The recent debt "crisis" in the USA has reminded me to add a post about things not to count on in your plan.
State pensions.
This may come as a complete surprise to those who have their heads buried in the sand, but warnings about the impending doom have been around for decades and you should consider state funded pensions as potential "gravy" in the plan, but do not assume that you will be able to retire in luxury on anything that the government will provide.
The core of the problem is longevity, when pension plans originated, some bright spark pitched the pension age around the point when the average person kicked the proverbial bucket, in addition, original ratio's of working people paying into the system to retired people was high (about 16:1) but all that has changed as the general population is healthier and live longer and the ratio of working to retired has shrunk dramatically.
So, the governments of the world are mobilizing to push retirement ages up, reduce benefits, destroy indexing and lastly, and of particular concern to all saving their own nest egg, means testing potential recipients.
Which typically, for those of you who are responsible enough to be looking after your retirement needs, means that the very schemes that you have paid into all these years may deem you too rich to be awarded any payout.
So, don't bank on any of it.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Rabbit and the Hat
The last post was added because, here in retirement at my grand old age, I have found numerous older people who are still firmly embedded in the impossibility of it all, regardless of evidence right in front of their eyes.
I can speak, but apparently they do not hear a sound.
Jimmy once spoke about how annoying people could be when they heard about "the plan" or news of where you were in that plan, and their reaction was "oh, you are so lucky" which irritated the man so, as luck has nothing to do with the process.
A magician brings a hat onto the stage and pulls out the aforementioned animal, no luck there, no magic, no miracle, in fact, that man planned to pull his thing out and dazzle the crowd. It was part of his plan, gosh.
The key thing here is that, your plan is not intended to dazzle the audience, it is meant for you, you really don't have to tell anyone (the impossibles) along the way, as they won't believe you anyway, just be sure to be watching when you grab the ears and pull.
Gosh, how did he do that?
I can speak, but apparently they do not hear a sound.
Jimmy once spoke about how annoying people could be when they heard about "the plan" or news of where you were in that plan, and their reaction was "oh, you are so lucky" which irritated the man so, as luck has nothing to do with the process.
A magician brings a hat onto the stage and pulls out the aforementioned animal, no luck there, no magic, no miracle, in fact, that man planned to pull his thing out and dazzle the crowd. It was part of his plan, gosh.
The key thing here is that, your plan is not intended to dazzle the audience, it is meant for you, you really don't have to tell anyone (the impossibles) along the way, as they won't believe you anyway, just be sure to be watching when you grab the ears and pull.
Gosh, how did he do that?
The Cult of Can
It's been a while, but the blog is still here and I suppose blog entries are, on occasion, required.
The other founder member of the millionaires club, or as we call him here on the blog "Jimmy" had said to me numerous times before retirement "If we canney doo it, nobody can" which was spot on.
I'll call this the Cult of Can, the opposing faction to the Impossibles, who, rightly in their own world, believe that they cannot. Good luck to them all.
If you read this, then maybe you are in the Cult of Can, a group of people who believe they can do it, well, belief is a vaporous substance, we don't believe, we know we can do it. There is no reason to make a list of all those things that you can save money on, you already know it, you already live it.
Another thing that Jimmy once said:
"If you don't write it down, you will never do it"
Perhaps it should be called the Cult of Plan.
The other founder member of the millionaires club, or as we call him here on the blog "Jimmy" had said to me numerous times before retirement "If we canney doo it, nobody can" which was spot on.
I'll call this the Cult of Can, the opposing faction to the Impossibles, who, rightly in their own world, believe that they cannot. Good luck to them all.
If you read this, then maybe you are in the Cult of Can, a group of people who believe they can do it, well, belief is a vaporous substance, we don't believe, we know we can do it. There is no reason to make a list of all those things that you can save money on, you already know it, you already live it.
Another thing that Jimmy once said:
"If you don't write it down, you will never do it"
Perhaps it should be called the Cult of Plan.
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