That said, don't forget how much medicine and medical technology is improving (at an exponential rate, to be exact). That'll help ease the financial burden of health upkeep and care a little into the future.
Retirement Income
- Thread starter Terry_w
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That said, don't forget how much medicine and medical technology is improving (at an exponential rate, to be exact). That'll help ease the financial burden of health upkeep and care a little into the future.
That's if you get the work done in Oz. Many people are heading overseas for dental work and surgery these days. Yesterday I paid for a Filipina friend to get 4 fillings done for 2,000 peso (AU$50) by an American trained dentist in a modern dental surgery.
An American friend recently went to Costa Rica and got 18 teeth implants done for US$10k. Another American friend needed 2 knee replacements and was quoted US$220k for the work to be done in San Francisco. He did some research, flew to India and got it done by a skilled surgeon for US$6k. The titanium replacements they used came from the same Californian medical supplier if he'd got it done in the U.S.
Don't forget we are global citizens these days and cheap airfares allow us to travel anywhere. You just have to get rid of the provincial mindset.
much of that improvement will come at a higher cost. I can't imagine stem cell technologies coming cheep for instance.
I'm banking on about the same. Health care costs up, everyday costs down.
Sorry to call you on your conjecture, but it's plain wrong.
I'll concede, as time progresses, science/medicine are--and will continue to--find new ways to address/fix/heal previously unfixable ailments, diseases and the like, meaning there is more we can do to improve, upgrade and replenish our heath. And the older we get, the more "new" diseases will come out of the woodwork (would you expect anything less when people are reaching 150 years old?). So yes more things to spend on. 100% correct.
However, more and more, medicine is migrating to the domain of technology, and thus by piggybacking on the exponential growth of technology, medicine is able to leverage phenomenal improvements.
There's a slew of examples of "exponential medicine" (and we're just getting started!) including:
- Medical imaging technology (becoming stunningly more powerful, efficient and affordable)
- Regenerative medicine (3D printers are to be integral in this)
- Information and data (both recording and analysis of)
- Personalised medicine (again, 3d printers will play a huge role, along with genomics)
- The development of nanobots to enter, observe and work within the human body.
- Vast improvements in robotic surgery
- Bionic limbs (including mind-controlled ones - watch this paraplegic woman feed herself a chocolate bar using her mind to control a bionic limb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62fcCvK7F9g)
- Exoskeletons
...ok, I'll stop.
I won't flood this topic with a million pieces of evidence. But I'll open just one single door for you to step through, if you wish.
You can have your DNA genotyped for $99USD. Imagine that 5 years ago. Or 10. Or 50.
Genotyping is not the same as sequencing an entire genome, it's a bit rougher, and a lot quicker. But look at what's happened to the cost of sequencing a genome since the very first one, a bit over a decade ago:
https://www.genome.gov/images/content/cost_per_genome.jpg
And one final point, just about everything in our lives is getting cheaper over time. Medicine is not an exception.
Have a look in your fridge. Could the richest person on earth, 200 years ago, have obtained 1/10th of what?s in there? And kept it cool? And at what cost?
Even gaining the equivalent illumination provided by the light globe inside the fridge when you open it would have required hours of work for the typical person to attain (in the form of a single talon candle) two centuries ago.
Exoskeletons would surely be used by the military before civilian application.
Some of those Boston Dynamic videos are awesome. I can only imagine what isn't being shown.
Part of the reason the cost is so low for genotyping is probably due to the push to keep the data in the public domain.
I see a lot of patents and company's getting rich off the rest of the things you listed. And, as those patents expire, new ones are created with minor differences. Many of the medicines today are just slight modifications of ones they have had for decades.
I'm not betting my financial future on medical companies generously giving cut price medicines/treatment.
I see a lot of patents and company's getting rich off the rest of the things you listed. And, as those patents expire, new ones are created with minor differences. Many of the medicines today are just slight modifications of ones they have had for decades.
I'm not betting my financial future on medical companies generously giving cut price medicines/treatment.
We have three adult Kids at home , paying for four cars etc , Air con left on, they eat alot more than we do ....
Moving to a downsizer in around a year.
Expenses will go down esp when kids leave home .
Also our current expenses including paying for a mortgage on weekender and the mortgage on that will go when we sell our current PPOR .
Cliff
I quit my job six months ago and have been living off my severance payout and humble (relative to what I was earning) pension in what I would consider a trial retirement scenario. I have been quite surprised how much less my wife and I now need to live on, to the point where we are currently tracking to only spend 2/3 of what our passive income could cover, leaving plenty left over to cover bigger, infrequent expenses such as a replacement car, mega holiday, home reno, etc. Suffice to say that, with a few more low expense runs on the board, the trial retirement might just turn permanent.
That is very good to hear.
I suspect most people will need less than they had expected.
My parents have recently retired and tell me their spending has dropped significantly, but their lifestyle hasn't. Because they now have more time and that equals less expenses...
- Instead of dropping by the supermarket in a time poor frenzy on the way home from work and picking up what they need they can now look at catalogues and visit the three supermarkets in their local centre. At their leisure. Buy in bulk.
- They only need one vehicle.
- They don't have to buy work clothes that are very rarely worn outside of work. (They're not quite to the tracksuit & Velcro phase yet!).
- They can dine out at off peak and/or pensioner times.
- They booked a holiday more than year in advance knowing the 'boss' didn't need to be consulted = savings.
- Dad now plays golf on the off peak/pensioner day.
- The list goes on and on and on...
This is what I see a lot of in older people. I recall my grandfather used to love finding a bargin - he would spend $1 on petrol to save 50c sort of thing.
I think this is the first poll where it identifies who actually posted?? Interesting.
This point is key. When we are working, we tend to favour convenience over value for money and you can easily switch this over in your financial favour when you become time, instead of dollar, rich.
FWIW, I am doing most of these now:
- Our local supermarket marks down daily a lot of perfectly good meat within 2 days of expiry by over 50%, so we drop in each day mid-morning to buy that night's meat and thus save heaps.
- We buy in bulk eg Finish dish washing tablets on sale at Woolies this week for 20c per tablet (60% off), so we bought two year's worth
- Sold our second car because it was just not getting used
- Any new clothes I buy are for wearing when I leave the house, leaving my older clothes as my home "work" uniform.
- We often buy Groupon and Outindeal meal coupons (eg. $38 for 2 for a 3 course Thai meal and a glass of wine each) and dine out during weekdays when most people don't.
- We booked our recent New Zealand holiday nine months out and upcoming Melbourne trip three months out to capitalise on great travel deals
- I don't play golf, but I now go to cheap Tuesday movies at the cinema and have gone to all you can bowl Ten Pin bowling before 5pm on weekdays for $16.
I don't agree that more time equals less expenses, to me it's the other way around. When you have more time you want to be more active, keep yourself busy, you don't want to be sitting around the house watching tv all day, you want to be taking more holidays, day trips, games of golf, lunches, breakfasts, I could go on and on and on.
This point is key. When we are working, we tend to favour convenience over value for money and you can easily switch this over in your financial favour when you become time, instead of dollar, rich.
FWIW, I am doing most of these now:
The list does indeed go on ...
- Our local supermarket marks down daily a lot of perfectly good meat within 2 days of expiry by over 50%, so we drop in each day mid-morning to buy that night's meat and thus save heaps.
- We buy in bulk eg Finish dish washing tablets on sale at Woolies this week for 20c per tablet (60% off), so we bought two year's worth
- Sold our second car because it was just not getting used
- Any new clothes I buy are for wearing when I leave the house, leaving my older clothes as my home "work" uniform.
- We often buy Groupon and Outindeal meal coupons (eg. $38 for 2 for a 3 course Thai meal and a glass of wine each) and dine out during weekdays when most people don't.
- We booked our recent New Zealand holiday nine months out and upcoming Melbourne trip three months out to capitalise on great travel deals
- I don't play golf, but I now go to cheap Tuesday movies at the cinema and have gone to all you can bowl Ten Pin bowling before 5pm on weekdays for $16.
By the way the last time I checked buying Finish in powder form was half the price of tablet form. It is indeed surprising how much we can pay for convenience, although I find the powder just a convenient myself...
I think it comes down to the individuals. The ones that are retired that I know all tend to spend less. But some seemed to be overly worried about saving money fearful that they may be eating into their savings or capital - even when they have enough to last.
