Melancholy Tale: Parents Had Pension, Social Security, SPIA & TIPS, but …

[Wannaretireearly]

"If you can relate to those 2023 numbers, do you agree with longinvest? Will you restrict yourself to spending $60,000 - $65,000, reinvesting the rest? Or will you ride down the first part of Blanchett’s retirement smile with a yahoo!: take the cruise, indulge the hobby now, and resume saving only later if ever?"

A couple in their mid-60s should take that cruise, indulge that hobby, etc.

Since, statistically, neither needs to worry much about living long enough to run out of money at age 99.

The OP's couple still had a successful retirement, even given their modest assets and lifetime household income.

From https://www.longevityillustrator.org/:

Inputs:

Code: Select all

  		he 		she
Date of Birth 	6/1/1958 	6/1/1958
Nearest Age 	65 		65
Retirement Age 	65 		65
Gender 		Male 		Female
Do You Smoke? 	No 		No
General Health 	Average 	Average 

Probability of Living to a Certain Age:

Code: Select all

Age 	he 	she
65 	100% 	100%
70 	94% 	96%
75 	85% 	90%
80 	72% 	81%
85 	55% 	66%
90 	34% 	45%
95 	15% 	23%
100 	4% 	8%

Planning Horizon:

Code: Select all

Probability 	he 	she 	Either 	Both
90% 		7 	10 	17 	5
75% 		14 	17 	22 	10
50% 		21 	23 	27 	16
25% 		27 	29 	31 	22
10% 		31 	34 	35 	26

Excellent health would extend the range. Whether or not those probabilities are worthy of worry would be individual preferences.

Life expectancy is a flickering hologram hard to grasp. Here at Bogleheads, it is important to use annuitant life expectancy. That means the life expectancy for 65 year olds who don’t use tobacco, are not couch bound, do not subsist on burgers, fries, and milkshakes, and who can reasonably hope to live a long time based on health, lifestyle, and family history.

The IRS publishes a unisex mortality table for this population: https://www.federalregister.gov/documen ... ng-minimum

Kitces publishes a joint life expectancy spreadsheet: https://www.kitces.com/joint-life-expec ... alculator/

I pasted the IRS table into both male and female columns for these calculations.

It shows that a 65 year old couple has a joint life expectancy of about 27.5 years, call it 93.

But life expectancy is an average. Possibly more interesting is the odds that one member will still be alive at age X. For a 65 year old couple, using annuitant life expectancy, these chances are:
95 – 40%
100 – 14%
101 – 10%
102 – 7.5%
105 – 2.5%

To translate those odds into numbers: if all 100,000 Bogleheads were 65-year-old couples, then 14,000 would have one member see age 100; 7,500 would see 102; and 2,500 would see 105.

So what say you ncbill—are the odds of living past 99 (as one member of a Boglehead type couple) not statistically anything to worry about??

Nope.

Everybody here thinks they're special...but they're not the combination of Seventh Day Adventist and Richard Simmons they think they are.

I call it Lake Wobegon syndrome..."where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

I expect both members of a theoretical 65 year couple to be dead before either got anywhere close to age 99.

Plus, again, the reality of diminished physical capacity...the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak.

Especially for a male...retire by 55 and you might get 15 years of being able to travel the world.

One website advising on Medicare Advantage versus Medigap supplemental plans notes they see their clients (I assume referring to men) develop serious health issues in their late 60s to early 70s, so they usually recommend Medigap no matter how healthy one "feels" at age 65.

So I look to history...I think you're looking at something more similar to a Monte Carlo analysis where you can get long tails never seen in real life..."if I eat a vegan diet & exercise X hours daily & ensure my blood pressure never goes over 120/80 & my A1C is always below Y, etc."

We’ll said

[AnnetteLouisan]

I’d love to see a similar scenario for a single person. It’s very common among Gen X and Millennials. A lot of us need to understand how that could play out.

With the same savings it's obviously worse. Though, kids cost a boat load IME. There should be some trade off where non-parents can save more at a given lifestyle otherwise.

"Boatload" somewhat understates it. However, there is no particular reason why a single person can't also be a parent, or that a married person must be a parent. And, as noted somewhere else in this thread, a married couple with no (or predeceased) children is likely to end up with one person in a solo-retirement situation also.

There are some posters here who specifically bring up the issues with solo-retirement and longevity, but I do agree that a thread devoted specifically to the topic would potentially help a lot of people. Not having to wade through all the potential complications from a couple-s perspective should add some value for the single people.

Yeah that's why I specifically said 'non-parent'. I think it kind of goes without saying that not having a partner and not having kid(s) aren't the same thing, and you could start out with both and end up with neither. Childless single vs. couple seems to me mainly a financial difference and only different in degree as to the somewhat separate issue of who is going to manage things if/when you no longer (mentally) can. Might be a statistically shorter likely period for a couple than a person single all along, but seems to me a more categorical difference in either case from people who have kids to help them navigate. Not that you can 100% count on that (or anything). Living to as old as the imaginary protagonist of this thread you might outlast your kids besides the more prosaic concern kids don't end up caring, whereas some childless people have reliable niece/nephews, much younger siblings, etc. Listing all ifs and buts tends to drone on.

I can create a single scenario if that would be of interest. I’m 3/4 of the way into one in my own life facing a number of choices that will affect my later years. I could do a composite. I could also do a Gen X flowchart based on decisions I and my friends made.

[Wannaretireearly]

This thread hit me harder than it should have this morning... having lost both my parents over the last year.

My folks were better off than the fictional one's here... but only thru sheer blood sweat and tears. They worked hard for everything they had. Blue collar down to earth stubborn as the day is long. They raised 4 kids on 100 bucks a week in the 60's. We didn't take vacations. We never had a new car.
They had a good life that was marred in the end by the pain and confusion that comes along with cancer and memory loss. The last 2 years really sucked.
Mom passed at 80 and dad at 86. Even at 86 there was no telling dad something different than he already had his mind made up about.

But they wouldn't have had it any other way.

I don't see the fictional characters in the OP's original story as being melancholy or sad or anything other than a positive joyful life. We all have different paths to follow and we make our decisions and live with them. For those that say delay SS...may be fine for you but my time is worth more to me...to enjoy while I have the energy and inclination. A person can be happy with very little if he/she CHOOSES to be.

I'd bet they were better off than their folks and I bet their children were even better off yet!!

Life isn't about min/maxing every little detail...life is for living and celebrating. My folks led a life very much worth celebrating and it sounds like the Op's fictional folks did too!

Sorry for your loss. Very well explained
Seasons of life, and doing things in priority order is something Bill Perkins talks about a lot (author of Die with zero).

[mudd]

This thread hit me harder than it should have this morning... having lost both my parents over the last year.

My folks were better off than the fictional one's here... but only thru sheer blood sweat and tears. They worked hard for everything they had. Blue collar down to earth stubborn as the day is long. They raised 4 kids on 100 bucks a week in the 60's. We didn't take vacations. We never had a new car.
They had a good life that was marred in the end by the pain and confusion that comes along with cancer and memory loss. The last 2 years really sucked.
Mom passed at 80 and dad at 86. Even at 86 there was no telling dad something different than he already had his mind made up about.

But they wouldn't have had it any other way.

I don't see the fictional characters in the OP's original story as being melancholy or sad or anything other than a positive joyful life. We all have different paths to follow and we make our decisions and live with them. For those that say delay SS...may be fine for you but my time is worth more to me...to enjoy while I have the energy and inclination. A person can be happy with very little if he/she CHOOSES to be.

I'd bet they were better off than their folks and I bet their children were even better off yet!!

Life isn't about min/maxing every little detail...life is for living and celebrating. My folks led a life very much worth celebrating and it sounds like the Op's fictional folks did too!

Sorry for your loss. Very well explained
Seasons of life, and doing things in priority order is something Bill Perkins talks about a lot (author of Die with zero).

Thank you!

[PeninsulaPerson]

I can create a single scenario if that would be of interest. I’m 3/4 of the way into one in my own life facing a number of choices that will affect my later years. I could do a composite. I could also do a Gen X flowchart based on decisions I and my friends made.

Here's hoping you do!