Am I Better Off?

 
My wife and I have more money at our disposal than we have ever had before in our married lives, because we had developed and implemented a savings plan.  Therefore, the longer you live, based upon our plan, the more money we are able to save.

Not everyone is in our same situation, so it is really difficult to make a comparison other than to say that SAVING MONEY is the key or at least one of the keys as the other one is NOT SPENDING.

Obviously, couple have to spend money to pay their bills but after bills are paid, what you spend your money on needs to be addressed.

• Is you home bigger than you really need?
• How much debt do you carry or add annually?
• Do you buy the most expensive?
• How much do you spend on:
• clothes?
• vacations?
• birthdays?
• holidays?
• entertainment?

I quit smoking 36 years ago.  My wife never smoked.  We cut out drinking alcohol except 1-2 cocktails when on vacation sometimes.  Our vehicles are purchased when they are a year old (enormous savings there).  Our vacations are booked out-of-season.  Our home is no bigger than we absolutely need.  We don't buy items we want, only what we need, and we save everything we possibly can.

So...

why do we do this?

We don't have company pensions, just social security.

Savings are necessary to supplement social security.

We also need to have enough money saved to account for:

• inflation
• nursing care
• out of pocket medical

My wife is 71 and I am 76.  We both have health issues which, for the most part, is covered by Medicare and our supplements.  Our health is only going to worsen.

Neither one of us will live longer than 10-12 years past 80 or early 90s if we make it that far.

We have been planning for this eventuality for the last THIRTY YEARS, rather than living like we are never going to get old.

Thirty years is a long time to save.

Whether our country is managed by Democrats or Republicans, it will not matter to us because our lifestyle WILL NEVER CHANGE...

Not many people can say this.

Part of our good fortune is that we are living in EAST TENNESSEE:

• no state income tax
• low cost of living
• excellent healthcare
• no much traffic or crime
• people are laid back
• moderate annual weather
• plenty of recreation
• people here love their second amendment

So...

the bottom line here is that my wife and I are better off but not because of POLITICS.  We are better off because we planned to be better off, and we did not expect the government to take care of us.