Can I ask a stupid retirement question?

[ringstrue]

When they talk about "enough" to retire at different price points, is that presuming you'd maintain the same lifestyle in retirement as before? So like, say 2 people have 6k/month while working, if they retired with "enough" they'd still live on 6k/month in retirement?

What makes me feel better about a crappy retirement fund is that at least I wouldn't have a mortgage payment or kid expenses anymore in retirement. But then I think that I'm not really interested in trying to aggressively save so that I can have a mortgage payment's worth of "fun money" when I'm old anyway. If I know me, I'll probably want to simplify and downsize my lifestyle anyway because that to me is freeing. I'm not saying I don't want any extra, and I know prices for everything will be higher then, so I'm just trying to figure out the differences between what "they" say, what is doable for me, and what my personal goal would be.

[LoveTrains]

No. The assumption is always that your expenses are less in retirement. Presumably you might have a paid off gone for example.

[LoveTrains]

Omg that should say home not gone. Paid off home.

[origami]

Depressingly, I wouldn't discount how much it costs to be old because assisted living/nursing homes might cost far more than your mortgage today and Medicare doesn't cover it (mostly). While we're at it, Medicare is so underfunded lets just not even count on that being helpful. The idea is not to live in a nursing home until you have no other choice, but as you know it depends on your health.

I say this as someone who is personally contributing zero to a retirement fund so picture me with a drink in one hand and a bottle of lithium in the other.

[ttt]

I feel about this like I do about saving for college - I don't see how I can possibly save enough when costs keep rising so much, so it's

[secretlyevil]

Dec 6, 2014 23:06:22 GMT -5 ttt said:

I feel about this like I do about saving for college - I don't see how I can possibly save enough when costs keep rising so much, so it's

exactly