Talking Retirement

Retirement Just Doesn’t Suit Some People

Whether you like Larry King or not, you’ve got to hand it to the guy. The New York Times has a profile of him today called Who’s Talking About Retirement? in which Larry King comes off as one person who certain doesn’t want to retire, even given his numerous health issues.

“What would it take to go?” he said, paraphrasing a visitor’s halting question as succinctly as he might on his own talk show. “If, God forbid, I had an onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s. That would be it. And what I would wish is that if I get that, no joke intended, that it happens on the air. Just to see how they handle it.”

Read the article here.

MySpace for Boomers? Check out Eons.com.

Marketing Trends Indicate More Power for You in the Workplace

Gail Sheehy warns that companies will need to shift their management models to retain their boomer employees, or risk a dangerous loss of institutional knowledge and sudden reduction in their work force.  She also encourages boomers to use this situation to create the work experience they desire.

“There is a hidden brain drain in the American work force,” she says.  “Corporate America is beginning to wake up to a seismic demographic change.  If it lets boomers retire early or drop off the radar, corporations won’t have the people power to remain competitive in a global marketplace.  The rate of growth in the U.S. work force will fall drastically over the next 20 years.  This change offers a golden opportunity for skilled boomers to reverse age bias and transform the corporate model to suit their needs to continue working for meaning & money.” (emphasis added)

There are 4 more trends in the story, but I’ll let you discover those for yourself. Read the entire article here.

The Generation Gap: 70-Year Olds vs. 90-Year Olds

MSNBC has another interesting article this week, this time about the generation gap between the people who are just now moving into retirement living spaces and the generation before them that has already been calling those places home for a quite a while, Old and the restless clash in retirement homes.

They are clashing over such things as dress codes, the food, the conversion of tearooms into coffee bars, and higher monthly fees to pay for the weight rooms, roomier quarters and computer-ready apartments demanded by the younger, more active set.

If you’re living in a retirement community or have a parent in one, this might not be news to you. Read the article here.

No Two Retirements Are The Same

Who Says Retirement is All About Relaxation? is basically a bullet pointed list on how retirement is different for everyone. It’s a good read, but I really enjoyed the quote near the end of the article.

Retirement is personal. George Burns never wanted to retire:

“Retirement at 65 is ridiculous. When I was 65 I still had pimples,” he once said. “… I’m going to stay in show business until I’m the only one left.”

Funny! The story is a good read with a positive point of view. Read the story here.

What You Need To Retire, From a Non-financial Perspective

I realize that I post many financial related things here about retiring. Obviously, it’s an important part of retirement planning, but there are other sides to this story. An oddly-titled story from ABCNews, Working Wounded: Planning for Retirement, offers some perspective on other parts of retiring.

Retirement is not only a financial decision, it’s also a question of how you’ll spend your time. What are your interests? Retirement can be the best time of your life, but only if you have a great way to pass the time.

How will you spend your time that used to be taken by work? How will you socialize without co-workers? Is your spouse or partner in agreement with this life-change? They’re all important to consider in addition to being able to get by financially. Read the story for more on the topic.

You’re Retired. Now What?

I just read an article by a man who has recently retired called Planning doesn’t end with retirement. The author, John Gottcent, tells us some things he’s learned by “finding out the hard way.”

He covers a lot of topics, but one he covers that I don’t think about much is the idea of not contributing to my retirement account anymore, but taking from it.

Get ready to adjust from building a portfolio to withdrawing from it. After years and years of adding to a retirement account and watching it grow (well, most of the time), it’s a bit of a shock to realize that from now on you will be taking away from that total.

I would assume that the moment you start doing that would be a pretty emotionally difficult time. Mr. Gottcent also offers some warnings for people who want to continue to work. He suggests looking “carefully into income restrictions imposed by Social Security.”

There are more topics in his article. You can read it here.

Money Makeover: 52 Yrs. Old With $97,270 Saved

The Chicago Tribune has an interesting piece this morning. It takes a look at a 52 year-old self-employed woman who would like to retire in 10 years but has only $97,270 in savings. Read the article to learn what she needs to do to reach her goal.

Having Fun In Retirement

James C. Sandefur has written a nice piece on the nature of fun. It’s entitled Are You Finding Your Retirement Fun Yet? and you can read it here.

Another Thing To Save For Retirement: Your Marriage

There is a very interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor today. It’s entitled Making Marriage Work After Retirement, and it offers some insights on the challenges many couples face in retirement. Chief among them is that many couples retire after a life of work and realize they don’t really know each other any more. Read the article.