs would not have been the highest in the country, after Hawaii.

It wasn't until after our move here that we learned Washington state is a "buyer beware" state for residential housing.And we found that out the hard way....

[LAPlayer]

Originally Posted by guitargabor

Our situation did not involve regret .It was more like a major disappointment that resulted in a 15 per cent loss of our retirement portfolio.

Hello GG,
I ask this because you offered it up and in retirement my wife and I own residential commercial properties that we rent/lease. How did you lose 15% of your portfolio by buying a fixed asset? I assume you paid cash since starting a mortgage in retirement is... not prudent.

Secondly, didn't you vacation 3,6,9 months to get a feel for the rural life prior to deciding to buy?

Lastly, you had a home prior to moving. Did you sell that and invest the money (into your new home or interest-bearing checking or saving account) as you downsized? If so, that contributed to your "retirement portfolio" less the money you spent on the new home.

Again, as someone who has invested heavily in real estate for retirement, I don't think I've ever heard anyone buying a fixed-asset (investment) and claiming they lost 15% of their investments/portfolio.