Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

check under the mattress and in the coffee can buried in the back yard

Some of that went to the Race Track,some to the bookies.And the rest Wall Street and Washington pinched, the Horror

I started taking SS at 66, the first full year in my age group.  It's a tidy sum, and I don't expect it when it shows up.  I also had deductions for Medicare from checking before that for a year, now it comes out of SS.  It can be confusing.  But I like it.

I would be OK with some kind of need based system.

My "investment strategy" is to have five years of monies in liquid accounts, laddered CDs, a short term money market account SWVXX that pays a decent rate (5.16% at the moment), then have about five more years in pretty stable stocks and ETFs, I have had good success with SCHD, the Schwab dividend fund.  I don't seek high dividends, but I like companies with a good record of incresing their dividend.  The next five years is more risky stuff, but still not crazy.  And then I get a bit crazy.  The crazy part has of course had the best returns of late, so I think about rebalancing when it gets over board.

I wrote some covered calls in Apple and Costco a bit back, the Costco actually jumped and I thought I'd lose the stock and then it dropped back, and now it's back up but the calls expired.  This is a decent way of getting some extra return if you don't mind losing a stock potentially or have too much of it.

We COULD end up with a reverse Baby Boom in say 30 years with too many workers and not enough retirees.

Isn't that called massive growth?

Yeah, a concept some of us had is to "rough it" early in our lives so we might enjoy it more later, it's called "investment".

I could have majored in "sociology" or education, but didn't.  I tutored some girls in our dorm to get them through an astronomy class back in the day.  It was a crip science course, I would have made an A on every test on Day One.  They were all education majors, and frankly, taught me to fear for our futures.  And here we are.

We've now lived here six years.  It was a change for me, I had mostly lived in the 'burbs, some of course in college towns, some vacations on a farm.  I am pretty adaptable, I thought, but it has required less adaptation than I figured, most of the change has been positive.  The annoyances of urban life are generally modest and temporary, the benefits are quite nice, for us, and permanent.  I like trees and landscapes and greenery, and we have that in abundance.  I like being able to walk anywhere I need to, and we have that, though of course we retained one car.  My wife drives it mostly around town.

We walked to one of our favorite restaurants last night for M's Day, it is really good.  

It's not for everyone of course.  I see the retirement places in Florida and I think they could be great for golfers and bridge players etc.  But I think it's useful to be in an area with a lot of young folks.  Our building residents lean to be older because it's a condo, the rental buildings around us are mostly young folks, around 30 or so, I see a lot of little ones, and a LOT of dogs.  I snatched this photo off a site where a guy posts drone photos, I liked it, and our building is in it.  In the background is Buckhead, about 3 miles north of is.  

I think most of us here who have retired in some comfort still "pinch pennies".  I'd like to fly Delta One to Europe, but the cost is outrageous.  I'd like to have a Mercedes SUV like my buddy, but we bought a Hyundai.   Some of the condos near us are more ritzy, we like the location here better, even though the building isn't ritzy.

I also went to college for eight years, some of which was, well, unpleasant, and worked 30+ years at a job.  Sacrifice early so you can have some comfort later.

Avoid credit card debt like the plague, don't take fancy vacations, pay off loans ahead of time, don't dine out often, try and buy something even if it's a modest home rather than rent (this may be changing), max out your retirement plans as soon as you can, keep your vehicles ten plus years and maintain them yourself if you can, this isn't a mystery.