Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

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Married2aSwabian
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:45 pm

Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Married2aSwabian »

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Last edited by Married2aSwabian on Tue Mar 15, 2022 11:30 am, edited 3 times in total.

sky
Posts: 1726
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:20 am

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by sky »

Welcome

If you can keep your expenses/income level down, you can get subsidized health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Equities are almost always a bubble, but they keep rising. I have always lost money betting against the US stock market. Even if there is a correction for a period of time, the bubble will reform and grow again.

I use Vanguard Target Retirement funds (and other similar funds from another company) for a large portion of my investments. I used to be really into trying to predict winners in the stock market, but found that I lack the information required to be successful. I also got tired of the whole business of selecting investments and now don't have to worry about it. I am sure they are doing a better job than I can. If they fail, I would probably have failed worse.

7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Welcome!

I am also in Michigan. I wanted to add that you also have to be careful about keeping your income high enough to qualify for Affordable Care Act subsidy. I am having to deal with some serious bureaucracy to fix this problem without taking a tax hit.

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Alphaville
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Location: Quarantined

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:44 am
Welcome!

I am also in Michigan. I wanted to add that you also have to be careful about keeping your income high enough to qualify for Affordable Care Act subsidy. I am having to deal with some serious bureaucracy to fix this problem without taking a tax hit.
if you're in the low end of income don't they auto-move you to medicaid expansion?

7Wannabe5
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Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Yeah, but Medicaid has clawback for assets, so you're actually better off with high deductible private coverage if you have assets. My problem is mostly just bureaucratic because they calculated based on one low income month.

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Sclass
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Location: Orange County, CA

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Sclass »

This is definitely a topic for an upcoming thread. I struggled to stay in my ACA bronze plan because I looked too poor on paper. I elected for normal insurance but due to my low AGI I got bumped into some bottom tier Medicaire system twice. I finally discovered some workarounds. Took me a couple of years to work out since living off long term cap gains and dividends isn’t one of the “income source” check boxes at my state’s ACA application web site.

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Alphaville
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Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Alphaville »

when i was homesteading i got autobotted into medicaid expansion, but the thing was a joke: one month on/one month off, approved/booted, i think because our republican governor didn't wanna keep people on it, and the previous high deductible plans had disappeared so we couldn't find that option.

this was one big factor that made us want to get "jobs" with health benefits and stop worrying about being in legal limbo wrt coverage.

Married2aSwabian
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:45 pm

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Married2aSwabian »

Thanks, All!

@ 7Wannabe5, Thanks, I was wondering if Medicaid takes assets into consideration.

Guess we’ll see what changes (improvements??) to ACA are made in the coming years.

Our ultimate plan B is to go back to Germany for a while, but we want to reside in US long term.

Their taxes are high, but national healthcare system seems to work pretty well.

horsewoman
Posts: 659
Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:11 am

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by horsewoman »

Nice username :) schöne Grüße an die Ehefrau!

Taxes in Germany are not so bad if you don't earn much. My husband and I both work part-time and can utilise the 4/4 model (Steuerklasse 4/4). We pay very little in the way of taxes but are both covered by our employers with full health care.
Honestly I could not imagine doing our semi-ERE thing in the US without a social net - but it is probably like the fish that are not aware of the water... I've never known anything else than the German system.

Married2aSwabian
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:45 pm

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Married2aSwabian »

@horsewoman, yes, it is complicated in both countries from our experience.
Seems like it’s possible to earn (and keep) more $ in the States, but you’d better be good at saving, investing and planning, otherwise you’re screwed! My father-in-law used to say that as long as you’re “young, healthy and active”, you’re better off in the US...just don’t get old or sick!
After living in Germany again from 2011-2013, two things we missed about Michigan were the room to spread out (less densely populated) and much more affordable housing.


Another question for the ERE community: how many of you have achieved your early retirement/ financial goals with a nuclear (strange term!) family and just one primary wage earner? That’s been our approach. It takes more time to get there, but worth the trade-offs. What do you think?

Married2aSwabian
Posts: 265
Joined: Thu Jan 07, 2021 7:45 pm

Re: Hello ERE Community! Greetings from MI...

Post by Married2aSwabian »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Jan 10, 2021 10:44 am
Welcome!

I am also in Michigan. I wanted to add that you also have to be careful about keeping your income high enough to qualify for Affordable Care Act subsidy. I am having to deal with some serious bureaucracy to fix this problem without taking a tax hit.
Hi 7WB5, hope you are doing OK and getting good care for your condition.

Sorry to come back to this post from a year ago, but it’s pretty relevant now! Since you’re also a Michigander, I figured you’re the best one to ask.

Since We’re in the home stretch now - with about 3 or 4 months to go until retirement, I’ve started looking into ACA plans again. When I went to estimator for premiums, it confirms that for incomes below 133% of FPL (1.33x $30k) for fam of 3 we would have to go to Medicaid. If I only work through April and keep putting money in 401k, we’d be way below that. I had planned on using cash for living expenses through the end of next year, but now it sounds like I’d either have to work a bit longer this year or take IRA distributions to stay above the 133%FPL. We would like to be on an ACA PPO plan, but is Medicaid such a bad alternative for a few years? We’ll check with current docs to see if we could stay with them.

Any additional detail you could share re your above comment from last year would be greatly appreciated!

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