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Strategies & Market Trends : Retirement - Now what? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (104)	5/8/2005 5:19:10 PM
From: Drygulch Dan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 288

Hi Wharf, Well, we all have our crosses to bear. I tried to take your thoughts to heart and ran a quicky check to see if my number ($100K) was a reasonable estimate. Unfortunately it is. In order to adjust my lifestyle, here are my choices of things to give up: I could quit skiing and sell the timeshares for dirt cheap on ebay plus I could sell the second home at Tahoe. I've skied for 50 years through two or three broken leg incidences while at the same time building that second home to help sustain this lifestyle. Selling would cut out a large annual expense and yield a huge amount of cash (before taxes). But I still love the skiing lifestyle. And what would I then do with the money? The second home is apparently worth somewhere north of $1.0 mill if you can believe the RE adds. There are an additional couple of neighboring lots I bought along the way to protect our home's views. So I could sell these at potentially significant loss of value to that home due to view loss, but that would be a dumb decision. Guess I'll just keep paying the taxes. I could quit golfing and sell the retirement condo I bought 18 months ago in Hawaii. Its apparently worth about 35% more than I paid for it already. Of course my wife would kill me so that option is pretty much out. Or I could sell the big boat. As a wharf rat, you probably can understand the visceral reaction that I have to doing that. I truly love sailing. The thought of giving up that ocean going dream, now that I can "afford" it both in time and in dollars makes that an impossible decision. Selling the little boat would just get me some pocket change for a year or two. Plus it would limit our enjoyment of Lake Tahoe to just staring at it again like we did for many decades already before buying the bowrider. So I think I'm stuck for now. Maybe this idea of cutting back will make more sense in 10 years or so. In any case I am not concerned with managing that outgoing cash flow for the next decade. Now here are some numbers: Two boats annual slip and storage: $11.3K RE taxes all properties $15K Homeowner dues: 4 condos + association dues annualized $18.36K 3 Cars, 2 boats, 2 homes annual insurance $5K So there goes $50K without thinking about gas, food, clothing, medical, travel, and miscellaneous entertainment expenses. Our medical will be costing us about $650 per month starting in June as we finally go off the old Cobra plan in 30 days. Fortunately we have $36K gross rents income from 3 condos to help offset this outflow. Retirement savings, will cover the rest. Eventually SS and a retirement annuity will also kick in. When I get more concerned, I can sell some other property and move that money into better income producing activities or just deplete those proceeds. Like I indicated its a "nice" lifestyle and I am willing to maintain it for a while longer. You didn't say how old you were, but since you indicate you are still working, I suspect you are just younger than me and still building your equity. I spent the first 55 years scrimping, saving, building and foregoing things already. Now is not the time for me to go back to that lifestyle. The canned cat food is still for the cats. Shooting the cat is not an option either.<g>