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It’s almost impossible for an upper middle class couple to retire in the US before their 65 unless they have some type of government provided or private company
by raw_anon_1111 9mo ago
It’s almost impossible for an upper middle class couple to retire in the US before their 65 unless they have some type of government provided or private company provided health insurance like teachers, police officers, military etc.
It’s about $25K a year for a decent plan which is doable. But you have to hope that Republicans - and yes this is a political issue - don’t successfully kill the ACA and make it impossible to get insurance at any cost if you have a pre-existing condition. If you are old - you will develop a pre-existing condition.
My parents are 83 and 81 and retired at 57/55. But my mom was a teacher who still gets benefits through the government and my dad gets benefits from the one factory that didn’t shut down in our hometown.
I’m 51 and even if I could retire early financially, I wouldn’t do it and stay in the US. Play the smallest fiddle for us. I “retired my wife” at 44 in 2020 8 years into our marriage when I did a slight transition to an industry where remote work with travel is the norm (cloud consulting + app dev) and we have traveled a lot including doing stints as “digital nomads”.
We are staying in one of the countries that we might retire to as a Plan B for six weeks starting next week.
Even now that we moved to state tax free Florida and my wife hasn’t had to work in six years, she keeps a current CDL because she can get a job as a school bus driver easily for the benefits and someone will pay me for independent consulting if I lose my job.
- throwway120385 9mo agoThe other way to avoid a pre-existing condition is to just avoid medical care entirely.
- atomicnumber3 9mo agoAh yes, the 4chan retirement plan. Die of a preventable cause at age 42 while waiting for your captcha.
- paulddraper 9mo agoIf you accept that cancer is a death sentence, it’s not absurd to “self fund” your insurance with a nest egg. You can shop around quite a bit for non urgent care, and get good cash discount.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoHow much of a nest egg do you think would let you afford a major operation like heart surgery or cancer care?
- watwut 9mo agoEven a minor one.
- paulddraper 9mo agoRead the qualifier. And heart surgery is ~$60k. [1] That's <36 months of insurance premiums according to the earlier poster. [1] https://cost.sidecarhealth.com/ts/heart-bypass-surgery-cost-by-state https://cost.sidecarhealth.com/ts/heart-bypass-surgery-cost-...
- mothballed 9mo agoIt cost $30k for a loved one just to go to the hospital when their heart "felt weird" but absolutely nothing turned out to be wrong and all they did was run a couple quick scans and tests. I do agree with the overall idea of what you're saying that usually the premiums are way more than what you could get care for if you just saved the money, but the numbers on the website seem very wrong. I realize it's a total anecdote but from loved one's bills it is $20-30k just to get in the door and that is if actually nothing is wrong and there is no heart attack yet they're quoting $30k for an actual heart attack care.
- scottyah 9mo agoThat's the pricing when you have insurance. It is cheaper if you don't.
- mathgladiator 9mo agoThis is one of the most insane things that I have realized... I have terrible insurance (in case), but I generally don't present it as it is much cheaper and faster to pay cash... I think we can all agree that the current system is just... ridiculous I used to be fearful of health concerns, but now I'm a carnivore and just feel great.
- glimshe 9mo agoThe FIRE community and my own personal situation prove you very, very wrong. It's absolutely possible for a upper middle class family to retire in their 50s, even in their 40s, if they live frugally.
- aprdm 9mo ago"Live frugally" , "FIRE" , "work in tech" All incompatible with 99% of the upper class, neither do they want to eat ramen to retire early. You're also one medical disaster away from being "very very wrong"
- mech998877 9mo ago90%+ chance the person you are replying to has health insurance that will cover them in case of medical disaster.
- glimshe 9mo agoI absolutely have health insurance, the most expensive available on my state. That doesn't protect me 100%, but what health insurance (including the ones available at most companies) does? People who have poor money management skills believe that FIRE=Ramen and no health insurance... In fact, it's about getting a 30K car (the one I bought new 3 years ago) instead a 70K car despite having the money.
- mattmanser 9mo ago99% of people have poor money management skills? It's statements like this that makes FIRE a fringe scene.
- scottyah 9mo agoyou're saying 99% of people think FIRE = ramen? I doubt that many even have heard of it
- 9mo ago
- apercu 9mo agoSo Texas also doesn’t have income tax but my siblings house (assessed at a lower value than mine) is assessed property tax almost triple wha mine is, dwarfing my state income tax plus property tax. Not sure about Florida - YMMV.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoMy property taxes are $3000 a year. They were around $7K a year before we moved. We also downsized to a two bedroom condo -1200 square feet - from a 3500 square foot house in the most expensive county in GA (Forsyth) after my step son graduated in 2020 and after Covid. We sold our house for twice what we had it built for 8 years earlier and bought our condo for the same price as we paid for our house in 2016. Florida - especially when you live in the same county as DisneyWorld - is heavily subsidized by tourism
- kelvinjps10 9mo agohttps://mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ https://mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ Read this story and more in the fire community, it's not impossible
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoDoes that answer the question about what happens when the ACA is gutted and you can’t get insurance at any price with a pre-existing condition? That happened to me right before the ACA went into affect. I was engaged to my now wife and we moved our marriage up early so I could get on her insurance.
- kelvinjps10 9mo agohttps://mrmoneymustache.com/2020/11/09/direct-primary-care/ https://mrmoneymustache.com/2020/11/09/direct-primary-care/ https://mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/05/when-your-shitty-health-insurance-doubles-in-price/ https://mrmoneymustache.com/2017/11/05/when-your-shitty-heal... Regarding ACA >My family’s monthly health insurance premium, which had already more than doubled in the last few years to $674 per month, was going up a further 44% for the coming year. For no good reason, other than perhaps the the current government’s attempts to kill off the Affordable Care Act. (By cutting various parts of the structure, the insurance market becomes less stable and predictable, and thus more expensive). Also besides that there is also the solution of barista fire that's working part time just to get insurance. https://www.reddit.com/r/baristafire/ https://www.reddit.com/r/baristafire/
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoAnd again, you’re assuming that insurance companies won’t just flee the exchange when it’s not profitable because only sick people sign up because of prices. It’s called the “death spiral”. Originally that was suppose to be prevented by subsidies that Republicans killed.
- hn_acc1 9mo agoHow do you "work part time" when you need medical care to GET WELL ENOUGH to be able to work again? I.e. if you are in a serious car accident with a broken leg and broken arm, ain't no one hiring you just to let you sit around and get free health care.
- kelvinjps10 9mo agoWith health marketplace you can get insurance, or you can get a PPA service, or save money into a HSA, like there is multiple ways to do it.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoUntil the Republican Party finally succeeds at gutting the ACA or make it so bad that insurers wing cover it. Let’s say you maxed out your HSA for 20 years and have $200K - that can be wiped out with one uncovered major medical incident the HSA max is relatively low.
- everforward 9mo agoWithout digging into this too far, I do think it’s possible but it does require starting early and sticking to the plan. I’m not one of those people, but I know people who are. The mean household income for the 4th quintile is 115k a year. The mean of the middle quintile is 70k. There’s a theoretical 45k a year spread if you earn like the 4th quintile and spend like the 3rd (evidently possible since a lot of people live in the 3rd quintile). Even ignoring compound interest, if you can hit that 4th quintile at 30 and you lose half the spread to taxes, by 55 you have 25 years of saving 22.5k/year for 562.5k in savings. It’s probably not the most fun thing, but I do think it’s doable.
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoHere are the numbers for context: https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentiles/ https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentiles/ The median household income doesn’t earn the median wage every year from when they started working. That’s just a snapshot and it’s highly correlated with age. I’m 51, I damn sure couldn’t afford to max out my 401K. That means I was 25 in 1999. I definitely could afford to max out my 401K - which was then $10K a year - when I was making $35K a year. Especially when new grads are coming out now with student loan debt.
- telotortium 9mo agoFor curiosity's sake, what exactly do you think Republicans will do to "kill the ACA"? I doubt they're going to introduce a bill that revokes the ACA in its entirety. They killed the mandate almost a decade ago and the marketplace healthcare plans have continued to limp along, depending on the state. What's next?
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoIt’s simple. One of the original tenants of the ACA was to provide subsidies for most people earning up to what would be the upper middle class between this and the insurance mandates, it would prevent the death spiral where only the sick would sign up for it, making the cost go up until it was almost unaffordable to anyone and unprofitable for the insurance companies making them leave the exchange. The first blow was when the Supreme Court killed the mandates. The second blow just happened when they killed the subsidies last year.
- twoodfin 9mo agoThe expanded subsidies, which were a Covid-era enhancement some 10+ years after ACA was enacted.
- telotortium 9mo agoIf you could have FIRE'd before the COVID era subsidies you can do it now
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoNot if the ACA continues its current “death spiral” where only the sick sign up making the premiums go up to the point where insurance companies just leave the plan. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/14/aca-obamacare-expires https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/14/aca-obamacar...
- ahmeneeroe-v2 9mo ago[flagged]
- raw_anon_1111 9mo agoBlame that on the private insurance companies.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 9mo ago100%. I also blame Obama and the dem politicians who legislated this into existence. This has been a disaster.
- FitchApps 9mo agoIs it possible to get insurance as an expat living in a foreign country, yet spend time in the states? Would that be a good coverage for retirees that want to split time between US and other countries?