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
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
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.
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