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My AA history is probably fairly common. I was 100% equities until the dot-com bust in 2001. I was 46 at the time. That event made me realize that 100% was too high for me, so I reduced my equities to 70%. Note that I waited a few years before selling equities so I didn't lock in all my losses but I...

My wife applied for SS this year. Her benefit was $2.00 per month less than the estimate, but the estimate assumed she had continued working for another year, which she had not done. It seems to me that the estimate is very accurate. As others have pointed out, the estimate is based on your continui...

If you want to see how to plan for retirement like an insurance company, see the blog on an actuarial approach to retirement planning: http://howmuchcaniaffordtospendinretirement.blogspot.com/ The actuaries who write the blog include spreadsheets so you can implement their method. They include recom...

End of your current employer insurance is a qualifying event.

Longdog is right. You can't just get on ACA unless you have a qualifying event. End of existing insurance (such as COBRA) is a qualifying event, having a child, getting a divorce. Otherwise you can only enroll once a year. That's specifically to prevent people from going without insurance and then g...

French. In my first year of retirement, I wasn’t that serious. I spent about 30 minutes a day using various language apps. Then 10 months ago I decided to get serious and set a goal of being fluent. I spend 15 - 20 hours a week watching YouTube videos, documentaries, and listening to podcasts all in...

Even if you love museums, you will find yourself getting overwhelmed. For example, the Louvre has 35,000 items on display. If you spent 30 seconds looking at each one, you would need 6 weeks (8 hours per day). This is also true of the Uffizi in Florence, Vatican Museum in Rome, National Gallery in L...

In case it wasn't clear, my $18,000 in medical expenses with ACA included the fact that my wife and I are just over the ACA cliff. We couldn't get under the cliff because of dividends and capital gains. The capital gains are primarily due to tax inefficient investment choices I made years ago before...

I kept track of my expenses closely for the last 5 years of my working life and used those as the basis for retirement expenses. They changed very little during that period of time. I subtracted the obvious things like commuting related expenses. As you surmised, medical and dental are the hard ones...

Interesting because I'm very close to your age but haven't gotten any medicare solicitations yet. My wife, who recently turned 65, has been bombarded for about a year. I'm fairly sure it started when she turned 64. More stuff to recycle in my future. Fortunately, not that many phone calls.

I flew AA to Paris from Boston last Spring. The plane was very old and needed to be retired, and the food was the worst I've ever had on an airplane, which is really saying something bad. However, the fare was incredibly low (regular economy not basic $435 per person). If it weren't for the price, I...

I am 63 and have been a serious cyclist for 37 years, including 10 years of racing. I have broken my collarbone twice and broken ribs several times. Unfortunately, crashes are an inevitable part of cycling. No matter how careful you are, there will be patches of sand or potholes or cracks in the pav...

Even short term estimates can be way off. I retired 2 years ago at age 61 and my wife retired 3 years ago at 61. Before retiring I estimated our health care costs (pre medicare) based on ACA policy costs plus our previous 3 years out of pocket medical expenses. I added 10% per year to cover increase...

Ages 63/64 and both retired for 2 years. My wife and I downsized to one car after 1 year of retirement. We live in a suburb without much public transportation, but it hasn't been a problem. I ride my bike everywhere. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to get rid of my car was so I would not be abl...

I've bought 2 refurbished Apple Macbooks from Apple and so far they have been as good as new. Both are 2015 models. I've owned one almost a year and the other about 5 months. I've been buying only Apple hardware for 12 years. It is more expensive but I've found the durability far better than any oth...

I've been thinking of financing my next car purchase just to improve my credit score. Since I paid cash for my last 3 cars and paid off my mortgage more than 10 years ago, I have not had any loans for a long time. The credit score report always notes a lack of loans. I was thinking to pay mostly cas...

In my area, the median house is about $560,000. Even with 20% down, mortgage plus property taxes will be a hefty percentage for any family when the median household income in the same area is $68,000. That assumes, of course, that someone with that median income could qualify for such a mortgage. Ev...

I told my manager I was resigning because I was considering looking for another job after taking the summer off. Since my company has no retirement benefits there was no practical difference. After the summer, I decided not to look for a job. So, by my "mental accounting" I resigned and then retired...

I used an FA about 6 years ago and paid her $500 for a retirement plan (5 years before my retirement 1 year ago). She asked a lot of detailed questions about our (my wife and my) spending and investments and retirement goals and came up with a recommended budget, asset allocation, investments and a ...

61 in 2016.

I was a software engineer and really enjoyed my job until the last few years. I might have kept working if I hadn't had to spend most of my time in meetings and office politics.

I've only been retired for 15.5 months, so it's a bit early to make a judgement, but so far our core expenses have been the same as they were our last few years of working. I budgeted more for international travel, so that was an expected additional expense, and we've kept within that budget so far....

I think every 3 months is too inconvenient.

To avoid identity theft, I plan to change my name, birth date, social security number, and address every six months.

What I struggle with now is the dichotomy between need to take risk and ability/willingness to take risk. Since I worked an "extra" 3 years before retiring and my wife and I are very frugal, I could change my AA to 30/70 and still be fine. I find the idea that once you have won the game, you should ...

pre 2008 my asset allocation was 75/25 stocks/bonds. In hindsight, this was too high for me when I was 5 years from retirement. I had been at that AA for around 20 years post 2008 I changed my asset allocation to 35/65. This was my over-reaction. early 2010 I changed my asset allocation to 50/50 whe...

I strongly agree that no quiz or game or questionnaire can uncover your true risk tolerance. Every time I've tried those questionnaires my risk tolerance comes out much higher than I know it really is. I've been investing since the early 1980's with a very high allocation to stocks. All the ups and ...

I just switched to the 55+ plan. Our existing plan was the 2 line T-Mobile One unlimited with auto pay. There is also an option on that plan to get a $10 per line discount if you use less than 2GB of data (per line). We rarely exceeded 2GB so effectively the bill was $80 per month. I'm still happy t...

Last day of work May 31, 2016