Good morning seymour..........I live in Adelaide Australia and its 9 30 in the morning on Sunday the 20th ..........Its quiet and I can hopefully give you some information about my retirement

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My wife and I live in our own home and I have been retired now for 10 years .We run a small car and have enough furniture to see us out and the house is in a good state of r epair and very comfortable ...........We also have 3 married sons and 9 Grandchildren of all ages............Our income is modest but sufficient and we do not go out to a lot of dinners or spend a lot of money on outside entertainment

We are wanting to think ahead in case of sickness or incapacity but we are in good health and after looking at Retirement Viage options the people that own them seem to have alicense to print money ..........What I mean is that they charge excessive fees for independant living facilities and so we have put aside this option for the time being mainly as I say because we can still look after ourselves and are close to family and shopping facilities etc

I believe that the Australian age pensions and many other benefits that we get are quite suitable for us and we have a small collection of Investments that suplement our income for holidays or house maintenance or for some to be available to the kids if they need it



Having said that I do think however that single pensioners who pay rent and who have difficulty getting around are doing it tough and many groups are trying to get our Government to make adjustments to their income as it seems that they are on the poverty line



My comments here are of a general nature as you see and may not be relavent to your enquiry but even so I welcome you to our discussion group here .................We are a bunch of Senior people who have a variety of concerns about life but we are in the main honest folk and quite sincere



You will get other replies I feel sure ..............nice to meet you



clay

Dear Seymour



I am so pleased that I don't live in the USA. Why? Because I have diabetes and I would never be able to afford the medication I have to take if I lived in the US. Each to their own though I suppose. I pay $ 5 (Aus) for each script. I think we are extremely lucky here in Aus and in NZ. I wouldn't swap for one minute. Sorry to sound so negative. I do get US news via the Jim Lehre News show. Your health system sounds to me like a nightmare. And your education system ... We have better standards here and better teaching methods. why not visit down under? You will see that my comments are true.