Money-shy
and Retiring

by Lucy Mohl
Illustration by Sandy Haight 

If you’re over 50 and paying attention, you know the financial world has trained its bloodshot eye on you. Retirement calculators are cropping up everywhere on the Web — gadgets that suck your numbers in and spit out how many years you can live comfortably without working — such as the Retirement Security Index from Wells Fargo. They can tell you, to the day, when your bank account will run out. The programs ask questions designed to induce panic:

How much money do you need per month?
How the hell do I know?

When are you going to retire?
What do you mean, retire?

How many years do you expect to spend in retirement?
I think this is code for “When am I planning to die?”

As you surf the the retirement calculators, one number will start sounding as familiar as a drum beat: 70 to 80 percent of your current income, as the standard for your future lifestyle. This is the most common framework used by financial planners. But, some beg to disagree. Economist Laurence J. Kotlikoff of Boston University argues in the Washington Post: “Those who listen to [financial] industry advice may end up either unnecessarily lowering their present standard of living to accumulate wealth for retirement, or abandoning all saving in despair because the amount they are told they need is so large.”

Kotlikoff calls the 70 to 80 percent replacement rule “blindingly stupid” because it assumes spending remains the same “right through age 90.” In fact, he says, retirees generally spend less as they get older, so the traditional approach yields a retirement savings goal “four to five times too high.” He’s created the ESPlanner, which calculates the amount of spending you can do and still maintain a constant standard of living. Of course, Mr. Kotlikoff is also tending his own nest egg: using his Web gadget will cost you about $150.

SPENDING AND SAVING
It’s the boring truth—this is where the real money has been, is, and ever shall be. More so after 50. Like it or not, you must start here.

Like so many other come-to-Jesus moments, this one begins with a look into the mirror. Go ahead and grab the paunch of your spending habits and give yourselves a couple of moments together. Examine carefully. Learning how you and your money co-habit today will teach you everything you need to know about what you'll be doing together for the rest of your life.

Here’s a suggested procedure from Christopher Dowsing, an accountant with Seattle’s Morrow, Kessler and Dowsing. His clients run the gamut: one person he cites spends an average of $1000 a day, another well under $50. Both are leading the lives they want, which explains why he offers no cookie-cutter answers. 

Step 1:  Chris Dowsing says most of us have no idea where our money goes. Yet, spending patterns are like sclerosis; once set, they tend to harden and define your lifestyle. So the first step is to review three months of all your spending--credit cards, checking accounts and cash. 

Step 2:  Next, divide that spending into categories. Amazement guaranteed, possibly under the heading lattes. Dowsing diagnosed one case of financial flailing by adding up a falling-short family’s collection of empty pizza boxes. Call it the pepperoni pattern; it revealed a gaping hole in their family budget. The lesson: treat spending the way you hunt for gas prices. Look at the pennies; they add up.

Step 3:  While you’re in this frame of mind, act your age and look for over-50 discounts. You can find a lot among your organizations. AAA, for example, offers dozens of discounts for goods and services (including, yes, lattes). The very meal during which Dowsing dispensed his wisdom to me was paid for with a Passport discount dining card.

Step 4:  The best source of money for the future is saving. Your personal income is likely to outpace any investment you can find, so squirrel some of it away every month. Dowsing adds, for good measure, that if your company offers a matching 401(k) plan and you're not taking it, “you're an idiot.” It’s free money.

MORE EXCITEMENT, PLEASE
OK, then, get into the stock market. Now? Yes, if you have the appetite for risk. Money sage Ben Stein was quoted recently as saying “If there's a recession, that's when I'd buy stocks. That's when you make money: when markets are spooked. In fact, I'm buying now.” What's Stein buying? “Index funds. Exchange-traded funds, all based on broad domestic and foreign stock indexes. Trying to pick individual stocks is a trap. I can't do it. Warren Buffett can, but hardly anyone else can beat the indexes over a long period of time.”

As counter-intuitive as it sounds, risk can be a strategy for financial security. According to some financial advisors, if you’re heading into your later years without an adequate nest egg, greater risk versus reward scenarios should be considered. As long as you can tolerate risk, a 20% chance on a home-run return is acceptable. A grow-slow mentality is fine for the guy who’s been saving since he was twelve. Most of us need to pick up the pace.

BUT DON’T BET ON THE HOUSE
Accountant Christopher Dowsing also advises against thinking of your own home as a nest egg. “Most people think of it as an investment, but it's not. You're going to need somewhere to live.”  Downsizing, in theory, should work, but in most cases it turns out to be a horizontal move. The costs of a single family home get translated into condo dues and assessments. The relative cost of living in the same city—services, grocery prices, energy—doesn't change. Unless, of course, you move to an area with lower home prices.

WANT DIFFERENT RESULTS. DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
The British statesman David Lloyd George said, “With me a change of trouble is as good as a vacation.” The opportunity to reinvent yourself may be the greatest of all gifts our spoiled generation has received. We’re recognizing that we’re fit and able to grow and produce past 60, and more of us are seizing that opportunity every day. The future isn't written, said Lawrence of Arabia, a man without a 401(k). There are hundreds of paths to your fortune. Think about it. A change could do you good. And well. 

Lucy Mohl is a Seattle writer, editor and Web entrepreneur.

Spread Your Wings: Get a Grant

By Greg Palmer

At this moment a person is being paid $20,000 to count the bats in abandoned mines in Idaho.  Somebody else is getting $40,000 to monitor Flat Tailed Horned Lizards.  In Madagascar some people are using $25 million to improve the health of the Malagasy people through “social marketing.”

All these folks have little in common except an interest in their subject.  What they do share is that they’re being paid directly or indirectly by the United States government.  And they knew about the opportunity and how to ask for and get the job.

You’ve probably read about those controversial “earmarks”—special interest projects attached by legislators to bills in Congress.  Well, the earmark one Senator condemns as wasteful is another Senator’s Flat Tailed Lizard project.  And a lot of the money goes to regular people, not just to the Senator’s nephew.      

You could be one of those grant-getters, tapping into the billons of dollars your government spends on an immense range of projects—so immense, in fact, that if you’ve spent thirty years of your life doing practically anything, the chances are extremely good a government project will come along soon that could use your training, experience and expertise.  And many of the projects make the world a better, safer, smarter, more prosperous place; they’re the kind of work you’d be proud to do.

Finding out about the government projects is the easiest part. The website www.grants.gov lists a dozen new opportunities daily—including each project's goal, budget, eligibility requirements and funding agency, like the Bureau of Land Management, the National Institutes of Health, or even Homeland Security.  Grants.gov probably has everything you need to make an initial decision about whether to pursue the opportunity offered.

Although hundreds of opportunities are available to individuals, the majority are restricted to institutions of higher learning, state or local governments, and/or Indian tribes.  But that doesn’t preclude you establishing a relationship with your local government, college or tribe and proposing a joint venture.  For instance, million-dollar grants were recently listed seeking people to help “bring back the oyster.”  If you’d spent your working life in some aspect of the seafood industry and walked into the local college with a plan to pursue a million dollars, would you be turned away?  Not necessarily.  Colleges and local governments are always looking for ways to get Federal money.

This is the U.S. government, of course, so the application procedure is lengthy and complex.  That may be frustrating, but as a taxpayer it’s reassuring to know our government doesn’t just hand money out to anybody with a decent letterhead.  Keep telling yourself that, as you leap through yet another bureaucratic hoop.

But do try the leap.  Using the experience you’ve gathered in your life in new and interesting ways that benefit your country and the world’s peoples and you personally is an exciting possibility.  Just think of that person who, either as a vocation or avocation, had a lot of dealings with bats or mines during the past few decades.  Right now, that person is in Bat Heaven, and getting paid for it!

To get an idea of the range of U.S. Government projects, here is a very brief, abbreviated group of recent grants.gov listings:

National Institute of Justice:  The W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship Program seeks to advance knowledge regarding the confluence of crime, justice, and culture in various societal contexts, with particular emphasis on crime, violence, and the administration of justice in diverse cultural contexts.

Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants (NEH, up to $50,000, individuals eligible): …encouraging library/museum workers, scholars, scientists, etc., to propose digital initiatives in any area of the humanities, including research that brings new approaches in the study of the digital humanities...

Value Added Producer Grant ($18.4 million, top grant $300k, available to individuals):  Helping independent producers of agricultural products, farmer/rancher cooperatives and other related groups create strategies for business development.  They’re probably looking for something a little more developed than “Spinach has something for every body.”

Translational Research on the Relationship of Anxiety and Depression ($750,000 total, $250,000 per grant)

Empowering Older People to Take More Control of Their Health through Evidence-Based Prevention Programs (National Institutes of Health, $10. million available, $300,000 per grant)

Department of Homeland Security Institute for Discrete Sciences University Affiliate Centers ($10.2 billion):  Proposals for research areas in the discrete sciences, to include areas of information management and knowledge discovery, discrete simulation, and discrete mathematical foundations.

Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians Program, top grant $1 million.  Chances are very good this one expires in November.

The Anger Tonic

By Dave Newton
Illustration by Mark Monlux

A few years ago, in my late fifties, I realized I was walking around ticked off a lot. I’d always been a cheery person—creative, productive, cooperative, a real people-pleaser. Now I was always in a fighting mood. One day, a company consultant took me aside after a management meeting and gently asked, “What the hell’s the matter with you?” I wasn’t aware it was so obvious, my pique, and I took off at a gallop on a round of apologies, to bosses and co-workers alike. Get back on your meds, my boss said.

The year before I had been treated for depression after a public tongue-lashing by a corporate boss on a convention floor. I’d become anxious and fearful, given to bouts of spontaneous morning weeping. The antidepressant made all that magically disappear, and I felt fine for a while. But now I was angry, and people were angry at me.

I went back on my meds. I tried to avoid arguments and contrariness. I felt better and safer back on the antidepressant, but I was still mad most of the time. And when I reflected on how quickly I had caved, madder. My relationship with bosses continued to deteriorate.

Of course I see now my behavior was stupid and prickly. They should have fired me. I should have quit. But I was determined not to act impulsively, and my past work was respected. I was permitted to ease myself out. I even helped choose my successor. Still, I flatly refused the perfunctory after-work beer party on my last Friday.

Was it wacky brain chemistry or was my anger justified? Or was I just getting old? Modern medicine and our unenlightened attitudes about mental health make figuring out situations like this difficult, and I’m working with the same brain that got me in hot water, but I’ll give it a try.

Depression is defined two ways — chemically: a shortage of serotonin in the brain; and psychologically: you guessed it, suppressed anger—anger turned against the self. My non-psychological internist treated my depression symptoms with a drug. I didn’t go into psychotherapy to work out the emotional content. The medication relieved my symptoms and I went about my business. On my own, I had learned not to suppress my anger, which is good, and I became a pariah at work, not good.

Anger is the no-no emotion. It’s natural, and often justified, but it’s socially and professionally unacceptable. Beyond fifty, we face an even greater paradox: anger among older people is predictable, and forbidden. Go public with it, even if it’s righteous, and you’re either in a fight or ostracized. Suppress it and you risk internal injuries.

Letting it out can be lethal, too. A 2001 Harvard study reported that angry old men have a three-times-higher risk of heart disease than happy-go-lucky guys.

“….Scientists speculate that anger releases stress hormones into the bloodstream, increases oxygen demand by heart muscle cells, and increases stickiness of blood platelets, leading to blood clots that initiate heart attacks.”

On the other hand, in Betty Friedan’s monumental, highly readable, and widely ignored 1993 book, The Fountain of Age — a work that’s guaranteed to elevate the aging heartbeat, if not make your platelets sticky — Friedan found plenty of evidence of, and justification for, anger among people fifty and beyond. And she discovered a life-giving upside. She tells about an elder AIDS patient under the care of Dr. George Solomon, one of the founders of the science of psycho-neuro-immunology:

“…after being diagnosed, (he) developed a very severe, rapidly advancing lymphoma and was given a week or two to live. He was treated with chemotherapy; two years later, with no signs of lymphoma in his body, he returned to his work as a college professor. In the meantime, he had twice recovered from pneumonia, and had no evidence of the organic brain disease often associated with AIDS. What was happening? ‘He is feisty as hell,’ Solomon speculated. ‘He seeks out treatments. He takes charge of his own care. He doesn’t put up with anything. He has the fiercest determination to live….He has projects, he is involved. He has a marvelous support system…and his T-cell count is 28.’ (the normal count is between 500 and 1500).”

Anger: life-threatener or life-saver? Take your pick.

Betty Friedan deduced that old people must be toting around a lot of unvented rage. (And we needed a feminist to tell us this?) Yet, most of that rage gets vented as mere grumpiness. Have you heard of any ageism protest marches lately?

The writer Paddy Chayefsky produced his most memorable work after he got mad. Great movies like The Hospital and Network told uncomfortable truths about medicine, television, and America—clearly, powerfully and, yes, angrily. Chayefsky defined frustration in Peter Finch’s signature Network scene: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Click on the arrow button in the middle of the YouTube screen above to watch it.

Age and experience lead to attitude problems. You’re no longer willing to shut up and drink the Kool-Aid. You tend to write indignant letters to editors, harrass telemarketers, and send bad restaurant food back to the kitchen (my wife hates it when I do that). You don’t suffer fools gladly, and when people start talking to you in that way they talk to old people—you know how I mean—you tend not to laugh it off, and so confirm the stereotype. At work, if you haven’t risen to General Manager, from whom overt anger is accepted—even expected—you’re just a disgruntled, perhaps under-medicated, over-the-hill employee. We’ve had years to bottle up anger. Now that we’ve reached the age of independence we’re considered nuts if we let it out.

What, then, must we do?

I say put it to work. Use your experience to redirect your anger; use its energy to make something wonderful. Anger has caused broken bones, murders, terrorism and war, but it has also jump-started religions, countries, companies and weight loss.

This year, in a year of unprecedented frustration, our redirected anger is cleansing this country’s political process. Look how well Americans are handling their pent-up rage. They’re voting with it. No water cannons necessary.

It may be socially unacceptable, and it makes us all uncomfortable, but anger is as natural as a fart and as American as apple crisp. Embrace your temper. Change your world.

My buddies and I are starting a magazine. We’re grumpy and proud.

  Top of Page

the editor's blog
May 15, 2008

Alarums & Excursions

Last night 6:30:  I fold myself into my 40-something daughter’s Crossfire for a sortie to Seattle to hear her old boyfriend—when they were 20-somethings—play lead guitar in a Country Rock band from L.A.

We race west into the Cascades, me snapping away through the passenger window.  Herewith, a couple of shots—to taunt you with Snoqualmie Pass scenery.

Just past nine we road-wobble into the Comet, that cruddy, classic tav on Capitol Hill, ninety years old and still unmopped.  I’ve spent many a late evening there after plays at the Empty Space, when it was right across Pike Street.  I swear, it’s got urinal graffiti from 1976.

Leslie and the Badgers describe their style as “Folk Rock/Americana/Country,” but for me their music renders standard descriptors pathetic, and all artist comparisons unjust.  They’re retro in a non-ironic yet contemporary way—Valentino-era laments, fiddle licks and guitar riffs that evoke Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, Duane Eddy. 

From their first, precision made chord, they overcome the Comet’s garage-band sound system, which is optimized for otio-demolition, and capture the crowd.  You can go sample the songs at the band’s MySpace page or on their blog.

Leslie Stevens is a sweet soprano belter with long hair and a Marian the Librarian vibe.  She’s written herself a clever clutch of songs that can veer from yearning to yee-haw on a dime.  She’s got a way with words that’s affecting and, frequently, head-snapping:

“...the torture, the torture, the fortune, the fortune…”

“...why can’t you please me all the time?  Tha’d be fine.  Tha’d be fine.”

I love stuff like that.

We leave the Comet at midnight, grab four hours of sleep, and hit the road at 5:00AM, playing the Badgers CD all the way to Yakima.  Lisa had to work and I had an 8:30 doctor’s appointment for a physical, complete with a digital prostrate exam, and I don’t mean electronic.

What a trip.  A shock to the system.  I recommend it.

May 1, 2008

LET’S GET REAL:
WHAT RETIREMENT?

What’s all this retirement nonsense? Most Americans who haven’t retired, don’t plan to. Which is gentle-speak for “can’t afford to.” PBS’s Frontline covered this well, recently. Read about it here.

And what about all those media stories about Boomers planning to retire and do “volunteer work.” Come on. It’s O.K. to volunteer, but show me the money.

Back when I figured most people were still planning a traditional gone-fishing retirement, I wanted to write a money article called “Zero to 65 in Two Years.” I called Tresa Leftenant, a financial adviser I know, and asked her if there’s a fast track that people with no savings can jump on to catch up and retire. Her short answer: nope. Investments need more than a couple of years to grow—and time to ride out down markets, like the one we’re sliding into right now.

The slightly longer answer: it takes money to make money. I saw an ad for a financial company’s free “guide” to retirement the other day. It’s for people with $500,000 investment portfolios. Others need not apply. Tresa Leftenant says some financial companies take on clients with considerably smaller nest eggs. But not those with nothing. Bottom line: there’s no such thing as a shortcut. This is not news to you, I’m sure, though I’m betting that you, like I, have wondered.

So, though a lot of people are enjoying work-free retirement, it’s a vanishing phenomenon. Get over it. And what’s wrong with working on past 65? Love and work are what make our lives worth something. The idea is to find work you love.

Besides, we’ve got no business going to pasture when our country and the planet need so many things fixed. Who better to find answers and make them work than the people with education, experience and perspective.

Whether you’ve saved a bundle or not, with thirty or forty years of life ahead of you, why would you want to “retire” the old way? Wouldn’t independence be a better goal? Now, how do you organize your finances for that?

That’s what Lucy Mohl’s cover story, over there on your left, is about—doing the numbers for your 3rd Act. Things are different today for people over 50. There’s a new kind of “retirement,” and it’s reinventing us.

What do you think? Click here to email me.

— Dave Newton

PREVIOUS POSTS

Who We Are
By Greg Palmer and Rosemary Garner

■ We put far greater faith in rear view mirrors than we used to.
■ We may laugh about “senior moments,” but every little memory lapse scares us.
■ We are a lot more worried about small children stepping on our feet than we used to be.
■ We are burying our parents in ever-increasing numbers, and realizing too late how much we are going to miss them.
■ We place high value on formerly inconsequential things, like a good pair of tweezers.
■ We either love to mess around in the garden, or we hate it. No middle ground there.
■ We have gladly forsaken pantyhose for eternity.
■ Regardless of how we feel about his movies, we have a lot of admiration for Clint Eastwood.
■ We aren’t tormented by the necessity of finding a “soul mate,” either because we’ve already found that person or we no longer care that we haven’t. If it happens it happens.
■ We know there’s nothing wrong with being young, and nothing wrong with not being young, either.

Greg Palmer is a writer-television producer with dozens of PBS credits, a collection of Emmys, and a Peabody Award in his trophy case.

Rosemary Garner is an independent TV producer who's created programs for PBS and a feature film on religion.

Double-Take: The Young At Heart Chorus, Its Documentary Movie,
and My Mixed Emotions

by Dave Newton
4/25/08

The other day I posted the first version of this article on a new film, Young at Heart, that earned a 2007 Oscar nomination. It documents the career of a group of extra mature Massachusetts singers--average age, 82--who belt out today’s hits, like Sonic Youth’s Schizophrenia and Cold Play’s Fix You. Watch them sing by clicking these YouTube screens. Today I’ve rewritten the article, because I’ve had some afterthoughts.

The Young at Heart Chorus has been around for a while -- in more ways than one -- the group was formed 26 years ago by Bob Cilman, then a young retirement home worker. Because of Cilman’s professional approach to the singing, the chorus went far beyond senior recreation therapy, to a worldwide, if low-key, concert career.

But now there’s hoopla. And it took the interest of British documentary producer Stephen Walker to produce this explosion of fame. In 2005 Walker convinced Cilman and the group to let him film Young At Heart, which subsequently ran on the UK’s innovative public TV station, Channel Four. Now, Fox Searchlight, which picked up U.S. distribution rights last summer, has opened the movie in American theatres, accompanied by the usual spate of media coverage.

How come it took a British producer and TV station to see the potential for inspiration and entertainment in the Young At Heart Chorus? Would this idea get you in the door at CBS, ABC, NBC? Or even PBS? Did the producers even knock?

When US TV is rigidly targeted 18-49, how likely were we to see this show produced for broadcast TV in America? Maybe it’ll be on, after its success is certified by worldwide buzz, a decent domestic theatre box office take, and enough DVD sales to pay Fox back its year-late investment. 

But let’s get personal, here. How comfortable are you, seeing 70- and 80-plus folks singing rock songs, or anything, in front of a camera or an audience? CBS’s David Edelstein said Bob Cilman’s toughness with the choristers made him twitchy. Does the Young at Heart Chorus make you smile, laugh, cry, or squirm?

I’d never rain on this long-overdue parade. It’s a great thing. Still, I think we need to take a new look at the way we think about getting old. This film, and the kind of coverage it’s drawn, present us with a good opportunity. Consider yourself poked.

What do you think? While we’re getting our comment system built, you can talk back to us at YoungAtHeart@3rdActs.com. I’ll publish your comments.

Who We Are II
By Greg Palmer and Rosemary Garner

■ We no longer automatically take our doctor’s word for granted.
■ We don’t buy a Toyota after 20 years buying Fords, just because it looks great in a Superbowl commercial. For this reason, advertisers aren’t particularly interested in us. We can deal with that.
■ Those of us who have spent our lives as conservatives are becoming a little more liberal as we get older. And vice versa.
■ We read the obits.We recognize a lot of “new” ideas as ideas somebody else had a long time ago, redressed and shined up for people who should know better.
■ Increasingly we pick clothing that is comfortable, whether it’s stylish or not.
■ We’d like to meet Sophia Loren. And Paul Newman.
■ The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. means a lot to us, even if we’ve never seen it in person. And especially if we have.
■ Our houses are full of stuff we’ve been talking about getting rid of for more than two decades.
■ We realize that certain beloved items of clothing, like those jeans, will never fit again. But we hang onto them anyway.
■ We wish people would just ignore our birthdays, but deep in our hearts we want a huge party attended by every friend we’ve ever had. We don’t want them to bring presents. We just want them to show up.
■ After all these years, we still haven’t forgiven Yoko Ono for What She Did.