need a pat on the head or a newspaper on the nose

[Dru]

Not intimidating in a bad way. More like when you're in junior high and you go to open gym at the high school and all the guys playing are bigger and faster, but that's really because they're just more developed than you.

Don't get me wrong, I've learned an incredible amount from the WCI blog then bogleheads then books and now the forum. I can't even think of all the terrible mistakes I would have made without this site. I am in primary care and had just about a 2:1 debt to income ratio when I finished training. That's bad enough as is but would have been ruinous without what I've learned here. We just have to delay gratification a little longer than many others but it will be worth it.

[Hank]

Muaddib wrote:

thanks for the encouraging words all, I appreciate it.  Still wish I could go back in time and smack my intern face with a WCI book and make this all a little easier.  we might ease up on the family loan repayments which are kind of the ” no you don’t need to pay us back it is our gift to you but we’ll still hold it over you for the rest of your life and it was kind of our retirement money” kind of thing.

Click to expand...

"Kids can get a loan for college, parents can't get a loan for retirement."

While it's great that your parents helped you with the considerable costs of getting into and through medical school, they should not have done so at the expense of being responsible for their own lives after they stop working.

You really need to pay back your parents ASAP (with interest) so they are responsible for their own future in retirement.  Don't write a blank check, and don't let them hang however much guilt over your head that they aren't living as luxuriously in retirement as they might wish.

There are some poor slobs out there who owe $400 to $500 thousand dollars for graduate school (law, medicine, dentistry, or god forbid vet school).  Just the same, these folks have containment on their costs.  If parents claim that you denied them the retirement that they feel they deserve, then the amount you might "owe" them is limitless.  Far better to pay back your parents the $170K promptly and let them live off of however much that might generate if they invest that sum prudently.  (Assume $200K with interest and apply the 4% safe withdrawal rule and you'll find it's only $8,000 per annum or $667 per month before taxes.)

You are more than free to support your parents, allow them to move in with you, give them gifts, encourage your other siblings to help support them, etc.  You shouldn't be made to feel guilty for keeping them from being responsible for their own retirement or made to feel that you owe them an ever increasing, limitless amount of funding.

Let's get real.  If $170K was their entire retirement savings, then they had no business whatsoever giving you any of that money.  Pay it back with interest pronto and then support them if you want to out of the true kindness of your heart (and out of an excess of funds after being responsible for your own retirement, housing, and funding college for your kids).  The same $50-$150K per year to mom and dad as a voluntary act versus as an attempt to assuage guilt will feel far better for you and hopefully for them.

[Craigy]

Hank wrote:

Muaddib wrote:

thanks for the encouraging words all, I appreciate it.  Still wish I could go back in time and smack my intern face with a WCI book and make this all a little easier.  we might ease up on the family loan repayments which are kind of the ” no you don’t need to pay us back it is our gift to you but we’ll still hold it over you for the rest of your life and it was kind of our retirement money” kind of thing.

Click to expand…

“Kids can get a loan for college, parents can’t get a loan for retirement.”

While it’s great that your parents helped you with the considerable costs of getting into and through medical school, they should not have done so at the expense of being responsible for their own lives after they stop working.

You really need to pay back your parents ASAP (with interest) so they are responsible for their own future in retirement.  Don’t write a blank check, and don’t let them hang however much guilt over your head that they aren’t living as luxuriously in retirement as they might wish.

There are some poor slobs out there who owe $400 to $500 thousand dollars for graduate school (law, medicine, dentistry, or god forbid vet school).  Just the same, these folks have containment on their costs.  If parents claim that you denied them the retirement that they feel they deserve, then the amount you might “owe” them is limitless.  Far better to pay back your parents the $170K promptly and let them live off of however much that might generate if they invest that sum prudently.  (Assume $200K with interest and apply the 4% safe withdrawal rule and you’ll find it’s only $8,000 per annum or $667 per month before taxes.)

You are more than free to support your parents, allow them to move in with you, give them gifts, encourage your other siblings to help support them, etc.  You shouldn’t be made to feel guilty for keeping them from being responsible for their own retirement or made to feel that you owe them an ever increasing, limitless amount of funding.

Let’s get real.  If $170K was their entire retirement savings, then they had no business whatsoever giving you any of that money.  Pay it back with interest pronto and then support them if you want to out of the true kindness of your heart (and out of an excess of funds after being responsible for your own retirement, housing, and funding college for your kids).  The same $50-$150K per year to mom and dad as a voluntary act versus as an attempt to assuage guilt will feel far better for you and hopefully for them.

Click to expand...

I can't speak for Muad'dib's parents exact situation, but I have a feeling you're overreacting here.

Which dollars you have saved aren't for retirement?  It's all retirement, aka some portion of wealth they have saved.  I doubt they have their own defined benefit plan that they have to true up every year with an actuarially computed amount.