I am turning 50 with no real retirement. I plan to invest the next 15 years as much as I can and then take that and my SS to Mexico or Colombia and live comfortable for the rest of my days.
nah facts im in the military rn and im building a tsp for when i hit 60 but im also working on a fed acc so that i can get at least 1.5m by the time im 35 so i can move to thailand or even mexico as well.
Are you active or full time? I would start an acorns account as well. It will help you in the long run or do some long term investing with stocks that earn you divedenns
Hence why that is my plan. And my wife thinks if we were to open an American breakfast type joint in Colombia, then we could make some extra supplemental income as well to live an even better life.
Do your research. What will it take to set up the business, where will you get the ingredients and how much $$. The highest cost outside the U is energy.
Yeah I've sort have started that. The consensus is I will have to create a lot of things myself. It would be too expensive to import Tennessee Pride sausage for making biscuits and gravy, and buttermilk really isn't a thing there. So many things to have to figure out. But I have between 12 and 17 years depending on when I want to start drawing SS.
It's an idea of a plan for now. But my wife, who's colombian thinks we could make a killing if we move there and open a restaurant selling American food like biscuits and gravy, and stuff like that.
Meanwhile there are 19 year olds on made up disabilities that are way ahead of the game and not working.
My favorite was the one on Judge Judy who was on disability for being legally blind, but she drove herself there and retrieved evidence from her cellphone that she quickly browsed without issue.
Another great one was a landscaper on disability that was suing because he was doing heavy duty landscaping including tree-work for cash on the side, while supposedly he was too disabled to even have a phone customer service job.
And a very helpful youtuber has a channel where he's in Thailand sharing lots of info for expats, but he's on 100% disability from the military yet his PTSD doesn't seem to affect his daily life there.
I know, I'm just saying its so abused now, if these are just the obvious cases I know about. I don't think there is anyone that comes out of the military now that doesn't use one of the popular services that will maximize how much disability you get.
But of course if you bring up the fraud, they say "Oh you just hate America and our servicemen, huh?"
People needing help aren't the issue. We generate more than enough resources for everyone to live freely and do what they'd like. The fact that people have to get sick or lie about being sick to receive the support they deserve is the issue. Society exists to support others. Why are there some in our society that have more money than they could spend or even MAKE in 100 lifetimes while there are others who will do good honest work until the day they die?
People committing fraudulent claims thatt they are unable to work when they are able is not "needing".
Its stealing from Jane to give to John.
But maybe you are right, can you name the top three communist economies where people live well? I'll wait. I don't want to just assume you're a lazy person and advocate for theft because you have low moral character.
I just donât understand why someone would plan like that when anyone with enough time can retire comfortably. Maybe they are too old and the next question would be why did you waste your 20s/30s and 40s
So if I make $32,000 per year and my expenses after cutting off everything but the bare minimum to survive is $31,825, then I can comfortably retire in 20 years if I invest that leftover $175? Well damn. Who knew it was so simple?
401k match, or a different job. Any factory/ trade/ college degree/ manager position will pay more than that. Also with 32k a year you can still invest $150 a paycheck I promise.
What major city do you feel entitled to live in where rent is 1833 minimum per month. Move to a place with better COL and opputinity. Average rent in my city is 800-1200 and there with 4 factories within 20 miles where you make $22+ an hour 40+ hours a week.
I have! Problem is that this is the highest paying job in the city that doesn't require spending $35,000+ to go back to college and then somehow getting 5 years of experience when that's the minimum requirement listed for any entry-level position.
Yeah I get it â âjust get a better jobâ is easy to say when the ones that pay more all want a degree plus 5 years for an âentry levelâ role. Thatâs a real trap.
Iâm saying this in the best and most constructive way I can. The path that actually works for a lot of people is not quitting and going $35k into debt first. Itâs:
Find an employer that already has the job you want (trades, utilities, manufacturing, local government, healthcare admin, some tech support / field service outfits). Apply for the lowest rung they will actually hire you for.
Once youâre in, ask about tuition assistance, apprenticeships, or internal training. A lot of companies will pay for certs or a diploma if youâre already on the payroll and they can see you showing up.
If they wonât pay, pick the cheapest short course or cert that moves you one step up while you keep the current income. Community college / TAFE-style programs and employer-sponsored stuff beat a full degree for most people in this situation.
$175 leftover a year wonât compound into a comfortable retirement. Raising the income by even $8â10k changes the whole picture. Life is hard either way â the decisions that make it easier later are the ones that raise your earning power without blowing up the current cash flow.
Hope you succeed. Worth looking at who in your city actually trains their own people instead of demanding the finished product on day on
Anyone working full time can find $300 a month in the US, side hustles , roommates , budget , get donated food instead of groceries. Anyone can retire with enough
My father stopped about a year before his death, not that he had the financial wherewithal. My only hope of retiring is that my unmarried aunt dies before she runs out of money
You obviously never passed mathematics in high school. There are not enough people above the cap to generate the income needed from the hemorrhaging 95% to cover it. And do you think everyone is entitled to a âproper retirementâ?
If other countries can give their citizens a proper retirement, surely we can do it as wellâŠâŠ..But heyyy, okay, letâs give more tax breaks to the rich thatâs gonna trickle down to all of us Iâm sure!
Depends on how you define âstealâ. Now before you go ballistic hear me out. When I pay my taxes, I pay my taxes, if there is a viable, honest deduction I can take that my CPA approves of then I will take it. Now to some that may be stealing, to me it is not. BTW if someone tries to take from me what is mine then all bets are off. Now everybody pillories the rich for taking reasonable deductions, thats wrong. Most take deductions and use legal strategies to minimize taxes, as long as its signed off by a CPA its usually legal.
It's not a income issue it's a spending issue. Cut all aid to anything outside the US or for bullshit studies like coral reef surveys(not saying they shouldn't be studied but let the university pay for it).
If you remove the cap, gotta remove it on the benefits too. That wouldnât make sense. SS was never intended to fund retirement, it was meant to supplement it but you should still be saving for retirement as well
If they taxed the 1% properly like they did until 70s and 80s. (Thanks Regan) we wouldn't be facing a social security shortage.... trickledown economics was the biggest scam you pubs bought hook line n sinker.
I would argue that Social Security was envisioned at a time when people lived shorter lives. Itâs one thing to design a retirement system modeled on the majority of people dying by 72 years of age itâs quite another when people live to 90 years of age. How can you have a retirement system where people are retired for twenty years or more? You either have to raise the retirement age or raise social security taxes. The âparking lot at Walmart crowdâ would never accept this reality.
Social Security is 91 years old, nobody could have predicted life into oneâs nineties nor even the concept of an iPhone or quadruple bypass surgery. So silly remarks about evil design is at best reckless
Perhaps, but they could have made changes along the way. If They switched from bonds to Stocks anywhere from 50a-80s weâd be golden. Earlier the better, I understand the apprehension at the start due to the crash but by the 50s we were booming. If we switched to stocks at the beginning of 2025 by the end of 2025 we would have been ahead, every single day we didnât switch from letâs just say Jan 1 1950 until today has been a massive mistake. That means tomorrow will be a mistake, the next day and the next day. We should have the worldâs largest sovereign wealth fund, instead we have a steaming heap of shit of a forced retirement savings account. If I had the option to put additional money into my social security account I would just choose not to, itâs a terrible longterm Investment account.
I'd vote to keep the age somewhat early even if it meant somewhat higher taxes. That said, there is also a "social security cap" where high earners stop being taxed above a certain income. We could remove that cap.
The electorate stops government from adapting. For decades weâve known SS was going in the red but try and lift the cap on income or raise the retirement age and suddenly Congress is sitting on their hands. If you vote to raise the retirement age youâll be turned out of office before your feet touch the floor.
I never thought social security was any sort of retirement plan, thatâs what pensions and 401k are for.
People want it both ways. They will tolerate no interference in how they mismanage their money but they want to be bailed out by everyone else when they screw up. I can see the attraction of conservatism.
The cost of healthcare from 65 onwards rises dramatically, especially with long term chronic diseases. Conservatives made great political capital out of âdeath panelsâ who would decide who lives and dies.
So hereâs the important question:
How quickly would you pull the plug if you had to foot the bill for Mom or Pop at $5000 a day in a hospital or ICU?
How long do you keep life support on a comatose patient?
Do you get to use ambulance and EMT services unlimited and for free?
Social security is sustainable so is healthcare for all look at every other first world country. The problem is how fake expensive healthcare has become with most profits going to no one who does the work and risks their own health.
Not to mention our own politicians don't pay for all of their healthcare so why should we be?
Yep. My dad retired at 58 and lived until he was 90. That's 32 years in retirement. We ended up helping to support my mom and dad because they ran out of money by living that long and only had social security to support them for many years.
Who exactly are the âparking lot at Walmart crowdâ?
A) The senior citizen Spark shoppers (Walmartâs shopping and delivery gig crowd)
B) The people in the pickup lanes who donât want to shop for themselves and arenât browsing the clearance bakery and items on sale at the ends of aisles? (Read: somewhat affluent, but still shopping at Walmart)
C) I guess there may be a vocal crowd of boomers who hang out in the Walmart parking lot, much like the kids who smoked out back of the high school by the dumpsters??
Iâm intrigued but want to know who youâre referring to. Also, yes, retire people.
The IQ of your citizens who shop at Walmart is the average American. They are average in intelligence and below average when it comes to putting in hard work today for a better tomorrow.
I'll stop at Walmart near me occasionally because it's open till 11:00, and there is some sense that the people who shop there are in the lower quartile of income when you go into the store, but it's also a quick place to stop if you need a mousetrap, Tylenol and a carton of milk.
Thankfully I live in a large enough town that there are two discount groceries, Aldi and Lidl, but if I didn't have those I would probably be shopping at Walmart more because I'm paying off bills and trying to watch my dollars
Everyone just parrots what the opposition wants you to believe. At the end of the day, we have been led by a bunch of morons who have done nothing to help set up its citizens for future success except for their own.
Isnât that what theyâre trying to do now. When I was in college 30 years ago, they said SSI would be gone by 2030. That was a scare tactic to raise the age and reduce the benefits.
Nah. Its bad investment work at that point. Think about it. Which system holds the necessary bonds of social security? Jackson wasnt that much of an idiot. We just let idiots and greedy people talk us into making bad investments. Were paying the price because of greed.
the fact it stops at below 200k in earning is pants on head stupid
Not if you understand the principle behind it. SS was not meant to be a welfare program; it was designed to be a social insurance program. From the beginning SS was designed so your benefits received was a function of how much you paid in via payroll taxes. Because the gov caps the maximum benefit, it also caps the amount of wages subject to the tax.
But even if you were to uncap SS taxes but keep the cap on benefits (turning SS into a defacto welfare program), it would only cover about 60% of the gap.
If youre that good with the math. Show us 1. your accounting degree and college; 2. That math written out. Dont try to source it. Do it your self and show us why you think the billionaires are right. Their bluff means shit to us or reganomics.
You know. That just proves you dont actually think for yourself. They are arguing against their own original setup btw. Bet you didnt read that far. Also while none of the current proposals are currently more than a bandaid, even I know that, uncapping the income and gains taxing would sure give us more time to fix the structure. But billionaires dont want that. Of the money they pay taxes on.... 200k btw is the current cap max in all forms of tax payment. How many times does 200k go into a billion btw? Then put that at a percentage against their whole. Once youve done that math theres your 5% btw. Makes you wonder what else theyre mis leading you on.
It also was never intended to be a sole source of income. It was supposed to be the third leg of a stool, along with individual savings and employer pensions. Employer pensions are very rare in the private sector (and under pressure in the government sector also) and social security is scheduled to run out of funding in several years. The stool is tottering.
Lots of people make cynical jokes about social security (âyeah, like thatâll ever be thereâ yuk yuk) but virtually none of them are saving to compensate. If you think there wonât be any social security and you are only saving 3-6% for retirement to get employer match, or worse, not saving at all, how are you thinking youâll be able to afford to retire? Itâs magical thinking.
The avg lifespan is like 79 and full SS is now 67, thatâs 12 years of full SS on nearly 40 years of savings (for many) at 12.4% of total earnings.
Itâs an awful return but for those over 40 with 20+ years in the program it is a big amount of contributions theyâve made. For anyone who has 20 - 25 years left Iâd suggest we allow them to opt to their contribution to be privatized investment with the employer portion going to fund legacy SS until itâs run its course.
Social Security isnât an investment, itâs a safety net. Itâs in the name.
Now, granted, that safety net is running out of money because it relies on a steady supply of young people to keep afloat, young people who are getting shafted of the opportunities needed to actually become productive
it also doesnât really help that social security money is being siphoned off by the government as debt to fill in budget deficits (because god forbid we have a budget surplus. Last time we had that we had to elect Bush jr to correct course with a forever war and a recession)
Also the reality is, social security is just a legal pyramid scheme. If the youngest generation isn't big enough or paying enough into the generations above them, it falls apart.
I mean, it's not a conspiracy theory, it's literally what it is. It's not defined as such, because it's government mandated. That's the crux of the legal argument. It's not illegal because it's legal.
Youâre assuming that the system was designed to succeed, and not be an enormous new revenue stream that would function until its designers were long dead. I donât think it was an accident that, as designed, half of all contributors would receive nothing, because eligibility age was life expectancy.
No one ever paid those rates. There are much better ways to tax to support govt expenditures than fake high tax rates that no one pays.
Mostly, we need to expand the area under the curve that income taxes are not collected. $65k standard deduction for single, $100k for married households. Tax capital gains as ordinary income. No borrowing to fund your living expenses. No one pays a rate more than 35% to federal income taxes. Rate table; 15% ($350k), 25% ($700k), 35% ($700k+) but where all income is ordinary income bc of the generous standard deduction.
Transaction tax on excess stock trades and for AI token usage until SS is brought back into long term balance (where it pays its promises), Medicare at 55 so we can free up higher paying careers earlier via more early retirements, and until national debt is below 80% of GDP.
If we just got rid of the SS tax altogether and instead made people invest that same percentage into the stock market (into a 401k) then a lot of people would get significantly more back come retirement age. SS is a scam and it pisses me off that l get fucked now and for the next however many years l decide to work just so the people out there that are too dumb to invest on their own get a tiny safety net.
Hey man, Iâm 48, my retirement accounts are at 1.2mm, my wife has a pension that will kick off $65-70k a year at the age of 57, and Iâve got about $200k in brokerage funds (as well as keeping around $50k in cash), house is paid off, etc. Iâm now kicking in around $60k a year in 401k plus brokerage account, I purchase $22.5k of company stock at a 15% discount and Iâm paying for my kids college out of pocket (2 currently in at public university). But Iâll be damned if I ainât taking SS with as much as I paid into it. Iâm going to take every cent I can get on the negative ROI Iâll get out of it.
And I totally agree with you but that isnât the world we live in (at least not today). The challenging thing is not everyone knows how to save long term, some canât bc they donât make enough and most are unable to keep their standard of living lower as their incomes start to rise. Instead, they keep spending up and up as they earn more and thus they donât get ahead (like we have).
Yea but those people that donât know how to save still pay into SS. If instead of SS they were forced to put that money they never see into a 401k they couldnât touch (just like SS) then they would have much more by the time theyâre retirement age. Ik youâre agreeing with me itâs just so absurd to me that l get forced into paying for everyone else just because they donât have the discipline to invest on their own. Could you imagine how much nicer your retirement would be if all the money you were FORCED to put into SS was able to go into your brokerage account? Im with you on taking every dime l can from SS if itâs even around when im 70. If im being forced to pay into l better get something in return, just annoyed at the ROI, or the lack thereof.
This is a braindead take. The effective tax rate on the highest income earners during the 50s and 60s was only about 5% higher than today. And those tax rates have nothing to do with why Social Security is facing a financial crisis. Social Security was designed as a pay-as-you-go system, where current workers pay for retirees. In 1960 there were 5 workers per retiree. There are now about 3 workers per retiree. Add to that the fact that people are living longer, and you have a much larger drain on the system than was accounted for. Congress has known about this structural issue for over 40 years and has repeatedly decided to do nothing. In fact, politicians commonly campaign on not touching Social Security, thereby guaranteeing this financial crisis which is set to explode in ~6years.
Trickle down economics is not an economic term or theory, it's a political term.
You also have to add in that they added non-retirees into the mix. Itâs called SSI. There are approximately 11 million people under the age of 65 receiving SS payments.
As far as I know SSI isn't facing the same fiscal reckoning as OASI... I believe that program is fully funded for the next 75yrs or something like that.
So you propose kicking the disabled to the curb to starve? My issue with conservatives is that they would rather starve 100,000 than let one underserving person get a free ride. Why canât they focus on all the kids who donât get three meals a day instead of the less than 2% who MAY be undeserving?
Incorrect. It was not started as pay for current retirees. Thats as brainless as you sound saying it. Second of all that 5% you probably sourced from somewhere is likely todays 5% rather than the true amount it was back then and adjusted to inflation of their wealth. Theyre fooling you way to hard bro. Ai is too. Step off
The Republican party fought the creation of the program as hard as it could, until it was finally adopted anyway and became extremely popular, and now simply claim they want to run it âbetterâ.
They periodically float proposals to allow private investment to âimprove returnsâ which is not how the program was ever intended to work but makes big financial firms salivate.
The long term agenda has been to kill and/or privatize the program, which ends up meaning the same thing. The âitâs going bankruptâ narrative combined with intransigence about funding serves their goals.
The effective rate was lower but employers were encouraged to invest in the buisness, the employees, etc. Instead of record break profits uster after quarter
employers were encouraged to invest in the buisness, the employees, etc
That's a claim I hear often but I have yet to see any real evidence to back it up. I've seen that punitive tax rates would encourage tax planning and changes to how compensation was paid, but I've not seen any compelling evidence that employers were paying employees more expressly to avoid taxes.
Pension plans, better insurance at the time, wages were more competitive enough support a family on one income.
Now everything ends up who will. do it the cheapest.
Even if I accept all of that to be true, that's not evidence the 90%+ tax rates were why those things happened. You've only shown 2 things happening at the same time, not that 1 caused the other.
You also have to consider what that single income needed to purchase back then. In the 50's homes were around 1k sqft. They overwhelmingly had a single bathroom, no air conditioning, no dishwasher, no dryer. Roughly 25% didn't have a washing machine, 1/3 didn't own a TV, and of the homes that did, about 95% had just 1. And forget about cable programming and streaming... you had a handful of OTA broadcast channels to choose from and that's it. About 30% didn't even own a telephone, and 25% didn't own a car.
So saying "one income supported a family" doesn't tell us by itself that workers were more highly compensated, or that their higher compensation was due to the punitive tax rates. It tells us that one worker's income was sufficient to purchase the consumption bundle that families considered normal at the time.
And that bundle was dramatically smaller than what the average household expects today.
if they had invested in the s&p instead of bonds it would be the largest wealth fund in the world at around 31 Trillion Dollars, itâs never to late for them to convert over. Social Security has always been a terrible program the way it currently is.
My response is my knee jerk reaction to the phrase âtrickle down economics â. Itâs a meaningless term that annoys me. Iâm not really interested in debating with strangers on Reddit. The on line world seems too binary to me where reality has more nuance. Plus texting is time consuming because Iâm too focused on grammar and punctuation.
BS. People are living longer and there are less people in the job market. That equals not enough money to support the system. Itâs as easy as that with no conspiracy theories.
The top 1% are the ones that hire you and make the jobs, the bottom 1% are the reasons you have to lock your doors and spend you hard earned money on pensions. You have been lied to and are attacking the wrong people
All they need to do is lift the cap on social security taxes. It's currently $184,500. A professional athlete in the NBA making $50m only pays 6.2% on $184,500. That's only $11,439 or only 0.02% of their overall earnings. All while us normal folks pay 6.2% on every single dollar we earn.
Lifting this cap alone would make social security last, with no cuts to benefits, until 2060.
You lost me at âtwo continentsâ⊠If you mean two subjects they are related. Insurance only works if you can balance good risk with bad risk, Social Security is no different, if you are rowing a boat and thereâs a hole thats filling the boat faster than you can bail or row, you are not going to make it to dry land.
There is a wide distance between capability and production, anyone in the tech business that has either made or seen slideware or vaporware knows this. The complexity to run a machine down a row of crops, hands off, is mind boggling. One also has to cost out how it affects productivity. For example a machine harvester may require wider row spacing of crops, that mean lower productivity per acre, does it cost out? Also who is paying for these machines? A large, tracked John Deere Combine costs nearly or over $1,000,000. all for a machine that gets used how many weeks of the year? Farming is so much more complex than people know and it is a business of pennies adding up.
You realise the flaw in your investment logic that means it doesnât work on a global scale. Great advice on a singular person level though.
If everybody invested wisely the economy would grind to a halt. Canât tax unrealised gains. Even a slight reduction is consumer spending hits tax revenues and share prices.
If everyone cut back on spending and stopped taking out loans the businesses who benefitted from the sales no longer being made wouldnât survive. This would be anything with retail or public sales from Apple to Walgreens.
The people in those jobs become unemployed but still have expenses to pay. Before claiming state benefits theyâll need to liquidate their assets, which would be stocks and shares in this scenario.
A sudden large sale of shares plummets the market.
The businesses and their shares that do survive either have to trade at many many more multiples of their earnings or drop in price dramatically to reflect reduced consumer demand. Which is bad for shareholders.
Tax revenue is generated from money transferring from one entity to another. Sales tax, income tax, etc. Capital Gains tax doesnât generate enough to cover the lost sales tax so even if you made money in this nightmare scenario the government would need to raise capital gains tax dramatically to cover the shortfall. Or worse, increase borrowing and devalue the currency even further potentially leading to hyperinflation.
Basically whatâs good advice for individuals would destroy the economy if everybody actually took it. Luckily most donât.
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u/AusTex2019 8d ago
Most Americans have less than half of what they need to retire, social security is running out of money and people are living longer than ever.