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1. But my belief in social security has zero impact on whether I will actually have social security. Which is why I asked in my question if I need prognosticat

1. But my belief in social security has zero impact on whether I will actually have social security. Which is why I asked in my question if I need prognostication skills in order to plan my retirement. That would seem to be an unreal expectation - that I can accurately predict whether or not I will have social security available to me, at which age, and with what payouts. I would need to predict multiple federal elections, would I not? We're not discussing that I must also predict inflation, health care costs (or socialization), and the likelihood of various markets crashing or exploding... including housing or renting... 2. That's not a REAL question. The real question there is, can we come up with ways to save more now, while maintaining my current comfort at adequate levels, with an expectation of future happiness? Because OF COURSE I'd like to have X + Y. The ways to try to achieve that are to save more, or risk more. BUT, you're asking me to establish my risk level, given my GOAL of reward. That's like starting by asking me how much money I want to win in Vegas as the first question. The FIRST question! 3. Again, those are not real questions. The closest to a real question there is, do I want my percentage of pleasurable spending to increase or decrease, relative to my current spending. Sure, I can TRY to consider the things you've brought up - but again, as I complained, I would need prognostication skills to come up with remotely accurate answers to any one of those questions, let alone a slew of them. 4. Okay, I'll pay for my daughter's education 100%. Can you tell me how much that will cost? Oh, you need to know what school she's going to? Well, hmm, I can try to estimate her SAT scores, but she's currently in DAY CARE. Again, this is not a real question. I would need prognostication skills to know whether college costs will quadruple, in CONSTANT DOLLARS, or maybe college will be socialized and my daughter will get a STIPEND! I don't mean to sound arrogant, insulting, and condescending. I really don't. Sorry. Sincerely, sorry. But I reject the premise of why you're asking the questions. "How much will you spend on socks?" "How much will you spend on hats?" ... "Okay, let's sum all those things up! TADA, you'd need to make twice as much as you currently make, and save 100% of it to achieve that goal!" The first rule of data is to know how it's going to be used. Yes? I do not believe you have a formula, where you can punch in my answers to your questions, and then achieve a measurably correct confidence level in my future, self-reported happiness with the outcome. Since you don't have that formula, why are we gathering individual numbers that we will pretend to plug into it? And yes, they're all great things to consider. But I do not believe you that considering each of them carefully will allow me to come up with a plan that is remotely likely to succeed. "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face." -Mike Tyson ... Instead, I think it makes much more sense to look at the past. Let me filter huge amounts of data, by my known demographics... And see the histogram of self-reported happiness, for people who had given amounts of wealth at retirement. 1. $X of income at Y age 2. Spouse at retirement or not 3. X kids, at Y age 4. Retire at age X 5. Live and retire in the Mid-West... Allow me to see confidence intervals. High and low graphs, based on recessions or booms... Constant dollars only, please. I mean, isn't AARP capable of collecting this data, and distributing it in meaningful ways to pre-retirement people?!? ... And again, really, honestly - the three biggest things that are going to affect my retirement, in rough order are: 1. Life expectancy for me and spouse (My grandfather died before reaching retirement. My great-grandmother died at 101y 6m.) 2. The economy 3. Percentage rate of our saving, relative to our income To really predict 1 and 2, I would need to be a legislative-prognosticating actuarial economist. And 3 is going to be determined by me, limiting my current happiness, with the hope of future happiness.

jeffmould 11y ago
The point of my post was that in order to answer your original question you need to at least consider what you want out of retirement including the type of lifestyle you intend to live. It doesn't matter the questions asked (i.e. whether social security exists, whether you want to travel, etc), the point is to consider what YOU want out of retirement. Nobody can answer your original question specifically as there is no one specific X dollar answer to the question. What my definition of living comfortably in retirement is and what I could retire on is most likely going to be completely different than yours. You don't sound "arrogant, insulting, or condescending", but the way you come off in your answer is that you want someone to give you a specific number (let's say X) without providing any context as to what you expect out of your retirement. You come off sounding as if you don't want to take anyone's advice or answer anyone's questions yet you want them to answer your question. You don't have to predict anything or know the specific answer to any question, and I think that is where you are misinterpreting the questions. There is no right or wrong answer to the questions, they are only asked to gather details about your perceptions. Your answers are then used to compare to known financial data to determine a good retirement amount. They are "real" questions. If you have no intention of having kids or being married, that is significantly going to impact the amount of money you need to retire. If you plan to sell your belongings and live in an RV and travel the country till you die that is going to impact the number. While these may change down the road, you plan for the future on what you know now. You say you plan to live/retire in the mid-west. How do you know that is not going to change in a year. From my own personal perspective I plan for my retirement based on what I foresee my future holding. I work with a financial planner to determine a good investment strategy based on those plans. However, I am consistently reevaluating those plans on an annual basis. My adviser asks me similar questions. But he also uses freely available data on what current retirees are doing based on the economy. He evaluates my strategy against the pros/cons of what current retirees are seeing in their retirement. I don't know how much my kid's education will cost, but I do know I want to pay, or at least help pay, for that. I base my planning number on current costs and add a cost increase for each year based on previous history of cost increases. The questions are not meant to be answered specifically, they are simply meant to get you thinking about your future and where you see yourself. You are right no one knows what it will cost in the future and you are right you can make assumptions based on past numbers. However, in order to use the numbers from the past you need to know what numbers to use. Thus the point of the questions. With all that said, I am not going to go back and forth with you here. I am not a financial planner. I can't answer your question specifically. I'll leave you with this: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2015/06/25/5-retirement-lessons-from-warren-buffett http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2015/06/25...

jeffmould 11y ago

The point of my post was that in order to answer your original question you need to at least consider what you want out of retirement including the type of lifestyle you intend to live. It doesn't matter the questions asked (i.e. whether social security exists, whether you want to travel, etc), the point is to consider what YOU want out of retirement. Nobody can answer your original question specifically as there is no one specific X dollar answer to the question. What my definition of living comfortably in retirement is and what I could retire on is most likely going to be completely different than yours. You don't sound "arrogant, insulting, or condescending", but the way you come off in your answer is that you want someone to give you a specific number (let's say X) without providing any context as to what you expect out of your retirement. You come off sounding as if you don't want to take anyone's advice or answer anyone's questions yet you want them to answer your question. You don't have to predict anything or know the specific answer to any question, and I think that is where you are misinterpreting the questions. There is no right or wrong answer to the questions, they are only asked to gather details about your perceptions. Your answers are then used to compare to known financial data to determine a good retirement amount. They are "real" questions. If you have no intention of having kids or being married, that is significantly going to impact the amount of money you need to retire. If you plan to sell your belongings and live in an RV and travel the country till you die that is going to impact the number. While these may change down the road, you plan for the future on what you know now. You say you plan to live/retire in the mid-west. How do you know that is not going to change in a year. From my own personal perspective I plan for my retirement based on what I foresee my future holding. I work with a financial planner to determine a good investment strategy based on those plans. However, I am consistently reevaluating those plans on an annual basis. My adviser asks me similar questions. But he also uses freely available data on what current retirees are doing based on the economy. He evaluates my strategy against the pros/cons of what current retirees are seeing in their retirement. I don't know how much my kid's education will cost, but I do know I want to pay, or at least help pay, for that. I base my planning number on current costs and add a cost increase for each year based on previous history of cost increases. The questions are not meant to be answered specifically, they are simply meant to get you thinking about your future and where you see yourself. You are right no one knows what it will cost in the future and you are right you can make assumptions based on past numbers. However, in order to use the numbers from the past you need to know what numbers to use. Thus the point of the questions. With all that said, I am not going to go back and forth with you here. I am not a financial planner. I can't answer your question specifically. I'll leave you with this: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2015/06/25/5-retirement-lessons-from-warren-buffett http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2015/06/25...