2008 Highlander

I do know who the boss is. I call her maam too! Actually been married for
over 33 years and we do good.

We had an 02 Avalon with same engine as our Highlander (3.0) - she drives
same route to work/back and the 05 Avalon is a good 2mpg better. Its got
less than 13K so expect it will improve.

We like the Highlander for size and the new one should do well for us - the
RAV 4, even though nearly identical to my Highlander in specs does feel
smaller to me. I am too old/fat to change my ways so will be a Highlander
when the bloom goes off.

ron wrote:
> She married me when I was younger 34 years ago! But whe was even
> younger! (35 and 24 then) She has just about 3 years until 62 and
> retirement. And still the hospital will chop off about 40% for the 3
> years "early".

Think about this: if she works just three more years, that's 3 fewer
years that you have to dig into retirement funds. Plus, when she
retires, she gets 2/3 more money (if you loses 40%, and she gets $10,000
for full retirement, she ends up with $6000. If she waits 3 years, she
get $10,000 or 2/3 more than if she doesn't wait 3 years, plus the
amount of the full retirement will go up by the rate of inflation, more
or less). Plus, that 3 years that you won't be drawing on retirement
funds. And, if she waits 3 years, her Sec. will be higher, too.

Waiting 3 years for her to retire may very well double the amount of
money you have to retire on, when you add in Sec., pension and the
money that would be in the retirement accounts. Plus, depending on many
factors, she may be better off waiting until she turns 72 to start
getting Sec. (she will collect a lot more if she waits 10 years,
but she won't be getting any benefits for 10 years - so you really need
someone to do the math to figure out what is best).

Don't take my word for it. Get an opinion from a fee-only financial
planner. Plus there are many financial factors that you know that go
into this, but I don't know the details, because they're personal.

Jeff