Tad Borek <borekfm[at]pacbell.net> wrote:

- quote -

http://www.medjetassist.com/ among others. If you're hospitalized more than 150
miles from home, they'll send a jet. Considering it might cost $100,000 to get
medivaced, it's cheap insurance. American Express offers medical coverage
while traveling. Medjet just handles the evac.

-- Doug

"Daniel T." <daniel_t[at]earthlink.net> wrote
E
- quote -

It's probably right. Exercise is a luxury of the better off.
The lower income folks are too busy working, either (1)
often destroying their bodies through often crippling blue
collar labor or (2) unable to be active, with concommitant
health problems like being overweight, diabetes, etc.
Spiralling further into poverty as health care costs take
their toll (at present), they have to work harder at a
crippling job to pay the bills, etc.

Of course it's about choices. But one has to be educated
enough--and early on--to know the choices exist.

"Tad Borek" <borekfm[at]pacbell.net> wrote
- quote -

Absolutely. Staying active, especially via lower risk
sports, is a superb financial investment today, in view of
the costs of health care.

On the arm: Line drive throwing a certain (and foolish)
style of batting practice. Fact is I was stupid. I had a fun
time "gaming" the health care system a bit, though. E.g. the
Urgent Care doctor or nurse (one of them; I'd only seen
actually a nurse at this point) ordered three x-rays: two of
arm and at least one of hand. The x-ray tech hears my story
of what happened, sees exactly where the ball hit, and hears
I am happily paying cash. She mentions the hand x-ray with
just slightly raised eyebrows. I say no way is my hand
broken and demonstrate with my fingers etc. She leaves for a
minute to consult, returns, and all have agreed we can skip
the hand x-ray(s). I saved myself the cost of at least one
x-ray. Bastardizing system charged me $143 for a very simple
splint, though. They do not tell you up front the charge or
alternatives, of course, and I doubt the people doing the
work know, anyway. They just assume one's insurer (in this
case, me!) happily pays for the works. Coulda bought a
splint at the local drugstore to get me through to the
orthopod's visit for $20.

OTOH, the NY Times last weekend had a story of a couple in
financial ruin and mentioned someone having a (surely much
worse) broken arm that cost over $20k.

I am trying to take the sacred vow: No more pitching ever.
It's the riskiest position in softball today. But I can run
and so play outfield. Um, next year after the arm heals
fully. Dummy...

I second the vote of trying that "adventure" you've always wanted.
I went to China for a year myself at your age (but with no financial
security).

I disagree with you opinion of not beging able to find a job that
pays as well. I heard of many people losing their jobs nearly
twice your age due to economic changes and finding better
paying careers than before. Often they have to become an
entrepeneur.

- quote -

I think "reitement" applies to not being able to get a good enough to
be worth working whether you are old, ill, or tired of it all.
Otherwise I'd call it financial independence. Some independent
people relax, while many pursue new businesses or hobbies.

Same criteria however: 20+ years of expenses saved. Include
benefits like health insurance and taxes as part of expenses.

dan_nospam[at]hotmail.com wrote:
- quote -

You have another thing to consider which is that your health insurance
may be close to useless overseas. I'd suggest researching this and
finding a way to get good insurance including Med-Evac back to the
states if needed. It shouldn't be all that expensive, I think there's
some company that advertises it in...Outside? Adventure? Alpinist?
Climbing? Rock & Ice? One of those magazines, or maybe in travel magazines?

NJ, it came out on some prior threads on MIFP, is a terrible market for
individual health insurance because the insurers are required to cover
everyone. It may be the worst in the country! You could consider moving
to another state before starting travel, even if it's just staying on a
friend's couch to get a mailing address. Once you unplug it really
doesn't matter where "home" is as long as you make sure the insurer has
no reason to deny you coverage. If it saves you $300/month why not?

Travel though, is my suggestion. Travel travel travel travel - if you've
got the bug. Perfect time to do it - you have money, not married/no
kids, you're ready to go. Forget all this stuff about saving up a
million dollars and all that -- why, so you can go travel?

On the "overseas house" thing -- unless you want a villa in Tuscany this
may be a very easy to achieve thing. With some travel you'll find places
in the world where a few thousand bucks lasts a few years, easily --
where you could retire today. I wouldn't consider that an independent
financial goal -- at this point the main goal is figuring out "where?"
Then figure out the $ side, and whether it makes sense to own property
there, vs. just visiting and renting. Mexico for example - non-citizens
need to own it a weird way and it's questionable whether you should bother.

Investments - I'd say, keep it simple. Park the money for the business
(&/or job-hunt period) in something completely safe like a short-term
bond mutual fund or even a high-yield savings account at a bank or
credit union (something paying 5%+, currently). Put the long-term $ in a
"single decision" kind of mutual fund, like one of Vanguard's
LifeStrategy funds or balanced index fund (www.vanguard.com). Then
forget about it and enjoy your travel.

Don't get too worried about job interruption. There are a few hundred
million jobs available here in the US, something tells me you'll be able
to figure out how to pay the rent when you get back into it. The travel
itself could even open some doors. At a minimum, it might help you
figure out what you want to do with your life (other than travel).

-Tad

Elle wrote:
- quote -


As an active master's racer (cycling) I'm of the opinion 45 is the new
30! Some of the fastest amateurs in the Nor-Cal district (ie in the US)
are in their 40s and can still mix it up in the pro-am races.

I hear you on the risk aspect...bike racing can be high-risk as can my
other activity, rock climbing. Also, more than age itself, having kids
changes the calculus a bit. I think in both cycling & climbing the
"experience" factor remains more important though, for managing risks. I
expect this begins to drop off eventually, exactly when depends on the
sport. Then again I've been up on climbs in Yosemite and run into some
of the legends, who are now 70+ and still going strong - very inspirational.

With heart disease and complications from "excess baggage" at the root
of so many long-term health problems, I can't take seriously the idea
that doing this stuff is risky, even if there's the risk of a crash &
all that - or for you the broken arm, however that happened. NOT doing
it is riskier! I'll take a slung arm for a month if that's the price for
avoiding a decade of gout.

Says Tad two days before the big four-oh, which I hope to celebrate with
a 55 mph descent on a 100 mile ride in the High Sierra... =)

-Tad

On May 24, 9:59 am, "Elle" <honda.lion...[at]nospam.earthlink.net> wrote:
- quote -

No, and I'm not a theoretical physicist either (note, they also have a
sharp decline in ability, usually in their 30s.) Most people don't
make such high demands on their body and mind when they are young,
that they can't continue to make the same demands when they are middle
aged. This might have been an incorrect assumption on my part.

dan_nospam[at]hotmail.com writes:

- quote -

That still seems pretty low to me, but I'm only guessing.

- quote -

None of us can correct you. Only your employer can.

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On May 24, 2:03 am, dan_nos...[at]hotmail.com wrote:
- quote -


You can follow the market pretty much wherever you are. But putting
you investment in a diversified group of MF's will require very little
management.

To clarify on the COBRA topic,

Through my employer, I currently pay $80 (25%) of the total premium.
The total premium is $320. With the COBRA admin fee the total for me
out of pocket would be somewhere around $325 or $330 a month.

We have another plan where the employees pay $16 a month. I'm making
an assumption that this is still 25% of the total premium, so this
would tell me that the total would be around $64 a month, plus the
COBRA admin fee. True, this is a high deductible plan, but I don't
mind taking the risk of having to pay the first $2000 out of pocket
since I am only going to need to use the coverage in a disastrous
situation, after the $2000 the plan itself is still excellent.

So thats my argument as to how I can obtain $80/month insurance
Correct me if I'm crazy

Elle,
The low cobra payment should be possible as we have some high
deductible options where employee's are paying premiums of $8 a pay
period. Obviously the trade off is that I have to pay the first
$2200. It's funny that you mention ehealthinsurance.com because i
spent a good amount of time on there looking at the premiums - made me
angry to live in NJ Also in NJ, I don't think they can legally
increase the premium amounts, I believe that is part of the reason why
our premiums are so high.

No, most women don't go for men living such a low budget lifestyle,
good point

As far as the leave of absence, that won't fly, the company is in bad
shape and there's probably a 50/50 change I'll get laid off anyway.

-----

John,
Still now sure how your getting that $60k, my 401k has been in various
funds since day one and realized most of those gains. It doesn't seem
fair to compare it the low and high extremes based on one fund. I
could just as easily say I lost millions by not buying into the right
tech stocks years ago.

-----

Daniel T,
I'd expect that it would cost me about half that, $15k. I'd be
staying in hostels and visiting low cost areas (but safe) in central
america, southeast asia, etc..

-----

I guess the biggest problem is that I may not have a choice in leaving
the job. I've been thrown into a different type of work that I don't
care for, and made it known that I'd like to be laid off. I may have
already chosen my fate :/

Elle wrote:
- quote -

ah, we share a mutual exercise routine.
at 50, I just swam 1:04 in the 100 meter butterfly which compares well with my times
30 years ago

"Elle" <honda.lioness[at]nospam.earthlink.net> writes:
- quote -

It seems unlikely that it's that low. He may think
that it'll be only $80 because that may be what he's
currently paying, as an employee, which is only a
*portion* of what his employer's total cost for his
health insurance is.

COBRA lets them charge you the full cost that they'd
been bearing (plus a small service fee). Very few
employees bear the full cost of their own insurance.
Under COBRA, you do bear that full cost. Check and
make sure you know what it really is.

- quote -

Good advice (more snipped, too).

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"Daniel T." <daniel_t[at]earthlink.net> writes:
- quote -

If he's quitting his job, he needs (a) a heap of cash for
current expenses while he's doing that traveling and such,
and (b) another heap of reliable cash for the time between
stopping all that vacationing and starting to get some other
income, whether that other income is a job or his new
business venture, whatever it is.

In both cases, he's got *short* term needs for money - not
even like a retiree who's got to have a steady long-term
stream of money, but even more short-term - spendable cash
for the next year or two (or more?). That argues for leaving
most of that $140k in cash and/or short-term cash equivalents.
His long-term money - the 401k and Roth - are presumably
invested in longer-term assets (else he'd have pointed
out them as being in cash, too). They should stay invested
for the long term.

But that cash - if he's really going to take time off and
then start a new business - he needs that cash as cash.

I'd say he ought to segment that money into at least
two, maybe three buckets in order to make sure that
his plans don't get derailed. Say, $40k for his "taking
time off and finding himself" period. Not necessarily
that he should spend that much, but if his vacation
fund is getting close to empty, it's time to start
taking life seriously again and starting up that new
business or finding another job - that's the money
to be spent out of the second bucket - the "getting
started back up again" bucket. Maybe that should be
another $40k bucket. Presumably, if he's managed to
save this much while earning $70k/yr, he can live
for at least a year out of each of those to buckets.
The third bucket (since I'm just making up numbers
here) remains his "oh, crap, things didn't work
out like I thought" bucket.

- quote -

At 26, with almost $260k in the bank, he's doing pretty well.

I'd like to see a bigger cushion, too, but he's in good shape
for taking a leap at bigger, better things. If he's been able
to put away that much in that short a time, he's clearly got
discipline and knows how to live within his means. When
better in his life to take some risks than now, while he's
got (a) savings, (b) youth (and time to recover) and (c) no
other financial responsibilities?



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"Daniel T." <daniel_t[at]earthlink.net> wrote
- quote -

Are you an athlete? To what extent? Just curious. My
athletic prowess is subsiding. It does affect my planning
from the standpoint I won't do as athletically risky things
because of the risk and accompanying health costs (long and
short term) (she writes with her broken arm, achieved on the
athletic field of honor in April *&^%$). Until this, I was
developing a great butterfly in the pool. Apart from
chlorine-induced rashes, can't beat the pool for minimizing
risk.

John A. Weeks III wrote:
- quote -

john, you do of course realize that your run-up is but monopoly money, unless you have
taken the profits and moved then to cash or equivalent positions? what will happen to
that 60K when the next major correction or max down day(s), weeks, months occur?

not all of us can shield our IRA and 401K accounts from market corrections and I seem
to recall reading that individuals who attempted to time the market ups and downs by
moving their funds into money market accounts, hold it there to pass the storm, then
moved back into the market, tended to lose more over the long term

then again, if the funds are earning a steady 5% and the world around is burning,
well, there is something to be said for sleeping soundly at night

On May 23, 7:29 pm, dan_nos...[at]hotmail.com wrote:
- quote -


- quote -



- quote -

I have a suggestion. Dont leave the job for 6 more months and then
spend as if you DONT have a job. Also in the mean time you can take a
month off from the job and travel but with the assumption that you
dont have a steady paycheck coming. See how you fare and if you think
you are comfortable quit the job, or else you can revise your plans.

You are pretty young and with retirement age getting longer and more
people staying in the workforce longer I think its too early to quit
when you seem to have a pretty good job.

Good luck


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please trim the post to which you are responding. "Trim" means that except for a FEW lines to add context, the previous post is deleted.

dan_nospam[at]hotmail.com wrote:

- quote -

How much do you expect that to cost? I'm thinking about $30K.

- quote -

You have already said that if you quit this job, you probably won't be
able to get another one like it. Unless you plan on living on less than
$900/month you don't have enough to retire.

Where should you invest your money? That I don't know, I'm too green,
but as a person in his mid-40s I know there is nothing physically or
mentally that I could do in my mid-20s that I can't still do. The best
of your life is still ahead of you so keep working and living like you
are for another 7-10 years. By then you will likely have enough that you
can spend the rest of your life doing whatever you want. Quit now, and
you will end up having to work well into your 40s-50s doing jobs you
don't particularly like.

Think about building a retirement nest egg of 1.5 to 3 million.

Physlab