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Originally Posted by The Yugoslavian
Very cool. Although seems you hardly need a bigger boat for those catches.
Even cooler about the job. Good for you!
Thanks!
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Originally Posted by lapka
I am very interested in all details to the topic retirement. I do get that USA and Germany are very different.
I wonder for example how did you choose your dividend stocks and bond funds? Did you research yourself or do you have some kind of financial adviser? How much did this transfer cost you?
Have you checked that you can get some kind of part time job? I ask this because in Germany it would be completely impossible to get a grocery shop job after years in IT.
Generally anything around theme "retirement" is very interesting for me.
I've dabbled in stocks for a long time. I used to trade them (swing trading, day trading) in hopes that I could make it a career. But I didn't do well for many reasons. I think trading is somewhat like poker. You need knowledge, patience, and the right personality to do well. But, I digress. Although I didn't do well, it did give me a good knowledge base for the market. For this reason, I haven't used a financial adviser. I feel like I'm able to make fairly reasonable decisions on my own.
When I was younger I focused on much riskier investments and for the most part didn't do as well as I would have taking a safer route. So, I went through a period not too long ago where I decided to just let someone else do the picking for me. Vanguard and Fidelity have really low fees and a large variety of mutual funds to choose from. The funds are very well documented. They show risk levels, breakdown of how the fund is invested, fees, and historical returns. You just have to do homework really. As I got older, I've shifted more towards dividend stocks. My strategy is that dividend stocks are less likely to take big hits on market fluctuations. I started out just investing in funds that focus on dividend stocks but have branched out into picking individual stocks. Fees are pretty low for trading stocks so cost isn't really an issue. But, again, it takes some homework. There are many sites that show a ton of information on individual stocks/companies. Now that I'm closer to retirement, I'm shifting more and more of my money into bonds(funds). I'm looking for a steady income now as opposed to growth. Also, the stock market is really scary to me right now. IMHO it has gone way to far way too fast. I think it is due for a big pullback. Anyway, the bottom line is it just takes spending a lot of time researching when it comes to investing. There is a wealth of information out there. You just have to try to find something you are comfortable with.
As far as a part time job goes, I haven't officially tried but I doubt it is very hard to get one. The job market is pretty good right now. I certainly think some employers will balk at me being overqualified, but I doubt it will be a big deal. There are a ton of semi-retired people out there working part time. The pay sucks, but I don't need much at this point in time.
Semi-official retirement age here is 65. I can draw social security at 62 but it will be less than at 65. I can wait until 70 to get even more. Medicare kicks in at 65. My state pension kicks in at 65 as well. So, my "retirement" at this point in time is to just make enough to get me through the next 5 years. Quite doable.
I don't know what you have there, but our basic retirement, social security, really isn't a lot. Most people struggle to make ends meet on just that. Medicare is pretty good and defrays a lot of costs, but it still isn't easy. Our country relies a lot on self funded retirement (401k, IRA). Many people aren't disciplined enough to build these up and when it is time to retire just don't have that much. That coupled with the fact that it takes a LOT of savings to live on makes this difficult for many. Some in our government ave tried to eliminate social security and replace it with 100% self funded retirements. UGH! Anyway, the biggest challenge for me is trying to figure out what is enough. It gets sort of creepy when you start calculating based on how long you think you will live.
I'll be happy to answer any questions. I don't know much but I'm sort of in the middle of all this so I might have a little insight.