Ignoring it only works until the mass food shortages start, which is the true ‘beginning of the end.’
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Here, here. (Or is it: Hear, hear!) I hear this from my investing friends, tell me that it’s foolish to pay off your house. I look at it from the other direction: Why should I leverage my house, where my kids and family live, just to try to make a few extra bucks? There’s very real risk in that, potentially getting pushed out onto the street. No freakin’ way. First things first, y’know, food, shelter…
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And the two W’s, weed & whiskey.
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Yeah, it’s different for everyone. If the mortgage is manageable but the car payment is onerous, you want to try and wrap up the latter. Similarly, @kiki’s advice above can make sense in certain situations.
Watching the people in my own life, one of the things I’ve observed is that reducing stress should be a priority of old age. There are few things more stressful than worry about paying a debt every month.
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Where should I invest? In my 401K, which only gives rich people in the stock market more money to play with (and lose)? A bank that doesn’t have any return on a savings account? How about bonds, paying at less than 1%? Maybe an IRA, but the repubs will eventually find a way to steal.
I guess I could stuff it under my mattress, or maybe a high quality porn collection…
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That’s exactly right. In any of these investments, you are subject to the whims of rich wall streeters and are just as likely as not to lose a good percentage of your assets. As you get older, it’s best to invest in a place to live that can’t reasonably get taken away from you.
Yes! I like that term, it’s sticking!
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We need to start watching the ‘65 or older’ assumption. The year someone is eligible to take Social Security in the US keeps changing, for example I cannot take the full Social Security until age 66 and for others it is 67
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@exonauts I am sorry to hear of your mom’s struggles. I hope her fortunes improve soon. IMO a whole bunch of folks should have gone to jail over the 2008 recession. (FWIW, I got hit pretty hard too.)
I was just relating my experience. Of the ten folks I currently know well that are working past retirement age; nine are doing it for other reasons than making ends meet. They range from 69 to early 80’s and occupations from attorney to construction foreman. Several have government pensions. Only four have degrees. There are many individual reasons they like working, but a common thread is that they are not ready to be old. As my 73 year-old boss says with a wink, “Old people creep me out.”
The flaw in the article is that when you have multiple demographic trends pointing the same direction you need more than opinion, even expert opinion, to sort out what is going on. My intent was not to deny that things are not right for a lot of people.
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My Generation
Hope I die before I get old. Didn’t
Now I’ll work til I’m dead and cold. Probably
Burned through my savings in that 2008 situation
Talking bout My G’ G’ Generation…
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The problem here is twofold: most people don’t know how to invest, and an awful lot of retirement savings accounts have stupidly limited options.
We have to have it this way because unions are socialist. Social safety nets are socialist. Guaranteed income is socialist. Socialism is clearly a bad thing because reasons.
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Il did that: picked up a crumbling Prairie, got a ten year note and paid it off in nine.Then a RE shark decided that he wanted to purchase it on a back tax note and had me blacklisted out of work.
I spent literal years doing yard sales and flea markets until a gal with at least two contractors in the family decided she could hit my car and sue me.
The hospital got the house. I moved into a pickup truck topper. I consider my flea market years to be my early retirement. At 65, actuaries say I’m good until 80 so expect me to be working that long if automation doesn’t catch up with me.
All the same, buy and pay off if at all possible, pay early principal payments, pay every two weeks if you can, and TELL NO ONE when you finally receive that coveted Satisfaction Of Mortgage. It’s the only way I managed to get through five years of blacklist in CheatANewGirl, TN.
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