welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Monday, November 24, 2014

i worry

I WORRY

recollectionproject.com

this has bode me well over the years
being a worrier
many a patient of mine benefited from my worrying
about them
well sometimes it was mixed with intuition or 6th sense
eg for no good reason i ordered a test that came back
positive which saved their lives or shortened their illness

now i worry about
our future
when i write our i mean our kids and our grand kids
our great grand kids etc
what will their financial future be like when they
all get to our age

dim is what im afraid it will be
not all of them if any will read dave ramsey and follow
his steps to financial success

first it seems they and i guess all of us need more to live
on now
cable tv cell phones smart ones bigger more expensive
vacations bigger more expensive hobbies etc
now my hobby is gardening so i at least will break even
on that one
bigger more expensive vehicles
more bigger food bills since we eat out more

then
when they do reach retirement
their expenses are higher since we they need more

what will their source of income be


pensions
only 20% have them now
and
that number will drop
those that do are at risk of losing them
and
many of these pensions never increase ie no
col adjustments are done
eg
my wife she retires in say 2 years
her retirement checks will never increase
and
since the school district doesnt pay into social security
she nor the other teachers will receive social security
since there is this thing called offset they do
whoever they is
which wipes out most if not all of the social security
they get from their spouses

my wife will get $200 a month from social security
then when i die she will get about 40% of my social
security instead of 100%
luckily we were able to invest over the years in her
403b to compensate for this loss of income  from
social security
many or most teachers cant afford to do this

i am sure the government will make this even worse
for folks who have government pensions


social security
we know this will still be there but it wont be as it is now
my guess is that it will be cut 25% or more
the col adjustment will get smaller
so the end result will be less income from this
source for our younger relatives


luckily for us we were able to put back enough in our
401ks and 403bs and iras to make ourselves comfortable
for our retirement
but it has taken
us downsizing
our life styles
our size of our house
our house is half the size of most physicians
our size of our cars
our cars are 5yrs 8 yrs and 17 years old
our vacations
our holiday spending
doing this a long time before we retired
and
now carrying that throughout our retirement

it appears that the amount of money left over for
inheritance to our younger relatives will diminish
even more
then they will have even less left over for their kids

now added on is a lifetime of school debt

so things im afraid will only get worse

the generation behind us
are not programmed to save at the rate they need to be
to be ready financially when they quit working

im sort of glad i wont be around to see what life will
be like for those generations

it seems the government isnt going to ever do anything
to help out
theyll just keep on fighting to get nothing done

so if you are a younger relative of mine and especially
if you have kids
you need to be thinking about this
or
your future will be dim

you cant really do anything much about social security
but plan on it being messed with

you if you have a pension realize it may not be there
for you when you retire or it will be reduced in some way

so it will be up to you
if you dont know who dave ramsey is then get acquainted with
him
i personally dont agree with some of  his religious and his political
views
i respect his beliefs but dont agree with many of them
but
his core message though is the one for all folks to follow

you need to know these terms
emergency fund
snowball debt reductions
no credit card debt

you must avoid debt and you must save starting as young
as you possibly can
the goal is eventually 15% of your earnings should be saved
then
you must downsize yourself
your cars your houses your vacations your expenses
to reach this goal
and
be happy when you do it

my wife she and i have done all this
and
we are happy
and
we do all those things we like to do

i see everyday when i work for habitat for humanity
and
meals on wheels
what poverty in retirement can look like

it aint purty

so yes i worry
please help me not to have to worry so much

the organicgreen doctor

1 comment:

  1. The best thing in life is each other! Family! Teaching the young about money at a very early age and stretching it. Vacations, TV, cell phones, nice big homes, computers, and fancy cars. These are all just amenities.

    ReplyDelete