Just retired - inflation woes?

[ken-do-nim]

Hi all,

It has to be the worst possible time to retire given the inflation problems.  I know a bunch of you just retired.  How are you handling it?

[cemanuel]

(04-04-2022, 03:57 PM)ken-do-nim Wrote: Hi all,

It has to be the worst possible time to retire given the inflation problems.  I know a bunch of you just retired.  How are you handling it?

I've got a pretty good margin of safety. I think this will change once warmer weather gets here but so far my expenses have been well below what they were when I worked, or had budgeted for retirement. Glad I'm not driving a lot though. Gas around here is down 30 cents from a few weeks ago but today I filled up both tanks of my truck and filled gas cans for working around home. The numbers on the pump moved pretty darn fast.

[crimsonghost747]

While it's not a great situation for anyone, I actually think that us who mostly live on dividends have it better than those on a salary. At least that seems to be the case, for now, on this side of the big pond.

Most of my friends are still getting 1-3% raises this year, and this is before taxes. Current inflation number for the Eurozone is at 7.5%.
I haven't done the math on it, but I'm expecting my dividend growth to be somewhere around 10%. And obviously for the bigger companies it'll take a while to be able to transfer inflation costs to the consumer, and even longer for that to show in dividend increases.

Also, now that I do not have to go anywhere if I don't want to, it's quite easy to save money by just driving less. It's somewhere between $9 and $10 per gallon here, (seriously, when are you guys switching over to the metric system??) so it's a big expense that can easily be reduced for those lucky enough who don't have to go to work with a car each day.

[cemanuel]

(seriously, when are you guys switching over to the metric system??)

Well, there was a big push in school where we had to learn it when I was in Middle School. This would have been 7th-8th grade or in the 1974-75 period.

And where are we today? I used to occasionally give talks to international folks and would always present numbers in kg, km and ha for them. They likely knew the conversions better than I did but it was a courtesy.

[fenders53]

I will be refueling today.  Last time I purchased gas was a few days after the invasion.  Inflation at this level stinks for everyone.  I haven't made any large purchases but I know I won't like it when I need a truck soon.  Unfortunately I think inflation will be cured by a recession.  This is just too much to soft land.  I am not wealthy enough yet to invest quite as conservatively as I probably should.

As far as the metric system, why would we measure everything by 10s, when you can just use factors of 3,4,128,5280 or some other random number?

[rnsmth]

We are doing all right. We have a pretty large margin of income safety.

Will be giving our gardener/handyman and our cleaning person a 10% raise to help them deal with inflation. They are both about a 1/2 day a week.

[fenders53]

(04-05-2022, 09:24 AM)rnsmth Wrote: We are doing all right.  We have a pretty large margin of income safety.

Will be giving our gardener/handyman and our cleaning person a 10% raise to help them deal with inflation.  They are both about a 1/2 day a week.

I think that is very good.  Most entry level jobs have increased pay lately.  People need to eat and our future is already secured well enough.