"Charlie" <charlie[at]comcast.com> wrote
- quote -

Charlie, you're right that a lot of people do not plan for
their financial futures. As you may have noticed, it is in
fact much discussed in the media. I personally think a mass
movement has begun in the last few years to curb personal
debt, not unlike the movement to curb obesity.

Joe's post I think was largely responsive to your question.
What he came up with is that, under certain assumptions, one
of your two hypothetical people will likely have to save
more if s/he wants to have about the same standard of living
as now. How to fix this? Save more, find new employment,
learn how to live on less money. This group, for one, offers
advice on all these.

You originally asked: "if a person has any specified income
and invests regularly in a serious savings plan then how
much actual money will that person get to SPEND in
retirement after taxes and other significant expenses?" One
can get some idea of the answer using, say, the calculators
at www.fincalc.com (click on "ConsumerCalcs" on the left;
then look for the link to "What will my current savings grow
to?"). Four percent of the total amount this calculator
computes then denotes a guideline for how much a person can
annually spend without exhausting his/her savings. It's a
crude guideline, but all long term financial planning
guidelines are crude, since they rest on assumptions about
the future. You can use this approach to compare different
scenarios.

Otherwise, I think the moderators' guidelines are to steer
discussion away from, say, lamentations over the failure of
so many to plan for the future, and instead promote posting
of immediately useful, constructive advice to help people
plan for the future.

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:18:33 -0500, Charlie <charlie[at]comcast.comwrote:

- quote -

In an effort to REDIRECT THIS THREAD TO FINANICAL PLANNING, one
reaction to the above is that we can't control what others do.

We can control what we do. And one thing I've noticed is that money
in the bank cures all financial problems. So I do the things
necessary now (financial planning) that let me accumulate lots of
wonderful money. That way I can handle pretty much anything.


-HW "Skip" Weldon
Columbia, SC

Charlie wrote:

- quote -

It's certainly possible I missed the point of your question. The
original question had many points to it, reinvesting dividends, post-tax
vs pre tax, time horizon, final spending potential, etc. I tried to
address each, as I read them. Perhaps I missed the larger theme?
Again, my mistake.

JOE

For Elle: It is an exercise to look at things perhaps from a different
direction. I am curious about the after-tax and after-expense end
product in various situations. There are no imperatives to participate.
Most of what I see is by and for persons who have done well and
planned ahead. I personnally like to see what other minds might come up
with regarding the large majority who do not concern themselves with the
future or who can only try to help themselves very late. I think
joetaxpayer completely missed what I was asking about and did what I
said not to do.

For Sgt Sausage: About your taxes as you commented in adjacent entries-
Get used to it. An enormous part of the population is living
hand-to-mouth or spending freely with no regard to the future. When
they "need" they will TAKE, one way or another. No wonder there is so
much pressure to take away our guns. I am not a "Boomer," I am a lot
older than that. When the "Boomers" are old and hungry and don't care
any more, can you imagine 100 million or so hungry (read: marginally
starving) well-armed elderly raiding grocery stores? Tax rates that
take everything above a survival amount from those with anything at all?
I wonder how it will turn out, but I will be raising daisys long
before it begins to get that bad. Oh. . . When the guns are gone-
except for police and military- most other 'Liberties' and 'Rights'
will dissapear with them. We are well along that path already. And this
is not a pro-gun or political diatribe but a reminder that History Repeats.