Retirement questions

As mentioned, health care costs typically increase as you age, and lose coverage from work (if you had it). So healthy habits early on are important to your finances and happiness/quality of retirement.

Just lost a friend this week to colon cancer, at age 52.
He was an awesome pilot, CFII, APIA, an amazing and kind person. Contributed a lot locally and online to the aviation world. Many knew him on VAF as rocketbob. He will be missed terribly.
 
FastEddieB said:
A great plan to retire while just saving just pennies a day…

Take a chess board. Day 1 place a penny on square 1. Day 2 two pennies on square 2, Day 3 four pennies on square 3, then just keep modestly doubling the number of pennies on each successive square. Voila! Retirement financed in very short order!
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By day 30 you will be putting down $5M in square 29.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I started putting the limit into my IRA 30 years ago. At the time, that was $2K a year. About 18 years ago, I rolled it into a 401K and began contributing the 5% minimum to get my employer match. 6 years ago, I started maxing out my contribution, which was 15K plus 5K catch up.

The balance of that account just went over one million dollars. Compound interest is an amazing thing.
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That was my plan, but I made the mistake of working for my dad for 13 years…my 401k contribution was limited to within a percentage of company average, and most people there had better places to invest their money. I was under 4% for several years.
 
22 years Navy here. I'm 66, on Medicare A&B in order to be eligible for the Tricare-For-Life medical benefit. Our medical costs (with the IRMAA surcharge) will be our largest expense in 2026. So much for the free medical benefits I thought military retirees qualified for.
 
wilkersk said:
22 years Navy here. I'm 66, on Medicare A&B in order to be eligible for the Tricare-For-Life medical benefit. Our medical costs (with the IRMAA surcharge) will be our largest expense in 2026. So much for the free medical benefits I thought military retirees qualified for.
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I'm retired Army, 61 y/o, currently on Tricare Prime. How much added cost am I in for, and when?
 
Ed Haywood said:
I'm retired Army, 61 y/o, currently on Tricare Prime. How much added cost am I in for, and when?
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It depends on your "modified" Adjusted Gross Income. Here's an explainer at the bottom of this reply. If you still have questions, your tax guy or financial planner would be the person to talk to. If you don't have any of those, you can try your local retired services office. Or, I can try to help if you're really stuck.

Understanding IRMAA 2027: How Income Affects Your Medicare Premiums -

Medicare’s base premiums are only part of what some beneficiaries pay. For those with higher income, an extra surcharge called IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount) raises your costs for Part B and Part D. That surcharge is determined by your Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) from...
policyengineer.com policyengineer.com

Contact Your RSO | Soldier for Life

soldierforlife.army.mil soldierforlife.army.mil
 
wilkersk said:
It depends on your "modified" Adjusted Gross Income. Here's an explainer at the bottom of this reply. If you still have questions, your tax guy or financial planner would be the person to talk to. If you don't have any of those, you can try your local retired services office. Or, I can try to help if you're really stuck.
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Thanks for the links. I had no idea about IRMAA. Fortunately I have almost 4 years before I hit TFL.
 
noahfong said:
I am happy to pay a bit more so that those less fortunate can get needed health care.
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That's fine for you. The problem is that while you may be paying "a bit more", some of us are paying a LOT more, with much of what we are paying being wasted and lost to fraud and abuse.
 
StraightnLevel said:
with much of what we are paying being wasted and lost to fraud and abuse.
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You just described nearly all of our taxes. I believe that if our tax money were spent efficiently and intelligently, we could either pay the same amount and have everyone much better off, or pay a lot less for what we have.
 
noahfong said:
I am happy to pay a bit more so that those less fortunate can get needed health care.
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I think you'll find ACA merely redefined "less fortunate" when it came to moving the cost burden. So while 20+ million original less fortunate got access to no cost healthcare, another 30+ million who had affordable healthcare had their healthcare costs raise to the point where those costs became unaffordable. In the end, the only thing ACA did was make insurance and medical records companies more profitable. Thankfully they removed the personal mandate and bailout provisions from ACA otherwise those same insurance companies would be the most profitable entities around.
 
noahfong said:
I am happy to pay a bit more so that those less fortunate can get needed health care.
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Many countries make it work, somehow.
Bell206 said:
I think you'll find ACA merely redefined "less fortunate" when it came to moving the cost burden. So while 20+ million original less fortunate got access to no cost healthcare, another 30+ million who had affordable healthcare had their healthcare costs raise to the point where those costs became unaffordable. In the end, the only thing ACA did was make insurance and medical records companies more profitable. Thankfully they removed the personal mandate and bailout provisions from ACA otherwise those same insurance companies would be the most profitable entities around.
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It's a LOT more complex than that. I'll leave it at that. This is an aviation forum.
 
I can't believe I read all 16 pages. o_O
Retired at 62 no health insurance till Medicare @ 65. Guess I'm just a healthy guy. :cool:
Been retired for 23 years.
 
noahfong said:
I am happy to pay a bit more so that those less fortunate can get needed health care.
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Several thoughts come to mine.

First, and least important is that just because you don't mind, does that mean nobody else should mind either/.

Second, subsidizing health insurance not only does NOTHING to reduce costs, they are actually a huge contributor to higher prices.
 
1) IRMAA isn't a military retiree specific dynamic. So that's a red herring.

2) Nobody ever promised me free healthcare in retirement. Y'all may be referring to the VA, but that's a disability argument. I actually support the extension and expansion of direct healthcare by the VA (non-ionizing radiation carcinogenic recognition); it's the VA payments I advocate need aggressive reform.

2a) For disclosure, the value I actually stuck around to retirement for was: not having my healthcare access dictated by employment status. Im not a (cultural) Calvinist, and actively eschew that protestant work ethic BS. At the end of the day, the effective concept of "medicare before 65" was only accessible to me via military indenture. So that's where I hunkered down for the duration, especially when my spouse became dependent on life-sustaining medication.
 
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I retired at 61. Sale of the company I co-founded made that possible. I have roughly 1/6 of my investments in qualified retirement accounts due to a combination of rollover IRAs and 401Ks. So the allowed/required distributions have not been an issue. I timed my last day of work to allow my COBRA coverage to cover the rest of that calendar year and the full next year. Then switched to ACA plan for both of us. I needed 2 1/2 years before Medicare and my wife needed 3 1/2. We take roughly what I was making the last year I worked to allow us to travel and be generous with family and more importantly charities. If we hadn’t had the windfall I think I’d still be working due to (extreme?) fiscal conservatism. I was ready to retire because I felt the pressure of being largely responsible for 350 folks incomes. I loved the work and people but the responsibility grew as the company grew.
I stay active with church, projects for folks (some kids some not), travel, music, photography and flying.

I didn’t have a particular activity that I retired to (though I absolutely see the value) but I have many that keep me active.

As the fellow who jumped off the roof of the Empire State said passing the 60th floor “So far, so good.”
 
JOhnH said:
Several thoughts come to mine.

First, and least important is that just because you don't mind, does that mean nobody else should mind either/.

Second, subsidizing health insurance not only does NOTHING to reduce costs, they are actually a huge contributor to higher prices.
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I didn't comment on whether I think others should mind or not. I just said I don't mind. I couldn't help but wonder why that would trigger you?
 
noahfong said:
I didn't comment on whether I think others should mind or not. I just said I don't mind. I couldn't help but wonder why that would trigger you?
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End of year, looking at tax pre-payments to true things up. Those of us who pay significant amounts of tax are often triggered by comments which suggest that we should pay even more to cover the expenses of people who aren’t pulling their weight to begin with.
 
noahfong said:
I didn't comment on whether I think others should mind or not. I just said I don't mind. I couldn't help but wonder why that would trigger you?
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I can't speak for him, but that type of phrase is often used to imply exactly that. not always, but often.
 
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