How much free play do you get from your local Casinos in a week? :)

[Rob.Singer]

Gotcha beat Piggy. In fact, even my wife does, and we both use separate cards at OUR #1. One of us gets just below $2500/mo. and the other gets just above, and starting in Jan. we'll both be over $2500 because of COLA. And we'll continue to keep receiving these amounts and greater into the future with no further play required!

That’s it? So you each get around $30k a year and that is your Number 1?

I would love to discuss this further. For someone who claims to have invested as much as you have over the years, you either invested wrong or didn’t put enough away over the years.

I assume you are 70 as you say, so why did you miss the all of the opportunities in your prime earning years starting in the late 60’s, invest more in the inflation years of the mid 70’s and not ride through the 80’s? Even with the October 19th losses in 87, you would have made that back many times through dollar cost averaging. 07-08? We all tripled our money since then by staying in the market.

I could break this down so many ways and calculate why you brag about $5k a month, and it showing how you can’t have what you say you have. You say $5k like it’s some kind of badge of honor, when it’s a sign of failure for most 70 YO’s who did as you claimed to have done.

And saying you are saving the rest for your kids may be noble, and you may well be doing that, but then don’t put it out there as some sign of success.

And if you come back and say it’s your Social Security, you and I both know you can’t claim that’s your Number 1. Your winnings from the “whatever you exploited” invested in a shitty CD would pay more per month. Yet you brag about $2500 as a Number 1. May be very telling, but I’m sure you have an explanation.

I expected more out of you, I honestly did.

Bragging about $2500 a month, WTF Singer, WTF?

It looks like you're confused as to what we've done here. First thing, I worked for the federal government my first 10 years. There's no SS plan there--only a govt pension type plan which really covers both a pension and SS. I don't include that in my $2500.

Next, I started collecting at age 64 or 65, and at the time the max. for that age wasn't much higher than what I get. I ran thru the numbers and other facts and histories like any SS recipient would do, and decided that was my most advantageous age to start. I also get a private pension from NG, which along with my ss and govt payout is about $5k/mo. I only worked in aerospace for 15 years, but my salary afforded me a decent SS benefit.

My wife OTOH had worked until age 59, and began taking SS benefits at about the same age as myself. She worked in aerospace for more than 36 years, yet her SS is about the same as mine at 15 years because of salary differences.

Her pension is also at $2500 so between us we pull in about $10k/mo. We also take draws from our retirement savings accounts/broketage account as needed. That's where our real money is. We've been married 41 years. I see no reason not to include her income and savings with mine.

That said, I don't see where you're coming from. Neither of our SS's could have been very much higher than we get unless we waited, which analyses told us not to start at 70.

Did I misunderstand something? I certainly wasn't bragging about SS amounts. And the double up bug money went into a house and the RV purchases and other family things. I never said we were rich because we're not. But we're very comfortable. Yes I'm 70 and my wife is 67. I was being facetious with the #1 thing that Piggy used.