This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
All of this makes sense. Everyone is different and this is a far cry for shelling out this money for some marginal student who has know idea what they really want. You've obviously planned for this a long time ago.
She doesn't need to make the gains per se if she isn't saddled with debt and has a good financial head on her shoulders. Not everyone's path to success and happiness needs to end up in the Otis vacation home in the Hamptons thread.
it is kind of a catch 22. If we could not afford to pay for her, she might be able to get some good financial aid which would lower the total cost a bit.
she won't have any debt and she will always look to me for general financial advice.
I started college at 23, went to Community College for the first 2 years and transferred to the Univeristy after that. It was a great decision for me, as I had no money and had to find a way to get to college.
I've been practicing nearly 15 years, about 30 kids a year I talk to end up going to the CC's, so that definitely amounts to at least a couple hundred.
Any more details on the latter? How much would the match be, any change in salary, etc? Also as I'm sure you know, with all the healthcare reform there are a lot of mergers/acquisitions taking place...how safe would the job at the private hospital be?
As much as you can't get blood from a stone, per se, I really just don't think government agencies will #### with established pensions. Here in NY state, they keep making the pensions worse...it went from Tier 4 to Tier 7 very quickly with benefits/payouts getting significantly worse. It's a valid concern but until we start seeing actual frequent defaults in US pensions, I probably wouldn't be terribly worried. It's not you who'll get screwed, it's the people starting after you.
I don't generally disagree but if any place can screw people sooner, it would probably be California. And 33 years is still a long time frame.
Frankly, it seems you should be the one advising us. It sounds like she's doing awesome in an area she enjoys, keep that going. No reason she couldn't do well in editing or writing, you might be raising the next Stephanie King or JK Rowling. But I'd bet that life would be a lot easier if she had a good education and a paid for house instead of a quarter million dollar education.
Check with her school guidance department regarding local scholarships. There should be a bunch out there but they are competitive. Problem with a lot of them is they do not stack. Meaning if she got $5k in merit aid, then received a $1k scholarship from say the Rotary Club, the colleges deduct her scholarship from the merit making it only $4k. It's a racket although some of the scholarships are set up to be able to stack.
I'd look at options but you're happy and probably paid moderately well. Let's pretend for a second that the retirement pension was not there. Would you change jobs, all else staying the same?
You hate spending money though right?
Yeah, this is something I think about a lot. It was never on the table for me to be paid for. Meanwhile, my wife's parents are loaded but refused to pay for her to even do cost of attendance at the school her dad taught (she ended up living at home most of the time).
got PRK back in 2002, haven't needed glasses since. I went to a far lesser school than I could have gotten into if my parents had paid or if I were willing to take oodles of debt. Instead, I went to a cheaper school and then pursued a scholarship. Things turned out great, but I do wonder what would be different had I attended Notre Dame or Michigan instead.
probably. But I just mean that if you would stay where you are without the pension, you shouldn't leave because the pension is at some risk.
Are these your only savings for retirement? State pension concerns are a worry and a haircut of benefits down the line isn't out of the question....but I wouldn't expect anything drastic. You should still be doing as much in IRAs as possible. If CalPers is doing just fine, you can retire earlier or have a better retirement lifestyle.
I have been maxing out my Roth IRA the past 3 years and plan on doing so. I also plan to start contributing to a deferred comp plan (457) in a year or two after a few more raises.
Then stay where you are and take advantage of anything offered. You should not depend on pension as the only income stream in retirement, but you're doing the Roth so that's a great support vehicle. As far as the pension expecting some restructuring is obligatory, however a reduction in pension benefits can offer opportunities in payouts in money you've contributed and tax-deferred and Roth options. We can't predict the future but doing what you can now to prepare for it is the goal, you're young enough to have a ton of options going forward so do work that makes you happy. You can't place a price on that, trust me.
457s have the same limits as 401k plans, $18k <50 and $24k>50.
Just had this discussion with one of my best friends who has kids about 10 years younger than mine. Mine are all through college - he is just starting college tours with his high school junior. We started thinking of our group of amigos, many very successful, and the majority were Cal State scrapper types like me who paid their own way. There are all sorts of ways to be successful, but there are tiers. To further explain - my 2 girls had their hearts set on going to UC Santa Barbara. Extremely competitive. Didn't get in. Choice was to go out of state at University of Colorado and pay 3X, go to a lower level state school like I did, or to a CC first. They wanted a full college experience, so what they settled on was to go to Santa Barbara CC for 2 years and get the grades needed for automatic transfer into UCSB. They loved in dorms the first year and in apartments in Isla Vista the other 3 years. They both did very well, loved their college experience, graduated, and saved me cake at the same time. I think the key is to have a degree so you have options. Schools matter, but only really for certain really big time career tracks or to get entry into top tier grad/law/med schools. My really smart friends in high school (hated being graded on a curve with them) went to the likes of Occidental/Princeton for undergrads, Stanford or Harvard for MBA's, etc. Those guys got paths that I wasn't going to get. Big private equity, big consulting which fast tracked them to C-Suites, etc. Different tier for those jobs. But other than that, it's what you do after getting a degree that determines your success. My successful friends have waved past plenty of people from much more expensive, prestigious schools, from wealthy families, etc. Something to be said for being scrappy with no entitlement. Work ethic.
Roth ira 5500 (plus 1000 if over 50)
I'm in a similar boat. I've been moving 5K per year from pre-tax to Roth status, paying 15% on the conversion. A more precise method would be to file amended returns to get right up to the top of the bracket but I don't want to pay a big tax bill each year so it is a slow process, yes, even slower for me than you.
I think the government only allows individuals to save $50,000 on a given year. Anything additional is subject to forfeiture per CFR 2.3.42
What the hell. So between 401k and profit sharing my wife has at work we are at 48k last year.
Well one detail I left out is I stay home with our kids. I have no income. We are in the 35% bracket if that matters.
You married well. Nice.
No not at all.
I wouldn't pay off the mortgage if you have a good rate. Stay liquid. If you itemize your real rate is even lower - very safe leverage on investments made with your liquid stash.
Thanks live in CA and not opposed to moving for retirement at all.
Right the 100k was the initial goal for an emergency fund. Then I started reading and thought maybe I was over doing with 100k.
