As a couple with no children but a few assets that may or may not outlive us, my husband and I have spent some time creating a living trust. We've revised and updated it a time or two, and it's getting time to make another pass at it. It's part of getting older and being responsible, I suppose, and making sure that if there's anything left when we're done with the assets we've accumulated over the years, those assets go where we want them to.
It turns out it's a very values-laden exercise, this allocation of our potential financial remains. We have earmarked quite a few charities, organizations that value what we value, and our trustee tells us she is looking forward to being our appointed philanthropist. (Not so much on cleaning out my office!)
My husband and I have also talked a lot about the savings and investing habit that his grandparents and parents inculcated in him.. I wish I had learned those things from my relatives, but I don't know that it was a lesson they could pass along. Fortunately, I learned it from my inlaws.
The whole reason we have been able to ride out our 'accidental retirement' stems from those good savings habits that he learned from his elders and we brought into our marriage. We started with IRAs and 401(k) contributions in our 20s, and we never stopped. (Well, hardly ever.)
Is this happening in our next generations, in our families?
What are they doing to take care of their own future? And how can we encourage them to be actively seeking a healthier financial future, when they're in their 20s and 30s?
I have often thought about sending the N&Ns (nieces and nephews) a subscription to a financial magazine, or a book on finances; however, my experience has been that unsolicited advice is unappreciated advice.
We believe there is something valuable we can pass along to the N&Ns, along with the money: an appreciation for the value of saving and investing that may also incentivize them to think NOW of their own financial futures.
What we're leaning toward in our trust is writing a provision for our trust that while our trustee is doling out the estate monies, she can match the N&Ns' IRA and 401(k) contributions, up to a limit. What's left goes to our favorite charities!
We are also considering a premium for funds put away before they hit 30, so that they really take advantage of compounding, a great financial tool on its own. Just ask Einstein! It's not rocket science.
Had I been offered that deal from one of my family members, I would have thought very hard about the money I was farting away on stuff I didn't really need; instead, I'd have put something away, even if it were just $25/month, into an account where that money would grow and last longer than the things I farted it away on. It would earn me even more down the road, potentially.
And hey, I'd keep my Auntie really healthy so that she didn't have to blow my potential inheritance on health care!
But seriously, the best things we got from those who preceded us were some values that have put us in good stead. I hope we can do the same for those who follow.
Save those financial statements, kids!
Tick tock.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Can you hear me NOW?
Just recently I've noticed, more than ever, that people don't listen, particularly those in customer service positions. When they're older, I just figure they perhaps can't hear me; when they're young, I figure they don't listen. They aren't paying attention. Perhaps because I am not on their text screen?
At our local sandwich shop just a while ago, my husband ordered "A #9, white bread, hold the mayo." I said I would have the same.
The young woman then asked me what kind of bread I wanted. I said the same as his, white bread.
"Both of you?"
!!!!!
And then she asked whether we wanted mustard and mayo. "No, hold the mayo," we repeated.
And then she asked, do you want lettuce, etc., on it? "Does it come with the #9?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Then, yes, we want all that," and I walked away before I reached over the counter and smacked her out of sheer frustration.
Oh, and then she wanted to ask us how our day was going so far, and what plans we had for the weekend.
Oh, I dunno. Stand here and wait for you to figure out the sandwich order?
SAME. Is that a hard word?
We have a majority of non-native English speakers in our area, but this was not her issue; she was as white as the bread on which she eventually made the sandwiches. I believe the bread has a higher IQ, though.
I don't know what has prompted her short attention span, and I guess I don't want to delve into the reasons now because there's not much I can do about it, anyway.
However, it really does strike me that with this "Silver Tsunami" coming towards our youth, astute business people would be well advised to train their customer service staff to PAY ATTENTION.
I think they train these kids to cross sell and upsell -- or try to train them -- but it becomes so much of an automatic thing they say that they never really pay attention to the responses, and so they miss the whole point.
Just before the sandwich shop, I went into my local supermarket branch of my bank. As I made my deposit, the teller asked me whether I am a homeowner I replied I am, and she asked me if I am happy with my mortgage rates. I stopped her there and suggested she take a good hard look at my bank portfolio and then decide whether she wanted to continue. She kept trying to sell me a new loan, a first mortgage, to replace a very small HELOC we have.
I was nice about it, but there again, it would make so much difference if you felt that your bank knew you. Even the regular branch I've gone into, just about weekly, for banking, trust business, stuff like that? I had the woman who set up our trust account and who has seen me there many many times stop me and ask me for my ID. All I was trying to do was correct HER misspelling of my first name on the account into which I had just made a good-sized deposit.
Am I the only person, the only boomer, out there, who would like accurate service and would actually patronize such places if I were to find trhem?
At our local sandwich shop just a while ago, my husband ordered "A #9, white bread, hold the mayo." I said I would have the same.
The young woman then asked me what kind of bread I wanted. I said the same as his, white bread.
"Both of you?"
!!!!!
And then she asked whether we wanted mustard and mayo. "No, hold the mayo," we repeated.
And then she asked, do you want lettuce, etc., on it? "Does it come with the #9?"
"Yes," she replied.
"Then, yes, we want all that," and I walked away before I reached over the counter and smacked her out of sheer frustration.
Oh, and then she wanted to ask us how our day was going so far, and what plans we had for the weekend.
Oh, I dunno. Stand here and wait for you to figure out the sandwich order?
SAME. Is that a hard word?
We have a majority of non-native English speakers in our area, but this was not her issue; she was as white as the bread on which she eventually made the sandwiches. I believe the bread has a higher IQ, though.
I don't know what has prompted her short attention span, and I guess I don't want to delve into the reasons now because there's not much I can do about it, anyway.
However, it really does strike me that with this "Silver Tsunami" coming towards our youth, astute business people would be well advised to train their customer service staff to PAY ATTENTION.
I think they train these kids to cross sell and upsell -- or try to train them -- but it becomes so much of an automatic thing they say that they never really pay attention to the responses, and so they miss the whole point.
Just before the sandwich shop, I went into my local supermarket branch of my bank. As I made my deposit, the teller asked me whether I am a homeowner I replied I am, and she asked me if I am happy with my mortgage rates. I stopped her there and suggested she take a good hard look at my bank portfolio and then decide whether she wanted to continue. She kept trying to sell me a new loan, a first mortgage, to replace a very small HELOC we have.
I was nice about it, but there again, it would make so much difference if you felt that your bank knew you. Even the regular branch I've gone into, just about weekly, for banking, trust business, stuff like that? I had the woman who set up our trust account and who has seen me there many many times stop me and ask me for my ID. All I was trying to do was correct HER misspelling of my first name on the account into which I had just made a good-sized deposit.
Am I the only person, the only boomer, out there, who would like accurate service and would actually patronize such places if I were to find trhem?
Friday, June 10, 2011
Cunning and Connivery at the Checkout Counter?
Just recently, I've been in pie-making mode. My first attempt was a pumpkin pie, sugar-free for my husband. I figured pumpkin is healthy. It's squash, right? Fiber? Vitamin A?
Keeping health considerations in mind, I went down the aisle at my local grocery store the other day to get the fat free evaporated milk. The national name brand had a price posted, and hey, it was on sale! The store brand had no price posted.
I first went for the national brand, on sale at $1.39, but grabbed the store brand, too, just to see what the non-posted price was.
It was 99 cents. I told them to keep the 'sale' national brand and I'd take the one for 40 cents less.
A couple of days later, Iwent to the same store, looking for French bread rolls for French dip beef sandwiches (OK, so, we took a break from the healthy stuff!), and on a table in the back of the store, there I saw just what I wanted, and hey, they were on sale! Next to these rolls I saw another brand, no price.
I took both packages to the front, and once again, the sale brand was more expensive, by quite a bit, than was the similar product (lower in fat and carbs, by the way!) that had no price posted.
I am starting to think they do this on purpose.
Today, while shopping at a clothing retailer, I went through checkout with a nice, chatty cashier who asked me whether I wanted my receipt in the bag. Sure! And then, I stopped. I pulled out the receipt and noticed she had overcharged me for one item by $8.00 and charged me TWICE for the ONE cute coral straw hat I bought to wear out in my backyard while gardening. It took her a while,but she fixed it.
And finally, in my last shopping foray of the day, I ended up back at the local grocery store, where I was going to save another 50 cents per item if I bought 8 'mix and match' items. I watched that register tape and didn't see the discounts. The 'helper' at the self checkout couldn't figure out how much we were supposed to get back; she didn't have a calculator handy to help her figure out how much 8 x $.50 was going to be, so she sent us to customer service.
We got back our $4.00. On one hand, I think, "These people have jobs?" And on the other, I see why they do. If they make enough mistakes or yack at us enough to distract us, we may get home and never realize that we've been overcharged.
I try not to be any more paranoid than I have to be, but I really do wonder . . . and I have learned to watch the prices.
As my Granny would say, "Thievers! They're all thievers!" :-)
Keeping health considerations in mind, I went down the aisle at my local grocery store the other day to get the fat free evaporated milk. The national name brand had a price posted, and hey, it was on sale! The store brand had no price posted.
I first went for the national brand, on sale at $1.39, but grabbed the store brand, too, just to see what the non-posted price was.
It was 99 cents. I told them to keep the 'sale' national brand and I'd take the one for 40 cents less.
A couple of days later, Iwent to the same store, looking for French bread rolls for French dip beef sandwiches (OK, so, we took a break from the healthy stuff!), and on a table in the back of the store, there I saw just what I wanted, and hey, they were on sale! Next to these rolls I saw another brand, no price.
I took both packages to the front, and once again, the sale brand was more expensive, by quite a bit, than was the similar product (lower in fat and carbs, by the way!) that had no price posted.
I am starting to think they do this on purpose.
Today, while shopping at a clothing retailer, I went through checkout with a nice, chatty cashier who asked me whether I wanted my receipt in the bag. Sure! And then, I stopped. I pulled out the receipt and noticed she had overcharged me for one item by $8.00 and charged me TWICE for the ONE cute coral straw hat I bought to wear out in my backyard while gardening. It took her a while,but she fixed it.
And finally, in my last shopping foray of the day, I ended up back at the local grocery store, where I was going to save another 50 cents per item if I bought 8 'mix and match' items. I watched that register tape and didn't see the discounts. The 'helper' at the self checkout couldn't figure out how much we were supposed to get back; she didn't have a calculator handy to help her figure out how much 8 x $.50 was going to be, so she sent us to customer service.
We got back our $4.00. On one hand, I think, "These people have jobs?" And on the other, I see why they do. If they make enough mistakes or yack at us enough to distract us, we may get home and never realize that we've been overcharged.
I try not to be any more paranoid than I have to be, but I really do wonder . . . and I have learned to watch the prices.
As my Granny would say, "Thievers! They're all thievers!" :-)
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Oprah, Meredith, and Me
When flipping through channels lately, more and more do I see that less and less will I see anyone my age on television.
That is, unless it's those models doing household chores and then with an accidental touch, their immediate landscape turns into the great outdoors and finally, eventually, they end up sitting companionably side by side in two separate bathtubs. Beats post-coital cigarettes, I guess?
What's up with that two-tub thing anyway? Middle age sex is that dirty? I don't get it at all.
Well, two tubs is maybe slightly better than the Depends commercials, or "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
And then this morning, I saw Meredith Vieira leave "The Today Show," as Oprah left her show a couple of weeks ago. Even Katie Couric is now moving from evening news to a talk show.
It's not that I see myself in Katie or Oprah or Meredith, although I have always liked Meredith's hair, but it's that their all leaving around the same time has gotten me to wondering why.
And I am wondering whether their leaving has anything to do with the rest of the people I see on TV and whether the networks are moving these women out.
Diane Sawyer was just over in Afghanistan. Maybe we should have told her to watch her back!
Just wondering . . . .
That is, unless it's those models doing household chores and then with an accidental touch, their immediate landscape turns into the great outdoors and finally, eventually, they end up sitting companionably side by side in two separate bathtubs. Beats post-coital cigarettes, I guess?
What's up with that two-tub thing anyway? Middle age sex is that dirty? I don't get it at all.
Well, two tubs is maybe slightly better than the Depends commercials, or "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
And then this morning, I saw Meredith Vieira leave "The Today Show," as Oprah left her show a couple of weeks ago. Even Katie Couric is now moving from evening news to a talk show.
It's not that I see myself in Katie or Oprah or Meredith, although I have always liked Meredith's hair, but it's that their all leaving around the same time has gotten me to wondering why.
And I am wondering whether their leaving has anything to do with the rest of the people I see on TV and whether the networks are moving these women out.
Diane Sawyer was just over in Afghanistan. Maybe we should have told her to watch her back!
Just wondering . . . .
Thursday, May 26, 2011
A Silver Tsunami on the Streets of the Bay Area!
Well, I've been a Baby Boomer for a while now and praised and vilified accordingly, and now, thanks to last night's newscast, I'm part of the impending Silver Tsunami ready to terrorize the streets and highways of the Bay Area.
The newscast 'warned' that in the next 10 years, 1 in 5 Bay Area residents are going to be 65 (I think that was how they put it) and so younger residents will need to start thinking about how to have "the conversation" about our not driving when the time comes.
Really? The younger folks should be worried about me? I am not talking on my phone, or texting, or playing grabass with my passengers, or shaving my bikini line, or smacking bratty kids -- or all of the above!
Actually, I find that over the last couple of years, I've become somewhat more careful as a driver. For example, I no longer drive with the stereo blaring; I want to make sure I can hear sirens coming down the road -- and approaching intersections! I also find that I watch out for others a whole lot more; I am not being so distracted by daily worries of work, etc., and instead pay more attention to what's going on around me.
Part of that, I must admit, is trying to be a more defensive driver since I find the frenetic pace of the Bay Area freeways getting worse and worse. If someone is coming from behind me and wants to get off the freeway at the same exit I do, will they wait for me? Nah, they speed up and go around me and cut in front of me, and yes, I am driving the speed limit or maybe a bit faster,depending on the flow of traffic.
The freeways have not been very pleasant around here for a very long time, and they seem to be getting worse. I can finally understand why my elderly friend would only take surface streets. She found the freeways too hectic. I am starting to feel that way, too. Even dear ol' 680, which I've always enjoyed driving, isn't quite the pleasure cruise it used to be.
The other factor that may be playing into this is the fact that my life has slowed down, anyway. Since I am not out driving in commute traffic any longer, I am not caught up in something and am not acclimated to the faster speeds and the need for quick reaction times for the idiots driving erratically on the roads.
I am glad to be out of life in the fast lane, in all respects, but sure wish there was time and space for some slow lane time.
Even the slow lane is the fast lane on our freeways!
The newscast 'warned' that in the next 10 years, 1 in 5 Bay Area residents are going to be 65 (I think that was how they put it) and so younger residents will need to start thinking about how to have "the conversation" about our not driving when the time comes.
Really? The younger folks should be worried about me? I am not talking on my phone, or texting, or playing grabass with my passengers, or shaving my bikini line, or smacking bratty kids -- or all of the above!
Actually, I find that over the last couple of years, I've become somewhat more careful as a driver. For example, I no longer drive with the stereo blaring; I want to make sure I can hear sirens coming down the road -- and approaching intersections! I also find that I watch out for others a whole lot more; I am not being so distracted by daily worries of work, etc., and instead pay more attention to what's going on around me.
Part of that, I must admit, is trying to be a more defensive driver since I find the frenetic pace of the Bay Area freeways getting worse and worse. If someone is coming from behind me and wants to get off the freeway at the same exit I do, will they wait for me? Nah, they speed up and go around me and cut in front of me, and yes, I am driving the speed limit or maybe a bit faster,depending on the flow of traffic.
The freeways have not been very pleasant around here for a very long time, and they seem to be getting worse. I can finally understand why my elderly friend would only take surface streets. She found the freeways too hectic. I am starting to feel that way, too. Even dear ol' 680, which I've always enjoyed driving, isn't quite the pleasure cruise it used to be.
The other factor that may be playing into this is the fact that my life has slowed down, anyway. Since I am not out driving in commute traffic any longer, I am not caught up in something and am not acclimated to the faster speeds and the need for quick reaction times for the idiots driving erratically on the roads.
I am glad to be out of life in the fast lane, in all respects, but sure wish there was time and space for some slow lane time.
Even the slow lane is the fast lane on our freeways!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
To the Root of the Matter
In my previous post I wrote that I had been up to spend time with my mom. We had a good visit; she recognized me two days out of three, which is a good result, as far as I am concerned. I came back newly charged up to find a way to move her down here, and I am glad to report that I got her onto a waiting list for a place very near by. Whether or not I can get her the financial aid she will require is another matter.
During this visit with Mom, as always, several people told me I look just like her. I used to reply laughingly that if they didn't stop saying that, I was going to stop coming! I don't see the resemblance, but many apparently do. That's OK. My mom, age 78 and despite years of smoking cigarettes, has lovely skin, and I hope mine will hold up as well.
I also took a good look at her hair this time around. (I wrote before that I was slowing down and taking a better look at everything around me, and here's another example!)
It's not all white, more salt and pepper, with some silver woven in. So I start to wonder if I look so much like her now, will my hair age like hers did? Her mom had nearly all black hair until she died, with very little silver in it. As my hair stands right now, underneath the color job I last had done a few weeks ago, I see that my hair is mostly dark -- some color between black and brown that I can't really name -- with some silver woven in. I also have some pretty striking white hair at my temples.
When I worked, I worried more about coloring my hair because I have always thought roots looked pretty skanky, despite what the younger generation allows itself to look like. After I got 'retired,' I let my natural color grow out for a while, but I didn't like it, so I went back to coloring it. Someone else wrote that she colors her hair so as not to be 'invisible,' and it made me wonder why I still color mine.
The simple answer is that it looks prettier when I do.
One day, when my hair has made its transition to that beautiful white that I now see at my temples, I will let it all be white (although how I am going to make that transition, I have no idea.) I have two men friends, Mike and Ken, whom I've known since both were much younger and blonder. Both now have beautiful white hair. Pop, also, has lovely white hair, and if mine looks as good as theirs does, I'll gladly wear the white.
Until then, I'll keep working to keep my hair the color it was when I was in high school: not because I think it makes me look younger -- I am not fooling anyone -- and not because I feel invisible otherwise.
It just looks prettier to me, and that ought to be good enough!
During this visit with Mom, as always, several people told me I look just like her. I used to reply laughingly that if they didn't stop saying that, I was going to stop coming! I don't see the resemblance, but many apparently do. That's OK. My mom, age 78 and despite years of smoking cigarettes, has lovely skin, and I hope mine will hold up as well.
I also took a good look at her hair this time around. (I wrote before that I was slowing down and taking a better look at everything around me, and here's another example!)
It's not all white, more salt and pepper, with some silver woven in. So I start to wonder if I look so much like her now, will my hair age like hers did? Her mom had nearly all black hair until she died, with very little silver in it. As my hair stands right now, underneath the color job I last had done a few weeks ago, I see that my hair is mostly dark -- some color between black and brown that I can't really name -- with some silver woven in. I also have some pretty striking white hair at my temples.
When I worked, I worried more about coloring my hair because I have always thought roots looked pretty skanky, despite what the younger generation allows itself to look like. After I got 'retired,' I let my natural color grow out for a while, but I didn't like it, so I went back to coloring it. Someone else wrote that she colors her hair so as not to be 'invisible,' and it made me wonder why I still color mine.
The simple answer is that it looks prettier when I do.
One day, when my hair has made its transition to that beautiful white that I now see at my temples, I will let it all be white (although how I am going to make that transition, I have no idea.) I have two men friends, Mike and Ken, whom I've known since both were much younger and blonder. Both now have beautiful white hair. Pop, also, has lovely white hair, and if mine looks as good as theirs does, I'll gladly wear the white.
Until then, I'll keep working to keep my hair the color it was when I was in high school: not because I think it makes me look younger -- I am not fooling anyone -- and not because I feel invisible otherwise.
It just looks prettier to me, and that ought to be good enough!
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Checking in with Mom -- "You Talkin' to ME?"
They, whoever "they" might be, keep talking about the Baby Boomers as the sandwich generation, taking care of both kids and parents.
Well, I don't have kids, but I have a mom, all right. She's been in a skilled nursing facility, up in WA State, where my brother dumped her, for about 13 years (And may I just say, now THAT is what I called skilled -- keeping her alive all these years, when the average is 3 years in a facility.) Honestly, with the long list of things wrong with her, I don't know why she is still alive, but she is.
More or less.
It's not the life I would want to live, and in her more lucid moments, when I fly up into the Pacific Northwest, she expresses surprise at her whereabouts.
I wheeled her out in her chair yesterday, when the sun was out (oh joy), and she said, "Doesn't it EVER get warm here?" Yes, I replied, when it's summertime. "Well, WHEN is summer COMING, then!" she replied quite vociferously.
The social worker tells me Mom is in a state of advanced dementia, yet when Mom has her hearing aid in, and when she finally realizes that I am there, she becomes quite lucid and pretty chatty.
I have done what I usually do on these quick trips: clean out the old ratty clothes, replenish her wardrobe, spend short snatches of time with her -- she isn't awake for very long -- and then I head back to the hotel to rest up for the next foray into the life I sure don't want to live myself.
And while she hasn't quite yet got it that I was here today, she knew yesterday. But then she kinda blew that because she asked where her other daughter was. (She doesn't have one; she only has 3 sons. They all have children, or live too far away to visit, so of course they don't visit.)
God knows she could use another daughter, that's for sure, but there's just me.
Mom and I weren't that close when I was growing up, for a variety of reasons. We were shopping buddies, mostly, but she seems to have spent most of her quality time with my 3 younger brothers.
So now, when my time has expanded and I've had the chance to slow down, to look at birds and hills, and all that nature stuff, I have also had the time also to slow down and see my mom. She is no longer the mom I grew up with, but I have to say we have a better relationship now than we did back then.
She said to me the other day, "You're just a sweetheart," and I asked her, "Who am I?" because it was so unlike anything she'd ever said to me.
She said my name, so I knew she was talking to me.
Like I said, time has slowed way down, in a way, now that I'm 'retired,' or whatever, and I think this time with Mom is yet another gift, and I am grateful.
Well, I don't have kids, but I have a mom, all right. She's been in a skilled nursing facility, up in WA State, where my brother dumped her, for about 13 years (And may I just say, now THAT is what I called skilled -- keeping her alive all these years, when the average is 3 years in a facility.) Honestly, with the long list of things wrong with her, I don't know why she is still alive, but she is.
More or less.
It's not the life I would want to live, and in her more lucid moments, when I fly up into the Pacific Northwest, she expresses surprise at her whereabouts.
I wheeled her out in her chair yesterday, when the sun was out (oh joy), and she said, "Doesn't it EVER get warm here?" Yes, I replied, when it's summertime. "Well, WHEN is summer COMING, then!" she replied quite vociferously.
The social worker tells me Mom is in a state of advanced dementia, yet when Mom has her hearing aid in, and when she finally realizes that I am there, she becomes quite lucid and pretty chatty.
I have done what I usually do on these quick trips: clean out the old ratty clothes, replenish her wardrobe, spend short snatches of time with her -- she isn't awake for very long -- and then I head back to the hotel to rest up for the next foray into the life I sure don't want to live myself.
And while she hasn't quite yet got it that I was here today, she knew yesterday. But then she kinda blew that because she asked where her other daughter was. (She doesn't have one; she only has 3 sons. They all have children, or live too far away to visit, so of course they don't visit.)
God knows she could use another daughter, that's for sure, but there's just me.
Mom and I weren't that close when I was growing up, for a variety of reasons. We were shopping buddies, mostly, but she seems to have spent most of her quality time with my 3 younger brothers.
So now, when my time has expanded and I've had the chance to slow down, to look at birds and hills, and all that nature stuff, I have also had the time also to slow down and see my mom. She is no longer the mom I grew up with, but I have to say we have a better relationship now than we did back then.
She said to me the other day, "You're just a sweetheart," and I asked her, "Who am I?" because it was so unlike anything she'd ever said to me.
She said my name, so I knew she was talking to me.
Like I said, time has slowed way down, in a way, now that I'm 'retired,' or whatever, and I think this time with Mom is yet another gift, and I am grateful.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Yellow-Billed Magpie
But until today, I had no idea that magpies lived in the U.S. -- well, except for the human variety, which Pop, my father in law, can tell you all about.
When I saw a bird like this today, just starting out on the trail up Mission Peak, I couldn't figure out what it was. Hmmm, I thought, it's about the size of a crow, black and white with deep sapphire blue patches on its wings. It kinda looks like a magpie, but . . . .
I grabbed my little East Bay Parks bird guide. Nope, no pictures like that, no magpies.
I grabbed the new girly white iPhone with the pink antenna-protector thingy and tried to snap photos of the bird on the way up. No luck. I tried to look it up on the girly iPhone, too, but that was wasting too much good time. I just relaxed and enjoyed the hike.
And then coming back down, my husband pointed this bird out, sitting on the barbed wire fence. He/she (the bird) wasn't a bit worried about me; in fact, it was so busily chattering away that I almost felt it was inviting me to talk -- or trying to scare me away from its nest.I sidled my way closer than I'd thought I could and snapped a few photos.
It still reminded me of a magpie, and my husband pointed out its yellow bill and the bits of yellow around its eyes.
Back home, neither of the other SF area bird books had a photo of this bird, so I turned to my big red field guide, The National Audubon Society Western Field Guide, which I bought recently at Borders' bankruptcy blowout.
I followed my hunch, looked up "magpie," and found it. A magpie with a yellow bill, all right!
A yellow-billed magpie. Whaddaya know? Sometimes things just do make sense.
Up on that trail, I stood looking at that bird and also looking down at a campus where I'd taught English, oh, 15 years ago. Back then, I would never have hiked, unless it was to Starbucks, and I also bet that had that bird plopped itself right in front of me on the sidewalk as I rushed into or out of the classroom, I'd have missed it.
Not any longer, and I am so grateful that I see differently now.
Monday, May 9, 2011
COBRA and other insurance that bites
Earlier this year, my husband's COBRA benefits ran out. We knew it was coming, we did our research for state and federal high risk pools, we looked over various other offerings, and we ultimately we chose for my husband to purchase one of the HIPAA policies from Aetna. He has a pre-existing condition, so unless he wanted to go without insurance altogether for 3 to 6 months, he had to take a HIPAA policy from one of the big boys. Each company gives you only two choices, and he bought the best coverage he could. I purchased my own separate policy and was able to do better since I have no real ailments.
You would THINK that if you chose a policy and already paid top dollar because you are in a high risk group, with guaranteed coverage, the insurance company would already have charged enough and not have to raise rates even higher.
You can see where this is going, can't you? My husband just got a notification that his plan premium, just started in February of this year, will be going up 10% in August.
I am so tempted to give them all the middle-finger salute, with both hands!
And yet, I have seen another side of the costs for medical attention. I visited a doctor who told me one price would be the cost for me if I had insurance, but only half the quoted price if I did not have insurance. Now, why is that? And is this the same kind of pricing 'strategy' that is taking place with Medicare billing?
"It ain't fittin'; it just ain't fittin.'"
You would THINK that if you chose a policy and already paid top dollar because you are in a high risk group, with guaranteed coverage, the insurance company would already have charged enough and not have to raise rates even higher.
You can see where this is going, can't you? My husband just got a notification that his plan premium, just started in February of this year, will be going up 10% in August.
I am so tempted to give them all the middle-finger salute, with both hands!
And yet, I have seen another side of the costs for medical attention. I visited a doctor who told me one price would be the cost for me if I had insurance, but only half the quoted price if I did not have insurance. Now, why is that? And is this the same kind of pricing 'strategy' that is taking place with Medicare billing?
"It ain't fittin'; it just ain't fittin.'"
To Friends from Long Ago, and Today
This photo, taken in January 2010, shows a group of women who had not seen each other since the mid-70s. (Well, two of us had reconnected in person a little bit earlier, but the other 3 had not stayed in touch with each other, or with us, since back then.)
Three of us were in the same grade, the other two were 2 years behind us; some stayed in Southern California, I moved to the Bay Area, and one was just visiting from Florida, although she has moved back to her California girl roots. We all served in our high school band's auxiliary teams, as flag twirler, ID squad member, or majorette, but we didn't all really hang out together in high school. I know we didn't share a meal, unless we all were on the band tour.
Yet here we all came together, in our 50s, via Facebook, and we made the effort to get together. While we don't still spend much time on Facebook, we still stay in touch one way or another, and I appreciate the opportunity to get older with these lovely women.
See you down in the OC real soon, ladies!
Monday, May 2, 2011
SSN, FICO, and Job Applications, Oh, My!
Yesterday I found an interesting job on a "Jobs in Aging" board. It is a part-time position, the job requirements are right up my alley -- training design and facilitation, working with people, benefits, the elderly and their caregivers and families -- and so I went ahead and applied to the email and person listed on the job announcement.
This morning I got an email from that person directing me to the organization's website so that I could apply online. I went to the site, started my application, and then stopped in my tracks.
No, I will not give you my SSN so that you can run a credit check on me at this point in the process. I don't want to give out my SSN, and I don't want your inquiry hitting my credit score!
A few months ago, I went online to the Borders site and had to go through the same exercise, all for a part-time position for a company that was soon going into bankruptcy.
And you want to see my credit report? C'mon.
As much as I would like to be considered for that part-time position in aging, I wrote a polite email back to the recruiter and explained to him/her why I wasn't going forward with the application process. I did offer to speak with him/her and if it looked like the organization was getting serious about wanting to hire me, I would certainly provide my info later in the process.
I just decided that I am putting my foot down and not letting some anonymous recruiter out there -- with his/her hackable software -- have my personal info any longer.
That's just wrong.
This morning I got an email from that person directing me to the organization's website so that I could apply online. I went to the site, started my application, and then stopped in my tracks.
No, I will not give you my SSN so that you can run a credit check on me at this point in the process. I don't want to give out my SSN, and I don't want your inquiry hitting my credit score!
A few months ago, I went online to the Borders site and had to go through the same exercise, all for a part-time position for a company that was soon going into bankruptcy.
And you want to see my credit report? C'mon.
As much as I would like to be considered for that part-time position in aging, I wrote a polite email back to the recruiter and explained to him/her why I wasn't going forward with the application process. I did offer to speak with him/her and if it looked like the organization was getting serious about wanting to hire me, I would certainly provide my info later in the process.
I just decided that I am putting my foot down and not letting some anonymous recruiter out there -- with his/her hackable software -- have my personal info any longer.
That's just wrong.
Friday, April 29, 2011
The Mac is Back: Let the Learning Begin!
My first experience with a computer was back in 1985, or thereabouts, when the accounting office I worked in got a Compaq with DOS. I loved working on that thing. Of course I did. I was 29!
By 1993, out of accounting and into academia, working on my Ph.D. in English, I got assigned, by request, to a computer lab classroom. The lab had Macs.
Did I have real Mac experience? Nooooooo. I had seen one early model in the lab of a wastewater treatment plant I had worked in back in the early '80s, had even fiddled around with some basic programming language on it. That was it. Other than that, I had only had whatever computer experience I had gleaned from that old work PC, plus having to type long English literature papers on a typewriter/homeprocessor I had at home.
Nevertheless, I wanted that Mac computer lab classroom. I wanted to learn how to use them, so I figured the best way to do it was to be required to use them.
By the end of the first class session, I was up and running on the Mac. I was hooked and bought my first Mac a few weeks later, and I think by the time I left teaching in 2003, I was on my 4th one, a G4. That particular computer started gathering dust as I had to start using a PC for some test scoring from home. By the time I got shed of that assignment, my G4 was no longer useful for me. I ended up getting a desktop PC and over the past 3 years have become more and more annoyed by the increasing incidents of "BSD," aka Blue Screen of Death. The final straw came when the dang PC got the BSD when trying to open my iTunes software. That did it. I can't update my iPod, can't listen to my music. Pooh.
Macs were back in my sites, and I longed for the day I could justify the expense to get back to Mac.
Well, I never did justify the expense, really, but yesterday I finally bought my 13" MacBook Pro, along with a very girly white iPhone 4, first day out, with a hot pink bumper. Absolutely NOT practical but absolutely worthwhile to me.
This is the inaugural blog from my new laptop. :-)
It's a bit different, I must admit. This laptop talks more than I do. And what the heck is VO? My dad used to drink it, and now it's on my computer. Once I learn how it works, I reckon I will learn how to turn it off.
Or maybe we'll have some scintillating conversations.
OK, maybe it will take me longer to learn how to use this. I have time. And it will take me some time to get around that iPhone. I still can't get Facebook off the start page. I mean, c'mon. I am not on Facebook that much, Royal Wedding status updates notwithstanding.
So why did I finally give myself permission to buy this new technology? Because it's yet another chance for me to learn. This will be my laptop and phone for my new business, and I will have to learn to use it, because once I get everything migrated to the laptop, the desktop is going to live with Pop.
More anon . . . .
By 1993, out of accounting and into academia, working on my Ph.D. in English, I got assigned, by request, to a computer lab classroom. The lab had Macs.
Did I have real Mac experience? Nooooooo. I had seen one early model in the lab of a wastewater treatment plant I had worked in back in the early '80s, had even fiddled around with some basic programming language on it. That was it. Other than that, I had only had whatever computer experience I had gleaned from that old work PC, plus having to type long English literature papers on a typewriter/homeprocessor I had at home.
Nevertheless, I wanted that Mac computer lab classroom. I wanted to learn how to use them, so I figured the best way to do it was to be required to use them.
By the end of the first class session, I was up and running on the Mac. I was hooked and bought my first Mac a few weeks later, and I think by the time I left teaching in 2003, I was on my 4th one, a G4. That particular computer started gathering dust as I had to start using a PC for some test scoring from home. By the time I got shed of that assignment, my G4 was no longer useful for me. I ended up getting a desktop PC and over the past 3 years have become more and more annoyed by the increasing incidents of "BSD," aka Blue Screen of Death. The final straw came when the dang PC got the BSD when trying to open my iTunes software. That did it. I can't update my iPod, can't listen to my music. Pooh.
Macs were back in my sites, and I longed for the day I could justify the expense to get back to Mac.
Well, I never did justify the expense, really, but yesterday I finally bought my 13" MacBook Pro, along with a very girly white iPhone 4, first day out, with a hot pink bumper. Absolutely NOT practical but absolutely worthwhile to me.
This is the inaugural blog from my new laptop. :-)
It's a bit different, I must admit. This laptop talks more than I do. And what the heck is VO? My dad used to drink it, and now it's on my computer. Once I learn how it works, I reckon I will learn how to turn it off.
Or maybe we'll have some scintillating conversations.
OK, maybe it will take me longer to learn how to use this. I have time. And it will take me some time to get around that iPhone. I still can't get Facebook off the start page. I mean, c'mon. I am not on Facebook that much, Royal Wedding status updates notwithstanding.
So why did I finally give myself permission to buy this new technology? Because it's yet another chance for me to learn. This will be my laptop and phone for my new business, and I will have to learn to use it, because once I get everything migrated to the laptop, the desktop is going to live with Pop.
More anon . . . .
Really Rich and Really Retired: The Duchess and the Commoner
A little over 30 years ago, a prince and a shy aristocratic English rose got engaged. Newly married myself, I was there in spirit for the engagement, up very early for the wedding, there for the pregnancies, the births, the sadness, and the final tragedy that, all these years later, hasn't quite gone away.
Early this morning, their son married his Catherine. Catherine Elizabeth. I am so glad that a brunette named Catherine (even if the name is spelled differently from mine) is going to be Queen of England some day! And I am glad her middle name is the same as my dear departed mum-in-law's. She would have been as tickled about this all as I am!
Some things just become part of our personal histories, and for better or for worse, the House of Mountbatten-Windsor seems to be part of mine. Hence, my attendance at the wedding on my big ol' 46" inch TV, starting at 1 am PST. I wasn't alone, of course; the 4 beagles were sacked on the couch, surrounding me with love, snores, and the other attendant effluvium of dog ownership. But I digress . . . .
I am happy as all get out for Will and Kate, and I find that another blogger was there watching and sharing my interest and enthusiasm.
In her morning's blog about this (early, early, early) morning's Royal Wedding, "The Brazen Careerist" shared her experience watching the Royal Wedding.
Within her blog , I found that I have something more in common with the new Duchess of Cambridge than just my first name. Read on.
According to the results of a study from Boston University, BC writes, "in general, the very wealthy (those who have more than $10 million) are extremely anxious about money. And much of that anxiety is about work. Because for the super-rich, work is essentially volunteer. [Emphasis mine.]
Hey, that sounds a little like being retired, I thought to myself.
BC continues, quoting psychologist Robert Kenny: "Work is what fills most people’s days, and it provides the context in which they interact with others. A life of worklessness, however financially comfortable, can easily become one of aimlessness, of estrangement from the world. The fact that most people imagine it would be paradise to never have to work does not make the experience any more pleasant in practice."
She got that right! "Kwitcherbitchin," my little brother would say. But he doesn't get it. Not at all.
BC concludes, "Kate and William will have to build a life where they find purpose in work in spite of their wealth."
Well, this "Kate" and her husband, two accidental retirees, also have had to build a life where they find some new purpose. It's not about the money, or not yet. It's about the purpose.
Good luck with all that, from one "Kate," the commoner, to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and her new husband. I am getting it all worked out (no pun intended), and I am sure you will, too!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
The Entry with No Title Because I Can't Think of One Right Now
Do what you love and the money will come, or so I've heard it said. I would have to say that was true for all the years I taught as well as worked in the testing business. There were many long days and nights of teaching; one quarter/semester found me teaching six sections of four courses at four different Bay Area college campuses! Added to my teaching were the "read and eat" weekends I spent in hotels, working as a faculty consultant for a world-wide educational testing company.
Somewhere in all of that I found time to earn an M.A. in English and pursue coursework toward two unfinished doctorates, in English and in Education. (Well, maybe the third time will be the charm!)
I never felt like it was really work, though, because I was so busy and happy. The more jobs I had going, the more directions I went, the more content I seemed to be. That life as an academic gypsy scholar made up some of the best days of my life so far. According to my Social Security statement, that work style apparently paid off, too, so that adage proved true for me.
These days I am once again going in a lot of directions, as recently dawned on me when I read back over my earlier blogs. I am still "coming out green all over," like Mrs. Fisher in Enchanted April, and following all sorts of trails. The volunteer work with seniors, the recent senior advisor certification, the ongoing coursework in fiduciary management: all are indicators that I am engaged and doing what I like to do simply because I want to do it.
This blog is still another indicator. I am writing because I want to write, and it has led me to yet another pursuit: I just sent a sample of my writing to our hometown newspaper.
Until I submitted that writing sample, I had forgotten that I already had a 'career' in journalism, long ago. In 6th grade, in Alice, Texas, I was the Fashion Editor of my school newspaper, where I recall writing about the "kicky beret" topping off one classmate's outfit. Later on, in 8th grade, I was Editor in Chief of the Kaiser Krier. The journalism advisor actually gave me an independent study class so that I could work on the paper without having a schedule conflict with my band class.
Years later, my French horn has long been donated to a local junior high school band class, which is just as well, since my beagles would get rather alarmed and hide behind chairs when I blew a few notes. "Tally Ho" means absolutely nothing to these progeny of show beagle lineage! But my interest in writing, long dormant, is coming back. We will see where I go with this.
Somewhere in all of that I found time to earn an M.A. in English and pursue coursework toward two unfinished doctorates, in English and in Education. (Well, maybe the third time will be the charm!)
I never felt like it was really work, though, because I was so busy and happy. The more jobs I had going, the more directions I went, the more content I seemed to be. That life as an academic gypsy scholar made up some of the best days of my life so far. According to my Social Security statement, that work style apparently paid off, too, so that adage proved true for me.
These days I am once again going in a lot of directions, as recently dawned on me when I read back over my earlier blogs. I am still "coming out green all over," like Mrs. Fisher in Enchanted April, and following all sorts of trails. The volunteer work with seniors, the recent senior advisor certification, the ongoing coursework in fiduciary management: all are indicators that I am engaged and doing what I like to do simply because I want to do it.
This blog is still another indicator. I am writing because I want to write, and it has led me to yet another pursuit: I just sent a sample of my writing to our hometown newspaper.
Until I submitted that writing sample, I had forgotten that I already had a 'career' in journalism, long ago. In 6th grade, in Alice, Texas, I was the Fashion Editor of my school newspaper, where I recall writing about the "kicky beret" topping off one classmate's outfit. Later on, in 8th grade, I was Editor in Chief of the Kaiser Krier. The journalism advisor actually gave me an independent study class so that I could work on the paper without having a schedule conflict with my band class.
Years later, my French horn has long been donated to a local junior high school band class, which is just as well, since my beagles would get rather alarmed and hide behind chairs when I blew a few notes. "Tally Ho" means absolutely nothing to these progeny of show beagle lineage! But my interest in writing, long dormant, is coming back. We will see where I go with this.
Taking the First Step toward Becoming an Entrepreneur
Today I put in the mail the application for my Fictitious Business Name, and once that's done, I can publish and start using it. Oddly enough, although this is only now a mom and pop business (no pun intended, but a good one, eh?) I am thinking I am also going to register the name of the business -- you know, get the whole TM thing going. Who knows? I may become the next big elder care franchise.
I'd rather think too big than too small!
Oddly enough, the people who have inspired me to go into business for myself are four former high school classmates with whom I've only recently and intermittently reconnected: Rob, Melissa, Eric, and Mike. More recently, Stacy got her own business up and running. I figure if they can do it, what's stopping me from making a try? Thanks to all of you for the inspiration.
I have decided that no matter what the outcome is of the whole foray into entrepreneurship, I am just glad to be working on a new project that requires me to think and learn.
On another note, from a recent post about Medicare costs, I see that someone recently wrote about a variety of possible healthcare costs in retirement. Finally, someone is addressing the fact that not all of us are going to need a quarter of a million dollars for health care in retirement. Average means average!
Many will need much, much more, though, and I would imagine that very few, if any, of those will be able to pay for their own health care. I know at least one person for whom Medicaid pays over $90,000 a year, just for one medication among the many she takes, and I am certain she's not alone in such medical needs.
It's just another reminder to keep taking better care of myself, physically and mentally, so I stay on the low end of healthcare costs.
http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/112604/medicare-drug-cost-coverage-smartmoney?mod=fidelity-livingretirement&cat=fidelity_2010_living_in_retirement
I'd rather think too big than too small!
Oddly enough, the people who have inspired me to go into business for myself are four former high school classmates with whom I've only recently and intermittently reconnected: Rob, Melissa, Eric, and Mike. More recently, Stacy got her own business up and running. I figure if they can do it, what's stopping me from making a try? Thanks to all of you for the inspiration.
I have decided that no matter what the outcome is of the whole foray into entrepreneurship, I am just glad to be working on a new project that requires me to think and learn.
On another note, from a recent post about Medicare costs, I see that someone recently wrote about a variety of possible healthcare costs in retirement. Finally, someone is addressing the fact that not all of us are going to need a quarter of a million dollars for health care in retirement. Average means average!
Many will need much, much more, though, and I would imagine that very few, if any, of those will be able to pay for their own health care. I know at least one person for whom Medicaid pays over $90,000 a year, just for one medication among the many she takes, and I am certain she's not alone in such medical needs.
It's just another reminder to keep taking better care of myself, physically and mentally, so I stay on the low end of healthcare costs.
http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retirement/article/112604/medicare-drug-cost-coverage-smartmoney?mod=fidelity-livingretirement&cat=fidelity_2010_living_in_retirement
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Brand-New Résumé : Starting All Over Again
The first paying job I ever got, when I was 16, was behind the counter of our local donut shop, Country Club Donuts. That donut shop is still there, and I smile when I'm down in Orange County and drive by the old place. Forty years of employment that started with a buck sixty-five an hour!
After a couple of jobs in clothing stores, I somehow graduated into office/clerical work, where I stayed for about 10 years. Leaving office work to finish my business degree, I ended up finding a great 15-year career in academia. I left academia for a few corporate jobs, leaving one to move onto the next, better one, time after time.
A couple of years ago my last job 'left' me (for which I am daily very, very thankful!). For those past 2 years, I've considered myself on a sabbatical of sorts, waiting and trusting that I wasn't yet finished with 'work' but just hadn't found out yet what I really wanted to do next, hadn't discerned what would keep my brain and heart engaged.
This is all by way of saying that I've changed careers a few times in my life, and it's always been a real adventure to start something new.
It's time for yet another career. Yeah, I know, I've been calling myself a 'retiree,' but really, I never believed it!
My résumé is once again brief and ripe for developing with new experiences in a whole new field: working with seniors. I really got a start back in 4th grade, when I spent time at the local nursing home in my hometown, and then again in the past 5 years or so, dealing with the issues of friends and family as their needs came up. My recent volunteer work with seniors has also helped me see that I have something to contribute in this area, now that I have the time.
I realize that I like taking care of the business of people who trust me to do right by them. It's nice to be appreciated and trusted.
To that end, I've earned a certificate and designation to supplement my work; I'm laying my plans for my own business, which I plan to launch June 1; I'm taking courses to obtain professional certification as a fiduciary; and in the not-too-distant future, I will probably do what I've always done: go back for some schooling to obtain a gerontology certificate, maybe even the master's.
After all, I'll need something more to put on that résumé so I can fill up a page!
The upshot of all this is that I don't feel middle-aged at all; I feel just like the 30-something I was when I left that office career and launched my next job in academia. I wonder if this next chapter will last 15 years, too!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Another Kind of Mentor
Just yesterday, there was a lot of excitement on our little street. My husband and I had to replace our sewer lateral, and I am pleased to report that everything seems to be going well.
The best part of the day was the opportunity I had to catch up with a long-time friend, who happened to be the man responsible for inspecting and approving the work done at our house. We used to work together, over 25 years ago, and over the years, we have stayed in sporadic contact, running into each other here and there around town.
As we talked yesterday for the first time in, oh, two years or so, I realized, or remembered, the role he played in the way I think today. He was the one who got me into yoga (yeah, no, I don't still do it, but I know I should); he was the one who introduced me to Adele Davis and her ideas of eating right. In fact, he gave me the garlic press I still use today.
And he was the one who, most important of all, taught me in my late 20s about positive thinking, about affirmations, about choosing positive self-talk rather than negative language to describe myself or my situation. He told me that I was as perfect as I could be, at that time in my life.
I guess what he was doing was teaching me about loving and accepting myself, wherever I was at the time, and using language to reflect that love and acceptance. He was teaching me to take care of and to care for myself in a way I'd never known how to do.
Just the other day, in a meeting with a volunteer group in which I participate, someone was talking about calling herself a dummy. I told her about that friend from long ago who taught me to listen to what words I was using about myself and helped me realize that I am not only what I eat but I am also what I think and what I say.
I forgot to tell him that little story in the midst of our reminisces.
We met when we were both young and pretty; now we are both older and beautiful, and he still has good information to impart, generally with a felicity of phrasing that entertains as well as educates.
And except for a few bike-riding twinges in his hip, he's in riproaring good health, thanks to practicing what he preaches about eating and exercising.
This visit really came at a good time, too. Just last week I attended a seminar where I learned a lot about Medicare and Medicaid, and I finally realized why so many people keep saying that someone who retires these days will need upwards of $250,000 for medical expenses. It's all those dang Medicare co-pays, co-insurances, and deductibles they'll have to pay.
With those contingencies in mind, I do have health insurance, purchased privately. I opted for a high-deductible plan so that I could get into a Healthcare Spending Account. However, while that's what that account is for, I just consider it another form of retirement investing, and those investments are in our overall portfolio.
However, I am not thinking I will get sick. That is to say, I am well and I am staying well. And here is where yesterday's visit really made things click.
My friend and his health make the best case for me to gain control, even now, over any potential expenditures. If I take better care of myself, as he has done -- uhm, I mean, because I am now taking better care of myself--then I won't have to be digging into my retirement funds to pay for all that excess medical care. I will have more to spend on other things, like travel.
There he is, still teaching me, as always.
So, off to start the day and swing by the vitamin store for my turmeric capsules!
The best part of the day was the opportunity I had to catch up with a long-time friend, who happened to be the man responsible for inspecting and approving the work done at our house. We used to work together, over 25 years ago, and over the years, we have stayed in sporadic contact, running into each other here and there around town.
As we talked yesterday for the first time in, oh, two years or so, I realized, or remembered, the role he played in the way I think today. He was the one who got me into yoga (yeah, no, I don't still do it, but I know I should); he was the one who introduced me to Adele Davis and her ideas of eating right. In fact, he gave me the garlic press I still use today.
And he was the one who, most important of all, taught me in my late 20s about positive thinking, about affirmations, about choosing positive self-talk rather than negative language to describe myself or my situation. He told me that I was as perfect as I could be, at that time in my life.
I guess what he was doing was teaching me about loving and accepting myself, wherever I was at the time, and using language to reflect that love and acceptance. He was teaching me to take care of and to care for myself in a way I'd never known how to do.
Just the other day, in a meeting with a volunteer group in which I participate, someone was talking about calling herself a dummy. I told her about that friend from long ago who taught me to listen to what words I was using about myself and helped me realize that I am not only what I eat but I am also what I think and what I say.
I forgot to tell him that little story in the midst of our reminisces.
We met when we were both young and pretty; now we are both older and beautiful, and he still has good information to impart, generally with a felicity of phrasing that entertains as well as educates.
And except for a few bike-riding twinges in his hip, he's in riproaring good health, thanks to practicing what he preaches about eating and exercising.
This visit really came at a good time, too. Just last week I attended a seminar where I learned a lot about Medicare and Medicaid, and I finally realized why so many people keep saying that someone who retires these days will need upwards of $250,000 for medical expenses. It's all those dang Medicare co-pays, co-insurances, and deductibles they'll have to pay.
With those contingencies in mind, I do have health insurance, purchased privately. I opted for a high-deductible plan so that I could get into a Healthcare Spending Account. However, while that's what that account is for, I just consider it another form of retirement investing, and those investments are in our overall portfolio.
However, I am not thinking I will get sick. That is to say, I am well and I am staying well. And here is where yesterday's visit really made things click.
My friend and his health make the best case for me to gain control, even now, over any potential expenditures. If I take better care of myself, as he has done -- uhm, I mean, because I am now taking better care of myself--then I won't have to be digging into my retirement funds to pay for all that excess medical care. I will have more to spend on other things, like travel.
There he is, still teaching me, as always.
So, off to start the day and swing by the vitamin store for my turmeric capsules!
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Sticks and Stones: Talkin' 'bout my Generation
My nickname, when I was a child, was Chatty Cathy. In that respect, not much has changed; even my blogs are long! Over the past few years, I seem to have acquired a few more nicknames and labels, and it's been quite a surprise. No, make that shock.
At 55, I am middle-aged. I probably have been for some time but just didn't realize it until lately. (Let's just say that Southwest Airlines isn't the only one splitting seams around here!)
Now, apparently, I am also a "senior" by virtue of my being part of a Senior Peer Counseling volunteer program. Because I am a counselor for my peers, that makes me a senior -- even though counselors and clients in this program range from 50 to 91! Old is old, apparently. OK. It had to come, sooner or later, and "old" will be what I make of it.
I am not just a senior, though; I'm also a Baby Boomer, a special senior, and as a result of belonging to that Baby Boomer group, I have acquired a few other nicknames as well. These have been more distressing, as when I read them, I get a sense of the anger behind those who direct their comments at a whole new group of scapegoats.
As a Baby Boomer, I have become a "greedy geezer" with a sense of entitlement, one who's running the country's economy into the ground with my debt and my offshoring of jobs and all sorts of other evils.
As a former public sector employee, with my small pension, I have become a leech and a drain on taxpayers.
One day, when I collect Social Security, well, you know, my leech-like voracity will grow and grow as I batten on the blood of the nation's young.
I have become someone I don't even recognize from others' descriptions.
No, not really. I have become none of those things. I am the same person I always was, only better: smarter, funnier, more caring, more thoughtful, a whole host of things.
I keep reading, trying to figure out exactly who it is that these people are talking about, because it sure doesn't feel like me.
If I believed everything everyone else said about "me," I wouldn't be able to get up every morning and look at myself in the mirror.
The thing is, it's not "me" at all. I need to remember that.
Not everyone does remember that. On a Facebook wall recently, I read a discussion about all the problems the Boomers have brought onto the shoulders of the generations that follow. The person writing ended one wall comment by writing "The economy won't get any better until all the Baby Boomers die." I wrote my (then-) Facebook friend, a thirty-something, that the comment was one of the most depressing I'd ever read.
It only got worse when she responded that the writer was a retired highway patrolman and a Baby Boomer himself. Somehow that seemed to validate his viewpoint, in her eyes.
I guess he must be reading some of the same things I have read.
Used to read.
At 55, I am middle-aged. I probably have been for some time but just didn't realize it until lately. (Let's just say that Southwest Airlines isn't the only one splitting seams around here!)
Now, apparently, I am also a "senior" by virtue of my being part of a Senior Peer Counseling volunteer program. Because I am a counselor for my peers, that makes me a senior -- even though counselors and clients in this program range from 50 to 91! Old is old, apparently. OK. It had to come, sooner or later, and "old" will be what I make of it.
I am not just a senior, though; I'm also a Baby Boomer, a special senior, and as a result of belonging to that Baby Boomer group, I have acquired a few other nicknames as well. These have been more distressing, as when I read them, I get a sense of the anger behind those who direct their comments at a whole new group of scapegoats.
As a Baby Boomer, I have become a "greedy geezer" with a sense of entitlement, one who's running the country's economy into the ground with my debt and my offshoring of jobs and all sorts of other evils.
As a former public sector employee, with my small pension, I have become a leech and a drain on taxpayers.
One day, when I collect Social Security, well, you know, my leech-like voracity will grow and grow as I batten on the blood of the nation's young.
I have become someone I don't even recognize from others' descriptions.
No, not really. I have become none of those things. I am the same person I always was, only better: smarter, funnier, more caring, more thoughtful, a whole host of things.
I keep reading, trying to figure out exactly who it is that these people are talking about, because it sure doesn't feel like me.
If I believed everything everyone else said about "me," I wouldn't be able to get up every morning and look at myself in the mirror.
The thing is, it's not "me" at all. I need to remember that.
Not everyone does remember that. On a Facebook wall recently, I read a discussion about all the problems the Boomers have brought onto the shoulders of the generations that follow. The person writing ended one wall comment by writing "The economy won't get any better until all the Baby Boomers die." I wrote my (then-) Facebook friend, a thirty-something, that the comment was one of the most depressing I'd ever read.
It only got worse when she responded that the writer was a retired highway patrolman and a Baby Boomer himself. Somehow that seemed to validate his viewpoint, in her eyes.
I guess he must be reading some of the same things I have read.
Used to read.
Friday, April 1, 2011
I Learn by Going Where I Have to Go: The Decumulation Phase
One of my favorite poems by Theodore Roethke says, "I learn by going where I have to go."
I would say that nowhere in my life has this ever proven more true than in this transition from worklife to retirement living.
Here I share some of the most important things I've learned about making that transition with finances intact.
1. When you leave a company and you're 55 or over, you may be able to take money from your 401(k) without the 10% penalty you'd incur with IRA withdrawals. That money can come in handy if you are out of a job and need some funds to tide you over until your next assignment. Of course, check with your own plan for details.
2. Your human resources department may not be the best source of information on how to make the benefits transition to being out of work/retired.
3. You can use your retirement funds, if needed, to pay for medical insurance premiums if you've been unemployed for 12 weeks or more. (Or is it more than 12 weeks?) You can do this in the year(s) you are unemployed and the year after. See rule72t.net for a great discussion of this and other matters.
4. A Rule 72(t) withdrawal for SEPPs (substantially equal periodic payments) will not let you take out 1/5 of your money over that 60-month period. Instead, you must use a specially determined percentage rate (or below that rate), one of 3 possible withdrawals modes, and not even all IRS employees know anything about this rule!
5. Separating IRAs into deductible and non-deductible doesn't seem to make a lot of difference when it comes to withdrawals being taxable or non-taxable. Even if you take already-taxed money out of an IRA, the amounts of all your accounts are aggregated and you get only a pro-rated amount disallowed from the taxable amount.
6. Your marginal tax rate matters when planning IRA withdrawals.
7. Converting some of your funds to a Roth IRA may be a good way to move some of your money around if you need to max out your own marginal tax rate ceiling.
8. If you have enough money to even think about retirement planning, your Social Security funds will be taxed. Plan for that when figuring your decumulation cash flow.
9. Your broker is a salesperson.
10. Don't be an April Fool -- or a fool in any other month! If you don't choose to learn this stuff yourself, educate yourself at least enough to ask educated questions of whoever is handling your money.
I would say that nowhere in my life has this ever proven more true than in this transition from worklife to retirement living.
Here I share some of the most important things I've learned about making that transition with finances intact.
1. When you leave a company and you're 55 or over, you may be able to take money from your 401(k) without the 10% penalty you'd incur with IRA withdrawals. That money can come in handy if you are out of a job and need some funds to tide you over until your next assignment. Of course, check with your own plan for details.
2. Your human resources department may not be the best source of information on how to make the benefits transition to being out of work/retired.
3. You can use your retirement funds, if needed, to pay for medical insurance premiums if you've been unemployed for 12 weeks or more. (Or is it more than 12 weeks?) You can do this in the year(s) you are unemployed and the year after. See rule72t.net for a great discussion of this and other matters.
4. A Rule 72(t) withdrawal for SEPPs (substantially equal periodic payments) will not let you take out 1/5 of your money over that 60-month period. Instead, you must use a specially determined percentage rate (or below that rate), one of 3 possible withdrawals modes, and not even all IRS employees know anything about this rule!
5. Separating IRAs into deductible and non-deductible doesn't seem to make a lot of difference when it comes to withdrawals being taxable or non-taxable. Even if you take already-taxed money out of an IRA, the amounts of all your accounts are aggregated and you get only a pro-rated amount disallowed from the taxable amount.
6. Your marginal tax rate matters when planning IRA withdrawals.
7. Converting some of your funds to a Roth IRA may be a good way to move some of your money around if you need to max out your own marginal tax rate ceiling.
8. If you have enough money to even think about retirement planning, your Social Security funds will be taxed. Plan for that when figuring your decumulation cash flow.
9. Your broker is a salesperson.
10. Don't be an April Fool -- or a fool in any other month! If you don't choose to learn this stuff yourself, educate yourself at least enough to ask educated questions of whoever is handling your money.
Don't Hate Me: I Have a Public Sector Pension
Gentle readers, I am one of the reviled of this country, for I must confess, I am the recipient of a public sector pension, albeit a small one. I waited to collect until I was 55, and just this morning, I got a big smile on my face when I saw that direct deposit amount in my checking account.
The day I actually went in and signed up for it, I felt a bit sad. I was now retired, I was old, that was it. To make it worse, the woman who worked with me said, "Well, that's not very much." Knowing that former coworkers collect something like $132k a year, I can see what she meant. However, my "not very much" is sufficient for me since my husband and I worked to build other retirement funds. We have a plan!
The thing no one seems to know is that many public sector employees put their own money into those accounts. (I say "many" because some public entities make the employee contributions for them as part of their compensation package.) Like Social Security, PERS contributions are mandatory. I had no choice, and in fact, at some places I paid both PERS and Social Security.
Unlike Social Security, though, PERS accrues as a cash balance; that is, I could have taken a lump sum but chose instead to annuitize those funds, which will be inflation-indexed, also like Social Security. When I finally do collect Social Security one day, that will also be impacted and coordinated with my pension.
If you read my earlier post about buying American products, then you will also understand that I think about the taxpayers of my beautiful state when I think about where to retire. It's expensive here. Do I take my pension and head to a state-income-tax-free state? (And pay higher property taxes and higher utility bills for summertime air conditioning?)
Or do I stick it out here, hope our new governor will get things sorted out, and spend my pension funds to support the state that helped me earn them while enjoying our amazing weather?
This rat's staying on board.
The day I actually went in and signed up for it, I felt a bit sad. I was now retired, I was old, that was it. To make it worse, the woman who worked with me said, "Well, that's not very much." Knowing that former coworkers collect something like $132k a year, I can see what she meant. However, my "not very much" is sufficient for me since my husband and I worked to build other retirement funds. We have a plan!
The thing no one seems to know is that many public sector employees put their own money into those accounts. (I say "many" because some public entities make the employee contributions for them as part of their compensation package.) Like Social Security, PERS contributions are mandatory. I had no choice, and in fact, at some places I paid both PERS and Social Security.
Unlike Social Security, though, PERS accrues as a cash balance; that is, I could have taken a lump sum but chose instead to annuitize those funds, which will be inflation-indexed, also like Social Security. When I finally do collect Social Security one day, that will also be impacted and coordinated with my pension.
If you read my earlier post about buying American products, then you will also understand that I think about the taxpayers of my beautiful state when I think about where to retire. It's expensive here. Do I take my pension and head to a state-income-tax-free state? (And pay higher property taxes and higher utility bills for summertime air conditioning?)
Or do I stick it out here, hope our new governor will get things sorted out, and spend my pension funds to support the state that helped me earn them while enjoying our amazing weather?
This rat's staying on board.
On "Made in America"
When I was growing up in South Texas, my dad taught us kids that we should always "buy American," to support our country and its workers. He wasn't a union worker,but he was blue collar -- he worked in the oil fields and was later a welder. He believed that if Americans didn't buy their own products, we would have trouble down the road.
My dad is long gone, but his early lessons haven't faded for me. The thing is, it's pretty hard to find anything made here. Diana Sawyer and her crew found that out recently. They didn't find an American-made TV, and I doubt they found an American-made coffee pot -- although I wanted to ask whether they'd looked into a vintage Corningware percolator on eBay! I have one but can't find the country of origin on it.
I listened to my dad and played out his beliefs in my adult life. He even made a believer of my husband. I remember trying in the late 70s to buy an American-made TV; the salespeople were baffled when I asked them where the sets were made, and when they couldn't tell me because they didn't know, I looked all over for the "Made in America" label I hoped to see but didn't. We finally found one, Curtis Mathes, but for some reason didn't buy it.
Looking back now, I bet it was their pricepoint.
Not much has changed, as I found when I have recently shopped for a patio umbrella. U.S- made is about 3 times the price of one made in China. A new dishwasher? Those, too, cost more if made here, and KitchenAid and Wolf/Viking were the only ones I could find.
The pricepoint takes on even greater significance now, "accidental retirees" as we are, and we shop much more carefully than we did when we had income from jobs that was plentiful and seemed neverending.
We ask ourselves, do we pay 3 times as much for that patio umbrella, and 25% or more for an American-made dishwasher? Do we think about the future of the other "accidental retirees," their offspring, and the country as a whole, when we make these financial decisions? Will it really make any difference to this economy if we take heed of our fixed income and buy the less expensive stuff made in China? Or is it important to retain our principles as best we can and pay double or triple and support our workers here?
This past December, while in Houston for a wedding, I visited the Battleship Texas with my brother, his fiancee, and his son. My dad loved that ship and was so proud of its status as having served in both world wars. As I walked through the ship that day, my dad was very much in my thoughts. Ending our visit in the inevitable souvenir shop, I looked through the offerings and found a few things I thought would be nice mementos: a Christmas ornament, a coin purse with an armadillo on it. Neither was made in America.
I put the souvenirs down, took the money I'd have spent on those tchotchkes and stuffed it into the "Restore the Battleship Texas" box, saying, "This one's for you, Dad."
My husband and I are going to pay nearly triple for the patio umbrella, and we are going to buy the American-made dishwasher rather than one in made in China or Korea. And as for that patio set I wanted, also made in China?
I am going to keep the old set I have.
My dad is long gone, but his early lessons haven't faded for me. The thing is, it's pretty hard to find anything made here. Diana Sawyer and her crew found that out recently. They didn't find an American-made TV, and I doubt they found an American-made coffee pot -- although I wanted to ask whether they'd looked into a vintage Corningware percolator on eBay! I have one but can't find the country of origin on it.
I listened to my dad and played out his beliefs in my adult life. He even made a believer of my husband. I remember trying in the late 70s to buy an American-made TV; the salespeople were baffled when I asked them where the sets were made, and when they couldn't tell me because they didn't know, I looked all over for the "Made in America" label I hoped to see but didn't. We finally found one, Curtis Mathes, but for some reason didn't buy it.
Looking back now, I bet it was their pricepoint.
Not much has changed, as I found when I have recently shopped for a patio umbrella. U.S- made is about 3 times the price of one made in China. A new dishwasher? Those, too, cost more if made here, and KitchenAid and Wolf/Viking were the only ones I could find.
The pricepoint takes on even greater significance now, "accidental retirees" as we are, and we shop much more carefully than we did when we had income from jobs that was plentiful and seemed neverending.
We ask ourselves, do we pay 3 times as much for that patio umbrella, and 25% or more for an American-made dishwasher? Do we think about the future of the other "accidental retirees," their offspring, and the country as a whole, when we make these financial decisions? Will it really make any difference to this economy if we take heed of our fixed income and buy the less expensive stuff made in China? Or is it important to retain our principles as best we can and pay double or triple and support our workers here?
This past December, while in Houston for a wedding, I visited the Battleship Texas with my brother, his fiancee, and his son. My dad loved that ship and was so proud of its status as having served in both world wars. As I walked through the ship that day, my dad was very much in my thoughts. Ending our visit in the inevitable souvenir shop, I looked through the offerings and found a few things I thought would be nice mementos: a Christmas ornament, a coin purse with an armadillo on it. Neither was made in America.
I put the souvenirs down, took the money I'd have spent on those tchotchkes and stuffed it into the "Restore the Battleship Texas" box, saying, "This one's for you, Dad."
My husband and I are going to pay nearly triple for the patio umbrella, and we are going to buy the American-made dishwasher rather than one in made in China or Korea. And as for that patio set I wanted, also made in China?
I am going to keep the old set I have.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Retirement Planning and Poker
Everyone in my husband's family knows that I am not a gambler. His family loves to sit around the table and play poker; it's a multi-generational thing and they have a great time. Most of the time I sit off in a corner, reading a good book. (Pop always wins the big money, anyway! Just ask him. He'll tell you!)
When finally pressed to play, I usually go in, play a few hands, take my winnings off the table as I go along -- to the sound of a lot of teasing -- and finish up by winning a big pot.
Then I stop playing and go back to reading.
In Las Vegas, which I don't much like, I will take a roll of nickels to the nickel slots, and I won't even spend all those nickels.
I don't like to lose money.
Back in 2005, when I started the retirement planning process, I started thinking about the stock market as a gamble rather than as an investment. That change in perspective probably came about the time I saw a 401(k) statement with a huge loss in a single quarter -- tech stocks, anyone? GAH!
That spring, when we regrouped and reassessed, the first thing we did was to think for the first time about all our retirement assets as a single entity. With that in mind, we took the largest 401(k) built up over 25 years' time, and put all current holding into 2 fixed accounts. That is, we took our investments and "winnings" off the table.
I don't recall exactly what they were, but I can tell you they were NOT stock accounts. That comprised the fixed portion of our portfolio in that largest account. Additional contributions to that account were not added to the fixed portion but instead built up some more carefully examined mutual funds.
In other accounts, spread far and wide until I got them under one investing umbrella (mostly) via rollovers, I worked in much the same way.
As we stand right now, we are at a15/85 mix, and that feels about right for us, with a careful mix of laddered CDs, a few bonds, some index funds, and a few other funds with somewhat higher expenses to accompany higher returns. We also have about 6 stocks, just because we still like to see how they are working. We don't have any TIPS yet, except for a small amount in a 403(b) account. I am still learning about those.
Along the way I've learned a lot, but I have more to learn. However, it's what engages me right now, and I have plenty of time!
When finally pressed to play, I usually go in, play a few hands, take my winnings off the table as I go along -- to the sound of a lot of teasing -- and finish up by winning a big pot.
Then I stop playing and go back to reading.
In Las Vegas, which I don't much like, I will take a roll of nickels to the nickel slots, and I won't even spend all those nickels.
I don't like to lose money.
Back in 2005, when I started the retirement planning process, I started thinking about the stock market as a gamble rather than as an investment. That change in perspective probably came about the time I saw a 401(k) statement with a huge loss in a single quarter -- tech stocks, anyone? GAH!
That spring, when we regrouped and reassessed, the first thing we did was to think for the first time about all our retirement assets as a single entity. With that in mind, we took the largest 401(k) built up over 25 years' time, and put all current holding into 2 fixed accounts. That is, we took our investments and "winnings" off the table.
I don't recall exactly what they were, but I can tell you they were NOT stock accounts. That comprised the fixed portion of our portfolio in that largest account. Additional contributions to that account were not added to the fixed portion but instead built up some more carefully examined mutual funds.
In other accounts, spread far and wide until I got them under one investing umbrella (mostly) via rollovers, I worked in much the same way.
As we stand right now, we are at a15/85 mix, and that feels about right for us, with a careful mix of laddered CDs, a few bonds, some index funds, and a few other funds with somewhat higher expenses to accompany higher returns. We also have about 6 stocks, just because we still like to see how they are working. We don't have any TIPS yet, except for a small amount in a 403(b) account. I am still learning about those.
Along the way I've learned a lot, but I have more to learn. However, it's what engages me right now, and I have plenty of time!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Turning Point for Retirement Planning
As I wrote in an earlier post, I started taking this retirement planning business much more seriously somewhere in the spring of 2005, just before I turned 50.
What really started it was that I had recently had a change at work and realized, thanks to a pointed question from my niece, that I needed to make some changes in my life. I was telling her about my misery at work, and she asked me this: "Do you really see yourself doing this for another year?" I had to say No. I left my job soon after that, difficult as it was to do so.
With some free time on my hands that spring, I grabbed armloads of financial files for our 401(k)s, IRAs, etc., took them out to the patio table and sat in the sunshine, devoting myself to understanding more clearly what our financial situation was with respect to retirement funds. Although we had worked hard to accumulate that money, we didn't really have a good a sense of how to manage what we'd accumulated. I imagine we weren't too different from a lot of people in our situation.
It finally became clear to me, though, that being in our 50s, we may not have that much time to make up any losses we might sustain with a more aggressive or undirected investment style. I wanted to keep what we'd saved.
That realization in 2005 was the beginning of the fat green financial binder I started building and the shelf full of personal finance books that set me on the road to our real retirement planning.
From 2005 to 2008, little by little, I learned about asset allocation and diversification. I learned more about the proper mix of assets for our risk profile. I started some handwritten charts on lined tablets to sketch out the anticipated build-up of assets over time. I started planning in earnest. Thank goodness I did.
In mid-2008, my husband lost his job of 29+ years, and I lost my job with a bank 4 months later. Thanks to those sunny days on our patio, we were much more ready to weather these job losses and the later 2008 market losses.
Since 2008, I have of necessity shifted my retirement planning from the accumulation phase to thinking and learning about the withdrawal phase, even though we are only in our 50s. Despite what the media tells us about being unemployable at our age, we both still look for work, but we also realize that we may never work again.
Those early handwritten charts and notes on lined paper have evolved to Excel spreadsheets that I've developed to help us both see where we've been, where we plan to go, and whether we are in line with our plans. I keep the earlier handwritten notes, though, just to remind myself of where I got started planning -- and to remind me that it's never too early to start because you just never know when your career will come to an end, ready or not!
What really started it was that I had recently had a change at work and realized, thanks to a pointed question from my niece, that I needed to make some changes in my life. I was telling her about my misery at work, and she asked me this: "Do you really see yourself doing this for another year?" I had to say No. I left my job soon after that, difficult as it was to do so.
With some free time on my hands that spring, I grabbed armloads of financial files for our 401(k)s, IRAs, etc., took them out to the patio table and sat in the sunshine, devoting myself to understanding more clearly what our financial situation was with respect to retirement funds. Although we had worked hard to accumulate that money, we didn't really have a good a sense of how to manage what we'd accumulated. I imagine we weren't too different from a lot of people in our situation.
It finally became clear to me, though, that being in our 50s, we may not have that much time to make up any losses we might sustain with a more aggressive or undirected investment style. I wanted to keep what we'd saved.
That realization in 2005 was the beginning of the fat green financial binder I started building and the shelf full of personal finance books that set me on the road to our real retirement planning.
From 2005 to 2008, little by little, I learned about asset allocation and diversification. I learned more about the proper mix of assets for our risk profile. I started some handwritten charts on lined tablets to sketch out the anticipated build-up of assets over time. I started planning in earnest. Thank goodness I did.
In mid-2008, my husband lost his job of 29+ years, and I lost my job with a bank 4 months later. Thanks to those sunny days on our patio, we were much more ready to weather these job losses and the later 2008 market losses.
Since 2008, I have of necessity shifted my retirement planning from the accumulation phase to thinking and learning about the withdrawal phase, even though we are only in our 50s. Despite what the media tells us about being unemployable at our age, we both still look for work, but we also realize that we may never work again.
Those early handwritten charts and notes on lined paper have evolved to Excel spreadsheets that I've developed to help us both see where we've been, where we plan to go, and whether we are in line with our plans. I keep the earlier handwritten notes, though, just to remind myself of where I got started planning -- and to remind me that it's never too early to start because you just never know when your career will come to an end, ready or not!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Having, and Being, a Retirement Planning Mentor
In an earlier post, I mentioned my husband's father as having taught the kids to buy stocks. He got his 4 children started out early in understanding about investing. I don't know what the other 3 kids did, but I know my husband and I picked up on those lessons and started investing as best we could early in our marriage.
Nearly 32 years after I married into that family, my father-in-law has been retired 22 years this week, and he and I have become an investment/financial chat group of two. When we visit, Pop and I sit with our morning coffee, watching the stock ticker run across the bottom of the TV screen, moaning or cheering as the ticker moves us.
When he visits us, we both do the Saturday morning "counting of the shekels," as I have come to call it, where we both log into our respective retirement accounts and see what's up -- or down, as the case may be. We discuss investing strategies and have a good ol' time. Well, at least I do!
Because we got started out sharing this information, in this way, it became natural for me, then, to ask Pop questions about Social Security, Medicare, and other investment issues in retirement. He has opened his annuity files, his trust files, and anything else that I have questions about, because he knows I am the Retirement-Planner-in-Chief for this branch of his family, and I can learn from him how best to manage funds leading up to and in retirement.
What I have learned from these interactions is this: Although I can read lots of articles, book, blogs, whatever -- there's a whole world of stuff out there to read -- for me there is nothing quite like the concrete fact of a financial statement in my hand, or a Social Security Direct Deposit pay stub in my hand to help me understand that No, Medicare is not free, and Yes, those premiums are deducted from Social Security.
That sharing makes me understand what difference the yearly raises -- or not -- can mean to a retiree. I learned about the higher Medicare premiums that came about as a result of Pop's having a higher income one year.
It takes a lot of trust for a person to open his financial life to the inquiries of someone else, and it means a lot to me that my father-in-law trusts me to that extent.
It also means a lot to me to have him as my Retirement Mentor, and I suppose that my reason for blogging here is not just to write about things of interest to me. More important, I would like to be able to reach others and teach others, even in a small way, about some of the questions and issues that will arise when they get closer to retirement -- whether they are quite ready or not!
There is so much to know, and I would love to be able to share knowledge in a way that will at least prompt people to start asking some of the questions they should be asking. The problem is, they don't even know what they don't know but need to know!
Nearly 32 years after I married into that family, my father-in-law has been retired 22 years this week, and he and I have become an investment/financial chat group of two. When we visit, Pop and I sit with our morning coffee, watching the stock ticker run across the bottom of the TV screen, moaning or cheering as the ticker moves us.
When he visits us, we both do the Saturday morning "counting of the shekels," as I have come to call it, where we both log into our respective retirement accounts and see what's up -- or down, as the case may be. We discuss investing strategies and have a good ol' time. Well, at least I do!
Because we got started out sharing this information, in this way, it became natural for me, then, to ask Pop questions about Social Security, Medicare, and other investment issues in retirement. He has opened his annuity files, his trust files, and anything else that I have questions about, because he knows I am the Retirement-Planner-in-Chief for this branch of his family, and I can learn from him how best to manage funds leading up to and in retirement.
What I have learned from these interactions is this: Although I can read lots of articles, book, blogs, whatever -- there's a whole world of stuff out there to read -- for me there is nothing quite like the concrete fact of a financial statement in my hand, or a Social Security Direct Deposit pay stub in my hand to help me understand that No, Medicare is not free, and Yes, those premiums are deducted from Social Security.
That sharing makes me understand what difference the yearly raises -- or not -- can mean to a retiree. I learned about the higher Medicare premiums that came about as a result of Pop's having a higher income one year.
It takes a lot of trust for a person to open his financial life to the inquiries of someone else, and it means a lot to me that my father-in-law trusts me to that extent.
It also means a lot to me to have him as my Retirement Mentor, and I suppose that my reason for blogging here is not just to write about things of interest to me. More important, I would like to be able to reach others and teach others, even in a small way, about some of the questions and issues that will arise when they get closer to retirement -- whether they are quite ready or not!
There is so much to know, and I would love to be able to share knowledge in a way that will at least prompt people to start asking some of the questions they should be asking. The problem is, they don't even know what they don't know but need to know!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Spring IS Here, Really it is!
Last Thursday we had a great day of sunshine, so my husband and I, accidental retirees both, got out into the front yard and did a lot of weeding, spading, and other prep work to boost our curb appeal here in our little neighborhood. Two neighbors noticed we were getting busy out there and wondered whether we were readying the front yard for "Safety Meetings" -- those informal get-togethers that started last summer when my husband and I sat out front with a glass of wine and waved to neighbors who eventually meandered over and joined us with wine, snacks, and great companionship and conversation!
Even our new next-door neighbor, here since October 2010, joined us for a pre-season Safety Meeting, in early February when we were having amazing weather here in the Bay Area. A twenty-something, he believes, I betcha, that he has moved to the right neighborhood.
Into every life a little rain must fall, I guess, and our Thursday of sunshine gave way to a wild, wet, and windy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, yet thanks to all the prep work and pre-planting garden center runs we did, I was ready to keep weeding, pruning, and planting in the sunny spaces between the storm patches.
Yesterday was another sunny morning, at least, which meant another run to the garden center and a few more plants to fill in some empty spaces. When the rain started in the afternoon, I could look with satisfaction on what I had planted in the days earlier and feel some satisfaction that things are looking better.
It's not just the gardening, though, that tells me Spring is here, even if the calendar didn't already tell me so; it's the change in how I feel.
In one of my favorite novels, Enchanted April, ossified old Mrs. Fisher makes it to Italy with some young women, as her roommates, and she finds, as Italy seeps into her heart and her bones, that she feels she is starting to come out green all over, as if she were sending out little shoots. I know that feeling.
I mean, I started this blog, and I am already thinking about another one. I am starting an online class next week, and I have another class I am ready to sign up for. I am getting closer to my next volunteer gig training, and today I was asked to consider joining the Board of Directors of a local agency. I just may do that.
I have more energy, and I feel my brain going in about 20 different directions. I was wishing I had an iPad or a laptop or something so that I could blog while I was at the doctor's.
Yes, spring is definitely here. Welcome!
Even our new next-door neighbor, here since October 2010, joined us for a pre-season Safety Meeting, in early February when we were having amazing weather here in the Bay Area. A twenty-something, he believes, I betcha, that he has moved to the right neighborhood.
Into every life a little rain must fall, I guess, and our Thursday of sunshine gave way to a wild, wet, and windy Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, yet thanks to all the prep work and pre-planting garden center runs we did, I was ready to keep weeding, pruning, and planting in the sunny spaces between the storm patches.
Yesterday was another sunny morning, at least, which meant another run to the garden center and a few more plants to fill in some empty spaces. When the rain started in the afternoon, I could look with satisfaction on what I had planted in the days earlier and feel some satisfaction that things are looking better.
It's not just the gardening, though, that tells me Spring is here, even if the calendar didn't already tell me so; it's the change in how I feel.
In one of my favorite novels, Enchanted April, ossified old Mrs. Fisher makes it to Italy with some young women, as her roommates, and she finds, as Italy seeps into her heart and her bones, that she feels she is starting to come out green all over, as if she were sending out little shoots. I know that feeling.
I mean, I started this blog, and I am already thinking about another one. I am starting an online class next week, and I have another class I am ready to sign up for. I am getting closer to my next volunteer gig training, and today I was asked to consider joining the Board of Directors of a local agency. I just may do that.
I have more energy, and I feel my brain going in about 20 different directions. I was wishing I had an iPad or a laptop or something so that I could blog while I was at the doctor's.
Yes, spring is definitely here. Welcome!
Retirement Plan[t]s, Part II
Today as I was sitting waiting for my doctor's appointment, I was mulling over the stuff I'd written earlier today, the whole garden metaphor I was working on, and it struck me that I see even more connections between retirement and gardens than I had realized.
For example, I've read about retirement income being a "three-legged stool" consisting of Social Security, personal savings, and an employer's pension. I've also read in an interesting Prudential publication about the 4 pillars of retirement: http://www.prudential.com/media/managed/FourthPillarRetirementChoices5-10-07FINAL.pdf.
What works for me in these concepts of what supports our retirement income is that we need to have more than one source; both show that Social Security won't be enough, and that's something that a lot of people may not have yet figured out. Something I read recently, the source of which escapes me just now, shared a survey in which some high percentage of people headed for retirement thought they were going to get a pension -- but they didn't have any idea about the source of that pension! Clearly there needs to be more education along these lines.
What does not work for me in the stool legs and pillars concepts is that both indicate those legs or pillars are somehow equally weighted; that is, that a savings stool leg will be of the same diameter as our social security one, or that the pillar for our retirement time behaviors (such as part-time work or downsizing), will have the same diameter, hence the same importance or weight, as our employer pension.
I started thinking about the retirement income stream in another way: as a garden I plant and tend along my way. Each source of retirement income, not only the type but also the time at which we draw it, is a little bit like planting a garden.
Social security and an employer's pension (when we are fortunate enough to have and collect them) are the early-planted perennials of our garden. Maybe they are the evergreen shrubs that are low to the ground. Is it a juniper? The one that spreads is the inflation-indexed social security -- every so often, this one will get pruned back by Medicare premium deductions -- while the non-inflation-indexed pension that was frozen a while back is another kind of evergreen that stops growing at some point. Maybe it's an English boxwood, and it's somewhat more fragile and dependent on good growing conditions than the Social Security juniper.
Along the way, we add to those base plantings with 401(k) and IRA contributions. Depending on how we invest those funds, our crop will have some good years and some not-so-good years. Over time, though, maybe like the daffodils I plant, they will naturalize -- if I feed them, and if I can keep the snails and the neighborhood kids out of them. When there are plenty of flowers I can harvest more, but when I've been a little too lazy in the garden, my cuttings garden is more bare.
That cuttings analogy runs through the drawdown time of contributions, too, not just in the planting. If the solid background of evergreens (social security and a pension, say, or an annuity), are always in the background, supplemented by the retirement behaviors we choose (spending less, one way or another), then we can cut more from our cutting garden (IRAs and 401(k)s when we need to -- when we tend things correctly -- and leave that 'garden' to propagate (earn more interest, dividends, capital gains) in times when it needs to reseed and rejuvenate.
In a way, then, retirement saving and retirement planning both are more cyclical to me, a process in which some parts of the process get more emphasis or are weighted differently throughout our saving and drawdown cycle, a cycle in which we revisit what our garden needs in the way of seed and harvest all along the way.
For example, I've read about retirement income being a "three-legged stool" consisting of Social Security, personal savings, and an employer's pension. I've also read in an interesting Prudential publication about the 4 pillars of retirement: http://www.prudential.com/media/managed/FourthPillarRetirementChoices5-10-07FINAL.pdf.
What works for me in these concepts of what supports our retirement income is that we need to have more than one source; both show that Social Security won't be enough, and that's something that a lot of people may not have yet figured out. Something I read recently, the source of which escapes me just now, shared a survey in which some high percentage of people headed for retirement thought they were going to get a pension -- but they didn't have any idea about the source of that pension! Clearly there needs to be more education along these lines.
What does not work for me in the stool legs and pillars concepts is that both indicate those legs or pillars are somehow equally weighted; that is, that a savings stool leg will be of the same diameter as our social security one, or that the pillar for our retirement time behaviors (such as part-time work or downsizing), will have the same diameter, hence the same importance or weight, as our employer pension.
I started thinking about the retirement income stream in another way: as a garden I plant and tend along my way. Each source of retirement income, not only the type but also the time at which we draw it, is a little bit like planting a garden.
Social security and an employer's pension (when we are fortunate enough to have and collect them) are the early-planted perennials of our garden. Maybe they are the evergreen shrubs that are low to the ground. Is it a juniper? The one that spreads is the inflation-indexed social security -- every so often, this one will get pruned back by Medicare premium deductions -- while the non-inflation-indexed pension that was frozen a while back is another kind of evergreen that stops growing at some point. Maybe it's an English boxwood, and it's somewhat more fragile and dependent on good growing conditions than the Social Security juniper.
Along the way, we add to those base plantings with 401(k) and IRA contributions. Depending on how we invest those funds, our crop will have some good years and some not-so-good years. Over time, though, maybe like the daffodils I plant, they will naturalize -- if I feed them, and if I can keep the snails and the neighborhood kids out of them. When there are plenty of flowers I can harvest more, but when I've been a little too lazy in the garden, my cuttings garden is more bare.
That cuttings analogy runs through the drawdown time of contributions, too, not just in the planting. If the solid background of evergreens (social security and a pension, say, or an annuity), are always in the background, supplemented by the retirement behaviors we choose (spending less, one way or another), then we can cut more from our cutting garden (IRAs and 401(k)s when we need to -- when we tend things correctly -- and leave that 'garden' to propagate (earn more interest, dividends, capital gains) in times when it needs to reseed and rejuvenate.
In a way, then, retirement saving and retirement planning both are more cyclical to me, a process in which some parts of the process get more emphasis or are weighted differently throughout our saving and drawdown cycle, a cycle in which we revisit what our garden needs in the way of seed and harvest all along the way.
The Roots of Retirement Plan[t]s
My husband has always been a saver. He has told me the story of being given, in his 4th grade classroom, a passbook to Farmers and Merchants Bank. Every week he turned in a little money with the passbook, and a week later, he'd get the passbook returned to him with a new, higher balance.
In fact, my husband still has an F&M passbook from back in the day, but it belonged to his grandfather. Its entries start at March 18, 1937 and end at March 18, 1949.
That exercise in financial education, modeled by Grandpa, along with a mother who often spoke of being a Depression-era baby, and a father who taught the kids how to buy stocks, on a very small scale, got my husband on the road to being a good saver for the future. He hasn’t missed a beat all these years.
Me? I am lucky to have started learning from and with him. Being raised with parents who didn't save but who did have every credit card known to mankind, I took somewhat longer to get on board with this whole saving notion, but once we were married, I started to understand very quickly how important saving was to him and to our marriage.
In the early 1980s, we were some of the earliest consumers of that great new retirement product, the IRA. Later, as 401(k)s became available, we also put money away there. Most years, we maxed out our respective 401(k)s, and eventually we started maxing out IRAs in addition – even thought they were no longer deductible and we didn’t much like that! In the mid 90’s, we learned about DRIPs, and we got on board with those, too.
Doing all that wasn’t quite good enough, though. While we had the saving and investing habit, we didn’t have a clue about what we were doing and how best to manage that money that we worked so hard to save. My eyes were opened one sunny California morning in 2005. I was coming up on age 50, and I sat on my back patio one afternoon to take a hard, deep look at our collection of account statements.
Without going into a lot of excruciating detail about how freaked out I was, let me just say that was the day I realized that time was passing and we were getting too old to be messing around with so many aggressive investments; I could see what a toll those investments – and the ignorance about allocation, diversification, and re-balancing –- had taken on all those dollars so carefully put away for someday.
Someday was on the horizon. Nearly 50 years old, with a 52-year-old husband, I could see ‘someday'; it was right in front of me. That day we discussed a reallocation of our assets and started working on it, online, immediately. That reallocation saved our behinds a couple of times, and we have been fortunate not to have suffered the same levels of losses that have gutted the retirement accounts of so many of our Baby Boomer peers.
But I can see how people could so easily have lost so much. If we are taught to sock away all that money but don’t know how to manage it, then all those great retirement savings products are doing nothing but lining the pockets of those who sell them. That accomplishes only part of their purpose!
Just the other day at my local garden store hangout, I was speaking with my buddy there, one of their long-term employees. Somehow or other we got onto the subject of 401(k)s, and he mentioned that he had lost a lot of money and was still losing it. I mentioned that he may need to look at his investments and make some changes about how his 401(k) money is invested, but he said he had no choice in how to invest. He looked over at the cashier, who nodded her head in affirmation of his statement.
But I have to wonder: Can this be true? Does he really have no choice, or does he not realize he has choices? Not being a professional, nor even a close friend, I didn't want to pry, but I do worry for him.
And it’s not only the garden store where people don’t know about their investments; I have a close acquaintance who apparently isn’t really very clear about what her401(k) holdings are. I wondered whether she was being cagey about it because she didn’t want to disclose information to me. I could understand that. But no, she was perfectly willing to tell me how much money she had in the account; she just couldn’t talk about the kinds of investment choices she had. I don’t think she knows. She has a company-provided financial advisor who manages those things for her. I hope it wasn't Bernie Madoff.
Someone wrote somewhere that no one cares as much about our money as we do. Well, that ought to be the case, but unfortunately, I don’t think it is, and that’s to the detriment of many retirement accounts across the country.
Because gardening and spring are on my mind, let me end this post with a gardening metaphor:
The roots of retirement planning need to be set out early and deep so that the plants they produce are strong enough to weather the high winds that come up from time to time. However, just planting isn’t enough. You have to prune and tend those plants along the way for the best growth. Otherwise you’ll end up with a unhealthy or leggy plant – or a dead one – and you’ll have to go back to the garden center and start all over again.
Great for the garden center’s pockets, but not so good for yours!
In fact, my husband still has an F&M passbook from back in the day, but it belonged to his grandfather. Its entries start at March 18, 1937 and end at March 18, 1949.
That exercise in financial education, modeled by Grandpa, along with a mother who often spoke of being a Depression-era baby, and a father who taught the kids how to buy stocks, on a very small scale, got my husband on the road to being a good saver for the future. He hasn’t missed a beat all these years.
Me? I am lucky to have started learning from and with him. Being raised with parents who didn't save but who did have every credit card known to mankind, I took somewhat longer to get on board with this whole saving notion, but once we were married, I started to understand very quickly how important saving was to him and to our marriage.
In the early 1980s, we were some of the earliest consumers of that great new retirement product, the IRA. Later, as 401(k)s became available, we also put money away there. Most years, we maxed out our respective 401(k)s, and eventually we started maxing out IRAs in addition – even thought they were no longer deductible and we didn’t much like that! In the mid 90’s, we learned about DRIPs, and we got on board with those, too.
Doing all that wasn’t quite good enough, though. While we had the saving and investing habit, we didn’t have a clue about what we were doing and how best to manage that money that we worked so hard to save. My eyes were opened one sunny California morning in 2005. I was coming up on age 50, and I sat on my back patio one afternoon to take a hard, deep look at our collection of account statements.
Without going into a lot of excruciating detail about how freaked out I was, let me just say that was the day I realized that time was passing and we were getting too old to be messing around with so many aggressive investments; I could see what a toll those investments – and the ignorance about allocation, diversification, and re-balancing –- had taken on all those dollars so carefully put away for someday.
Someday was on the horizon. Nearly 50 years old, with a 52-year-old husband, I could see ‘someday'; it was right in front of me. That day we discussed a reallocation of our assets and started working on it, online, immediately. That reallocation saved our behinds a couple of times, and we have been fortunate not to have suffered the same levels of losses that have gutted the retirement accounts of so many of our Baby Boomer peers.
But I can see how people could so easily have lost so much. If we are taught to sock away all that money but don’t know how to manage it, then all those great retirement savings products are doing nothing but lining the pockets of those who sell them. That accomplishes only part of their purpose!
Just the other day at my local garden store hangout, I was speaking with my buddy there, one of their long-term employees. Somehow or other we got onto the subject of 401(k)s, and he mentioned that he had lost a lot of money and was still losing it. I mentioned that he may need to look at his investments and make some changes about how his 401(k) money is invested, but he said he had no choice in how to invest. He looked over at the cashier, who nodded her head in affirmation of his statement.
But I have to wonder: Can this be true? Does he really have no choice, or does he not realize he has choices? Not being a professional, nor even a close friend, I didn't want to pry, but I do worry for him.
And it’s not only the garden store where people don’t know about their investments; I have a close acquaintance who apparently isn’t really very clear about what her401(k) holdings are. I wondered whether she was being cagey about it because she didn’t want to disclose information to me. I could understand that. But no, she was perfectly willing to tell me how much money she had in the account; she just couldn’t talk about the kinds of investment choices she had. I don’t think she knows. She has a company-provided financial advisor who manages those things for her. I hope it wasn't Bernie Madoff.
Someone wrote somewhere that no one cares as much about our money as we do. Well, that ought to be the case, but unfortunately, I don’t think it is, and that’s to the detriment of many retirement accounts across the country.
Because gardening and spring are on my mind, let me end this post with a gardening metaphor:
The roots of retirement planning need to be set out early and deep so that the plants they produce are strong enough to weather the high winds that come up from time to time. However, just planting isn’t enough. You have to prune and tend those plants along the way for the best growth. Otherwise you’ll end up with a unhealthy or leggy plant – or a dead one – and you’ll have to go back to the garden center and start all over again.
Great for the garden center’s pockets, but not so good for yours!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
"Elective" Part-Time Work -- Selfish?
Today while shopping at my favorite local garden center -- a place where I've spent some happy hours -- I finally asked whether they are accepting applications for part-time. It's something I've thought about for a long time: I love gardening, I've often thought how much I would enjoy working outdoors there, watering the plants, interacting with customers, and learning more about plants and gardening in general.
In response, I learned that just yesterday, they had laid off 3 people, those most newly hired, because business is so slow. (Hey, I have done my part there the last few days!)
After expressing my understanding, I loaded up my plants and drove home, wondering whether I might be selfish for even wanting a part-time job -- just for pleasure -- when others need those jobs to feed their families.
I spent many years in offices and also in academic settings, sitting and standing and using one part of my brain, the analytical part. I thought it would be great to spend this next part of my life in an outdoor setting, also using my brain, but in a very different way, focusing more on customer service.
I don't have a financial reason to work, or not yet, but I would like to find a way to keep learning and growing, and since I am looking for a paid position, there must be some other need I am trying to satisfy. I am not sure what that is. Maybe just ego.
I already volunteer as a senior peer counselor, and I've recently signed up to be a docent at a local regional park, in their nectar garden. Maybe that's all that will be left for me: volunteer work. People have told me that in my mid-50s, I am too young to volunteer, but maybe that's the only door that's still open.
Why doesn't that feel like enough? Maybe it just takes time. When one is 'accidentally retired,' rather than retired by choice, maybe there is some unfinished business that needs to be sorted through.
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