Thursday, May 05, 2005
We’re Not Saving Enough
I just came across a piece on Forbes.com entitled Retirement Doomsday. I know I post a lot of links to these types of articles, but I do think they’re an important wake-up call to all of us who hope to retire one day. Besides some choice quotes from lawyer-actor-economist-journalist-game-show-host Ben Stein, you’ll find sobering facts like these:
Nearly 28 million U.S. households--37% of the total--do not own a retirement savings account of any kind. Among the households who owned a retirement savings account of any kind as of 2001, according to a 2004 report by the Congressional Research Service, the average value of all such accounts was $95,943. That number was distorted by the relatively few large accounts, and the median value of all accounts was just $27,000.
The moral of the story? Start saving more now! Read the article.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Looking For A Way To Help Your Community?
Working full time (and maintaining a blog on retirement) keeps me really busy. When I do retire though, I hope to help out in my community more than through my current financial-only donations. If you’re retired and have the interest, perhaps you could volunteer your time. Here are a couple great ways.
Do you like the outdoors? Check out the National Parks Service and see if you can volunteer. Here’s a link to their Opportunities page.
Maybe you’re great with kids. Big Brothers Big Sisters helps many kids get the mentoring they need. If you volunteer, there is a screening to make sure people are qualified, but then it will take maybe an hour out of your week. There’s a good chance you’ll also get a lot out of it yourself. Check it out here.
Friday, April 29, 2005
The Trip That Changed a Life.
At 55, Norm Rosen, a successful publishing executive, approaching his retirement, took a trip his first trip to Africa. The plight of the great apes there touched him so deeply that he made some radical changes to his life. Now, at 73, he teaches about primate conservation at California State University-Fullerton.
What advice does he have for others who consider changing course in midlife? “There’s only once or twice in your life you develop a passion to do something in a business or a career,” Rosen says. “And when you get that passion, you should follow it—because you will excel at it.”
Inspiring story. Read the article here.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Survey Says: Retirement Doesn’t Mean Not Working
According to a new study by JWT Mature Market Group and ThirdAge, Inc., 42% of respondents said they plan to “fully retire.” The really interesting part is that of those people who say they are going to fully retire, 70% of them say they still plan to work to some degree during their retirement. The reasons were basically person fulfillment. (Specifically they responded the top reasons to be to “stay mentally active,” and to “be productive or useful.")
Unfortunately, this study comes to me via an email. Eventually, it will be filed online, but it seems there’s about a 2 month lag in the emails making it into the online archive. If you’d like me to personally forward it to you, drop me a line at .
Click here for where the report will eventually be filed.
Monday, April 25, 2005
For Everyone Else: Lifecycle Plans Are Emerging in the Private Sector
Earlier, I posted an article about the DoD introducing Lifecycle Plans for their retirement plan. Lifecycle plans are not solely available to those in the military though. More companies are including them in their plans.
These investment portfolios, which are mutual funds that invest in a group of mutual funds, name the date of retirement and automatically adjust the balance of stocks and bonds as time passes and the employee gets closer to the date of retirement.
Read more about it here.
Interested In Early Retirement?
I just stumbled upon a site that describes itself as “one of the Web’s first totally spam and scam free sites devoted to saving and investing for retirement.” It’s called The Retire Early Home Page, and it offers book recommendations, free software and other interesting stuff. Check it out.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
The Overweight Live Longer?
Contrary to nearly everything we’ve been taught, The Journal of the American Medical Association indicating that overweight people actually live longer than normal-weight people. In today New York Times, David Brooks has an amusing editorial on the subject. My favorite bit is, “Life isn’t fair, logic is of limited value and, as Woody Allen observed years ago, everything your parents once thought was good for you turns out to be bad for you: sun, milk, red meat and college.” Funny.
Grab a piece of pie then, read the article.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Five Ways to Make Starting a New Career Less Scary
If your idea of retiring right is to start a second career you might want to check this one out. At CareerKnowHow.com, they’ve got an article called “Five Ways to Make Starting a New Career Less Scary.” Honestly, it’s mostly just common sense stuff there, but that doesn’t mean it’s not helpful to hear it again. It’s written by Leslie Godwin, a self-identified “Career & Life-Transition Coach.” That sounds like a good second career choice, right?
Read the article here.
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Exploring the “Longevity Bonus.”
Diane Stafford, in SouthCoastToday.com, has written the article Work force reflects how much gray matters. She comes across the term “longevity bonus” and I think it’s a nice way of looking at your older years.
The “longevity bonus,” as described in the article by Ken Dychtwald, a gerontologist and founder of Age Wave, a think tank and consulting group focused on the aging population, is what we’re getting now that we are living longer lives. Retiring could me taking a second chance at making your dreams come true.
He noted that the “longevity bonus” was giving current and future retirees an opportunity to remake their work lives after “retiring.” ...
“The boomer dream is to continue working, but without as much stress,” Dychtwald said. “They want a new blend of fun and satisfying work. They want to take a breath at the end of their first careers and reinvent themselves. The average retiree last year watched television 43 hours a week. Boomers say they will need more stimulation than that.”
I don’t think that means that if your dream is to move to a sunny beach community somewhere after you finish your first career is wrong. Based on this article though, in the future it will be less common than it is now. People just don’t save enough to have that choice. That’s one more reason to plan and save if that’s what you want to do. But maybe you’re just going to use your longevity bonus differently. (Hit that comment link below and let me know what you think.)
Read the article here.
Women May Be Facing A Retirement Crisis
Women live longer than men. That’s the good news. The bad news is that because of that longer average lifespan, women face different challenges where retirement is concerned. As with everything concerning retirement, knowledge is power. Get an overview of the challenges facing women in retirement in this article from MSN.
