Longevity is the oldest new trend in retirement
One of the appalling truths about retirement is that you, the retiree, have limited resources to guide and console you as you make this (usually) traumatic transition. One day you are a font of wisdom and authority and the next no one wants to talk to you. One day you have a steady paycheck; the...
Reminder: many, many people aren’t ready for retirement
Retirement planning is easy. You just need to know what food and lodging will cost over the coming decades, your age at death, your partner’s age at death, the return on the money you save, the reliability of Social Security and how sick you’ll be along the way. Books have been written about how...
Ladies: eat, pray and stretch that check
They’re homebodies. And they’re affiliative, depending on social and emotional bonds to get through daily life…or so we assume, because when they travel they like to travel with others. And by they, we mean men. Editors for International Living—the on-line and print publication that encourages retirees to find new adventures and, crucially, save money by...
Work makes you crazy; retirement causes dementia
Let’s begin at the end: you are screwed, regardless. That is the rational conclusion you can draw from a recent and huge (half a million participants) study in France. What the researchers found was that you have two life choices, neither of which is good for you. You can keep working. (This wasn’t addressed...
After us, no one will ever retire again
If you’ve been paying attention, you know that older Baby Boomers are grossly unprepared for retirement. Theirs would be a riveting and tragic story, except that every other generation looks to be in worse shape. A new report on retirement from the Pew Charitable Trusts points out that Generation-Xers, who are now between 38...
More noise and chatter on retirement
A wintery mix of news about retirement savings over the past few weeks. There’s some variation in the details but a consistent underlying message, which is that you will die poor, Boomer. And your generation will likely impoverish the generations coming after it. (Here’s the upside: we are told by a study of cheery Germans...
Go south, old (broke) man
Retiring abroad! It’s like tacking a dragon’s tail onto the withered hindquarters of that 9-to-5 life you led for 40 years. See, you say to your kids, I still thirst for adventure. See, I’m willing to negotiate back alleys in a tropical city where no one speaks my language, just to eat at a...
Same old
The odd thing about being off for a couple of weeks…truly and completely off, out-of-cell-coverage-and-forget-your-passwords off…is that you can return to find that nothing much has changed. Apparently there were sporting events in London, and occasional disasters. But otherwise, no surprise. For example, there’s this story from AARP on how half of all non-retired boomers...
Why aren’t more old people leaving America?
There’s a lot of loose talk about people retiring outside the United States. It’s not as romantic a conversation as one might think, because the underlying premise is that most Americans don’t have the resources they’ll need to retire comfortably in the country they’ve helped to build. Say you have only $1,177 a month to...
French equestrian village for old horse people is simultaneously encouraging and disturbing
The Villages Group, which develops and operates retirement communities in locations around the world, has announced that it will build France’s first equestrian village. It will be “aimed at buyers in the over 50 age range who want to live in a community with sporting and outdoor activities.” While horseback riding is...
You need a cool million to retire or you don’t
Here’s another myth-busting article on retirement planning. Or, more accurately, the headline claims it is a myth-busting article, busting the myth that you need a million bucks to retire. (Is this a myth? Maybe. We see other stories that refer to it. But we find it unlikely that the million-dollar...
Being a retired pro surfer sounds almost as fun…and as risky…as being a pro surfer
The notion of retirement is changing. The Great Recession has scrambled a great many nest-eggs, so many older folks who have left their full-time, long-time occupation—people who are nominally retired—are still working. They are picking up part-time gigs where they can, or starting new businesses, or going back to their...
