On May 7, 6:57 pm, "Elizabeth Richardson" <erich...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
> Bill, I think you'll find the general consensus is that at your age you
> cannot have saved too much for retirement.
Yeah, that certainly seems to be the case. It strikes me as
unnecessarily extreme. For example, Bread suggested that if you can't
contribute the maximum to your retirement accounts ($41K for 2008),
you're spending too much. Given that the median household income in
the United States is $48K, well... you do the math.
Plus, what's the point of contributing so much to your retirement
accounts? Ensuring your children never have to work a day in their
lives? Suppose you do invest $41K per year for 30 years with a 6.5%
real return. You'll end up with $3.8M. That's enough to generate
$255K income per year. Is that really the goal? Is it really worth
it to deprive during your working years so that you can have more
money that you know what to do with during retirement?
Another thing I'm concerned about with the "all retirement all the
time" approach is diversity of investments. What if we want to invest
in real estate? Admittedly, it's possible with a self-directed IRA,
but I've heard it's a real headache. What if my wife's practice
offers to buy her in as a partner? Or she wants to buy a practice or
start a new one? Heck, what if >I< want to start a business? If the
vast majority of our savings is tied up in retirement accounts, we'll
have to pay a hefty premium to invest outside the box, as it were.
--Bill
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