What Retirees Would Have Done Differently

[FreakinDJ]

Source: Paul Sullivan

What Retirees Would Have Done Differently

Money isn’t everything, according to a group of affluent Americans surveyed by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Focusing on family and friends, it turns out, gained in importance through the recession.

Just over half of retired respondents with at least $250,000 to invest said they wished they had focused more on their “life goals” than on “the numbers,” according to the firm’s Affluent Insights Quarterly, released today. In fact the leading response was wishing they had given more thought to how they wanted to live in retirement (38 percent) followed by wishing they had worked with a financial adviser earlier (23 percent) and given up more luxuries to reach their retirement goals (18 percent).

“The feeling is you should always absolutely have a plan, but the plan is not what we propeller heads think,” Sallie Krawcheck, president of Bank of America Global Wealth & Investment Management, which includes Merrill, told Bucks. “We as an industry talk to our clients about numbers, numbers, numbers. For us risk is standard deviation; for our clients it’s what if I have a health event that affects my life and my financials?”

Such surveys on how the recession has affected behavior are becoming increasingly common. PNC Wealth Management released a similar survey on Monday


Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/108596/what-retirees-would-have-done-differently?mod=fidelity-managingwealth

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Blasphemy I tell ya - Family and Friends - just Blasphemy

[Warpy]

1. I wish I could have inherited wisely while my body still worked

but there's no way I'd want to give up the additional years my parents were alive.

[FreakinDJ]

2. I moved back home with my Mom in the last year of her life

to be close to her

I still pick up my Dad at least 1 weekend per month from the Old Solder's Home

But I keep telling myself I'll start having parties again once the house remodel is finished - I think I need to re-asses my priorities

[old mark]

3. I retired before I was expecting to, and I had an adjustment period,

but I love every minute of it now.
Mostly do art and play my guitars and harmonicas, what I wanted to do all my life.
Just hoping to stay healthy for a long time to come.

mark

[Warpy]

4. I'm a fiber junkie

and I have a spinning wheel here next to the puter. I had plenty of interests outside work. The adjustment I had to go through was one of physical disability more than loss of structure and socializing that work provided.

I do what I can when I can and I don't beat myself up if I can't do more. As I look back on it, I'm astonished I lasted as long as I did. Imagine working 6 years as an RN with a broken bone in your back! Damn, I'm glad I don't have to do it any more.

I'm with you, I do love the lack of structure and the ability to sleep to noon if I damned well feel like it and to work on projects and create as big a mess as it takes without feeling a need to tidy up in case a coworker drops by

[old mark]

8. I worked in a psychiatric hospital, had 2 heart attacks, quintuple bypass

a pacemaker and diabetes. I came back from that and worked a few more years, retired on the first day I was eligible.

"I'm very glad to be here....on Earth!" Les Paul at his induction to the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2000.

I know what he meant.

mark

[boomerbust]

5. Here is what I wish I would have done

Buy a shack on a lake up north with a few acres of land and a barn. Grow my own garden and raise a cow and a pig and a few chickens and become self sufficient. It could have easily been done.

[FreakinDJ]

6. I know a former Indy Car Driver who did exactly that

He was never celebrity famous as a race car driver but he sure was a shrewd retirement planner

He purchase 20 acres adjoining a Northern California river approximately 1/4 mile down stream from an impassable waterfall. Gained the permits from Dept of Fish and Game to net 100% of the Salmon, provided he hatched the fingerling's and released them to the river.

Each year the fish population grew and grew from his hatch and release efforts. Contracted all the labor necessary to to fillet and smoke the fish. Local wholesalers dropped off Refrigerated Tractor Trailer trucks awaiting his filling them with smoked salmon. Whole operation lasted 2 months out of the year.

In the "Off-Season", he raised a little Beef and made Burl-Wood Tables

[raccoon]

7. Family and Friends, and health care is nice, too. nt