
Here is an overview of my current situation:
Age: turning 67 in January and in good health
Debt: None
Income
Retired
Social Security Disability Benefit: $23k annual
Small Pension Benefit: $3k annual
Assets:
Vanguard Traditional IRA
SP500 Index Fund Admiral: $77k (16.5%)
Total Bond Index Fund Admiral: $250k (53.2%)
Dividends are set to reinvest in this account.
Vanguard Taxable
Total Stock Index Admiral: $142k (30.3%)
I collect quarterly dividends from this account.
Cash
$30k
Home
$130k approximate value
Questions
1. How is my overall picture? I realize I'm not wealthy, but I hope to hear feedback that I'm doing OK overall to ease my mind. My biggest goal is to not be a financial burden to my children.
2. As noted above I am retired and on disability. I have been living off my social security, small pension, and the quarterly dividends from my taxable account, and I have been feeling that things are tight for me on a month-to-month basis. I try to avoid regularly going into my cash savings unless necessary. My daughter said that I should be OK to start taking some of my retirement nest egg money at this point, but I've been worried to start touching it as I don't know how I stand and am worried about running out of money (see number 1) so I have basically avoided taking anything from it other than the dividends. Is she right? I think I'd like to maybe take an additional $1000 a month. I wouldn't necessarily spend all of this...maybe tuck some away to buy Christmas presents for my family and save for larger purchases or maybe a vacation...but I just would also like to be able to go out for a nice dinner and not worry about it being close to the end of the month and I'm low on cash until my next SS check comes. I hope this makes sense to you all! Can anyone give me some guidance?
I appreciate any advice you all can give me.
Thank you.