#SuzeOrman #WorkUntilAge70 #retirement
Suze Orman has made a fine career of giving retirement and other financial advice.
But when she advises people to work until age 70, Wes Moss, who writes the Money Matters column in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and also has a radio show of the same name on WSB AM, begs to differ.
Moss discussed the matter in a Nov. 7, 2017, column.
Certainly, medical advances and the like have made living longer possible. Some folks may even enjoy their work to the point of never thinking about giving it up. Others may believe that the longer they are able to keep working, the better off they will be financially.
Moss points out that the latter is pretty much Orman’s philosophy. He quotes an old joke in financial circles: “How do you never run out of money for retirement? Work until you die,” Moss writes.
In Moss’ mind, perhaps the most important reason for not setting 70 as a retirement age is that “you may lose the sweet spot of your retirement – the years when you are healthy and active enough to live out your post-career dreams to the fullest,” he writes.
Certainly, the Social Security Administration has inched up the “full retirement” age to 67 from 65, where it was for decades. But Moss points to a Bloomberg News article that says Americans are retiring later, dying sooner and are sicker in between.
Here’s something else Moss points out: companies largely do not want older workers around. Younger workers are generally cheaper. So, even as workers approach middle age, they become vulnerable to being forced out of their jobs for one reason or another.
If you are among those who are nearing retirement, and don’t have lots of money saved, take heart. There are many ways out there you can make money in your spare time, say, a couple hours a week, without taking a second W-2 job, or working overtime (if available) in your first job. To check out one of the best such vehicles, message me.
In short, unless you really love your job, think about retiring as soon as you are able. If you can foresee your job going away before you want it to, take measures to soften the blow when it comes. If you do the right things – spend less without depriving yourself, save more money, invest well etc. – you might even be able to walk out of your job with a smile.
As Moss says, you shouldn’t make it a goal to sacrifice the best years of your retirement by working those extra years. And, once you do retire, you shouldn’t waste time sitting at home, and not venturing out of your comfort zone. Have dreams. Fulfill them. Retire with no prejudices, no pretenses and no burdensome obligations.
That isn’t to say that there are some jobs that are so great, you don’t want to give them up unless you have to. But, chances are, no matter how good you are at what you do, eventually your employer is going to want you gone.
If you’re lucky, when your employer wants you gone, he or she will offer you a package to leave. If you get an offer like that, remember that few people who take them ultimately regret that decision. If you are being paid to leave, the message you should hear is that the employer want you out.
So, if you are a Suze Orman devotee, remember that not everyone agrees that one should work until he or she is 70. A better philosophy might be this: when is the SOONEST I can retire? Once you’ve determined that, think about not only how you are going to pull it off financially, but also what you will do with your new-found time.
Work, dream, save and retire.
Peter
Tag Archives: work
DO WHAT YOU LOVE; LOVE WHAT YOU DO
#DoWhatYouLove #LoveWhatYouDo #BuildALife
If it weren’t work, they wouldn’t pay you for it.
If you do what you love, you’ll never work again.
You work so you can have the things you want in life.
Instead of building a life around income-producing activities, build a life – then figure out how to make money.
All of these axioms are true. Depending on the type of person you are, some ring truer than the others. If you hate your job, the first and third ring especially true. If you love your job, the second one probably fits you. If you are among the few who’ve looked for, and found, ways to produce income WITHOUT having a traditional or typical “job,” the fourth statement can be your mantra.
As the job scene changes, we don’t have the luxury of reliving the past. We have to find a way to deal with what is today. The economic downturn of 2008 changed a lot of lives. Some people’s jobs were lost and will never return. Those who stayed employed may have found their jobs have changed – probably forever.
If the first axiom rings true for you, and you lost your job, you are probably out pounding the pavement looking for another one. If you’ve found another one, you are lucky. If you are still looking years later, perhaps a new strategy is needed. You may have to figure out what your skills are, and figure out how to parlay those skills into a business of your own. When you own your own business, no one can fire you, or lay you off. However, you can do it to yourself if you give up on it too soon. If you need an immediate income, you may have to resort to finding a different job, even if it pays less – and most do – than you had made previously.
START YOUR OWN BUSINESS
If you’ve saved well, invested well and were wise about how you’ve lived – and have lost your job — you may now have the luxury of starting a business and staying with it until it succeeds. If you do this successfully, the second axiom could ring true to you. If you have a business, you’d better love what you do, or learn to love it, because it will take the routine out of your previous life. It could consume you, especially if it is either wildly successful, or a real struggle to keep afloat. Remember that being in business for yourself involves more than just doing what you do. You have to market yourself, and find ways to let others know you are out there and available for them. That may not come easily to most, but it’s vital to your success.
If you are working, and don’t think your job will ever disappear, remember we are in an age in which companies reorganize often. You might want to take to heart the fourth axiom. Look around for any number of ways to produce income. To learn about one of the best vehicles for that, message me.
You can set up an income stream without it interfering with what you are doing now. Never believe that you’ll always be able to work at a job on YOUR terms. Try to make yourself “retirement ready,” even if you are young and believe you have a lot of good years left.
Who knows? You might be so successful at your part-time gig, you’ll have forgotten how much you loved your old job. Remember, too, that anything good requires some effort. Starting now to build a part-time income can reap big rewards later. You may even have fun doing it!
Work is changing. So are the ways people can make money. No matter your situation, look to leverage your time and income to build the life you’ve always wanted.
Peter
HOW HARD IS IT FOR YOU TO LEAVE WORK?
#work #All-ConsumingJob #FamilyFriends #fun
You don’t work an eight-hour day.
You don’t know when to leave the office.
Even when you leave, work goes home with you.
Perhaps you’ve made a new year’s resolution to spend more time with family, friends and other people or things that give you pleasure.
But, you feel you can’t.
There’s a crisis at work you have to deal with.
Laura Petrecca discussed this topic in a Jan. 16, 2017, article in USA Today. Here are some figures quoted in the article:
• 60 percent of people have dreamed about something at work;
• 49 percent check work e-mail after work hours;
• 46 percent work during non-business hours;
• 44 percent are up at night thinking about work;
• 15 percent gave up vacation days.
Here’s another stat: the average person in Europe works about 19 percent less than the average American. Thus U.S. workers put in 25 percent more hours than Europeans, according to a study by a group of economists, quoted in an article by Ben Steverman for Bloomberg News. The article was published March 13, 2017, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
You may know your job is eating you alive, but you fear that if you don’t put in the extra effort, you may be replaced.
News flash: you may be laid off regardless of how well you’ve performed, or how much extra effort you’ve put in.
“There is pressure globally … to do more with less,” Petrecca’s article quotes Patrick Kulesa, director of employee research at Willis Towers Watson.
So what does one do to bring sanity back into his or her life? One way is to just stop working when you get home. Reserve your home space strictly for family, friends and pleasurable activities.
If you have an after-hours crisis at work that requires immediate attention, deal with it at work, so you can go home with a clean slate.
Or, create a Plan B for earning money in what spare time you have, so you can eventually kiss the pressure cooker goodbye. There are many such ways to do that. To learn about one of the best, message me.
Instantaneous communication has become both a blessing and a curse. Take advantage of its blessing to give you pleasure, and pay less attention to the curse that allows work to follow you home.
In short, give yourself a break. Know that no matter what you do, you are not indispensable at work. Know that your boss will not hesitate to let you go if it makes his numbers look good, regardless of the effort you’ve put in.
Leave work at work. Delegate more of what you do, if you can. If you are good at what you do, look for other options if your situation shows no end in sight.
There’s only one you. You deserve to engage in the pleasure of family, friends and enjoyable activities. Don’t let a job deprive you of that.
It’s OK to enjoy your work, but it should not control you, or keep you from other things. No matter what happens at work, learn to live well.
Peter
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT WORK?
#work #careers #retirement4
Chances are, if you ask someone on his death bed what he wished he had done more of, he wouldn’t say “work.”
But Rory Vaden, cofounder of Southwestern Consulting and best-selling author of “Take the Stairs,” says, “work is integral, work is freedom, work is joy.”
If one asks his elders about work, he would hear things like, “I worked hard all my life.” Or, “you don’t get anywhere in this world without hard work.”
For many of us, if we look today at what we do for work, we can’t wait to be financially able to quit working, relax and do other things that we don’t consider work.
But Vaden, who discussed this in a Nov. 16, 2014, column in The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, says the idea of “retirement,” and “leisure,” are changing.
We can see that in today’s world, without looking very far.
The idea of working at a job for 30 or 40 years, then suddenly “retiring” to do “nothing,” are pretty much gone. Today, many people are being “retired” before they want to be.
Staying at one job, or one company, for even 10 years is difficult because companies reorganize often, and bad managers are career killers.
We all would love to have jobs we enjoy, but we all know someone has to do the job no one wants to do.
If you happen to find a job you love, you are blessed. If that job lasts you most, or all, of your career, you are unusual.
Retirement planners tend to look not only at financial issues, but also whether a person is ready to retire. If you had all the money in the world, what would YOU do in retirement? As tempting as relaxation is, it will get old. When it does, boredom is not a pleasant condition.
Vaden quotes Timothy Keller, author of “Every Good Endeavor,” who quotes the Bible: “The book of Genesis leaves us with a striking truth – work is paradise.”
For many, work is paradise only if you don’t have work, and you need work. But, on the other hand, to paraphrase Vaden, whom do you know who hasn’t worked, or doesn’t work, who is worth looking up to?
Our work is part of who we are. It can also consume us. Yet, for most, work has a purpose in life, but it is NOT our whole life. Those who see work for what it is, and use it to make a good life, are perhaps the happiest of us.
The lesson here is to use your work to make you better person. If you are young, prepare for the day when your job disappears. You will probably never know when that day will be.
One way to prepare for a job to go away is to have a Plan B. There are many such Plan Bs out there. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You can work at Plan B when you are not working at your job. If you work at it correctly, you can eventually fire your awful boss.
Vaden asks, “why do we subscribe to this myth that our lives would be much better if we had less work?”
The answer to that is different for everyone. But, when you arrive on your death bed, try to have as few regrets as possible. We should all work at minimizing our regrets.
Peter
HALF FULL, HALF EMPTY, NO MATTER
Take a large tumbler glass, fill half of it with water.
Then, rather than ask yourself whether the glass is half full or half empty, hold the glass out as far as your arm will extend.
Holding the glass out there for a minute or two is no problem. If you hold it out there for five minutes straight, you’ll start to feel the weight.
If you hold it out there for several hours straight, your arm, shoulder and elbow will probably hurt.
Mike Lantz, a double platinum presidential with Team National, talked about this at the company’s convention in March 2014 in Kansas City, Mo.
Lantz attributed this illustration to a friend in his men’s group.
The point is that the water in the glass, which provides the weight, represents all your negative thoughts.
If you hold on to those thoughts for a long time, they will hurt you. As humans, negative thoughts naturally enter into our minds. How often have we said to ourselves: why me? Or, what did I do to deserve this? Or, even worse, woe is me! I can’t do this! I’m stuck in this miserable life!
Some of us tend to hold thoughts like this, or grudges, for a long time. That hurts our ability to change our lives.
Everyone has the ability to better himself or herself. Remember that being broke is temporary. Being poor is a state of mind.
If you think you can’t do anything about your situation, you are wrong. But, if you decide not to do anything about your situation, you have made a choice.
Certainly, things happen to us that are beyond our control. But even the most devastating occurrence doesn’t condemn us, unless we let it.
Some of us have trouble figuring out how to get out of a bad situation. There are a number of ways through which one can change his or her life. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Other people, or circumstances, don’t have to rule you. You can put your life in your hands.
So think of the glass as half full, and think of the water as all your negative thoughts. Dump out the water and start with a clean glass. Then, drink in all the good you can create for yourself.
Peter
LUCK: ANYONE CAN HAVE IT
“If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
That’s paraphrasing a lyric from a song, titled “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me,” made popular on the TV show “Hee Haw.”
We’ve often thought of those who have made it in their lives as “lucky.” By extension, we’ve regarded those who are struggling as “unlucky.”
We certainly have things happen to us that we can’t control. Some are good. Some are bad. We always hope that we can cherish the good in our lives, and overcome the bad.
But as TV star and successful businesswoman Oprah Winfrey has said, “Luck is a matter or preparation meeting opportunity.”
Most successful people view themselves as lucky. Yet their luck did not come by accident. It came from the wisdom of seeing an opportunity, and the work it took to make it happen.
Some of us shy away from opportunity. We think we don’t have it in us to pursue it. Or, to put it bluntly, we don’t have the AMBITION it takes to make it happen.
Those who believe luck is an accident also believe it will never come to them. Actually, most people have enough good in their lives to consider themselves lucky, but they don’t see it. Even if an opportunity were placed in front of them, they wouldn’t see it. They don’t want it badly enough to see it.
But let’s break down Winfrey’s statement: how does one “prepare” for luck? Preparation starts with a dream. Dreams start when “realism” is suspended. We all like to consider ourselves realists, but realism gets in the way of dreams.
After one establishes a dream, one needs the desire to make it happen. Such dreamers have just enough realism to know that their dreams may not come overnight. They also know that they will need to work to make it happen.
In short, a dream, plus the desire to make it happen, is preparation for luck.
Then comes opportunity. The preparation for luck allows a person to KNOW an opportunity when he sees it. He is constantly looking for the opportunity, and the power of his dream will allow him to eventually find it.
How does he find opportunity? He looks for it. He meets people. He finds out how they became successful. He determines whether the vehicle other people have used would work for him. If so, he goes for it.
Since he knows he will have to work, he is just looking for the vehicle for his efforts. There are many such vehicles out there. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It may or may not be the vehicle you are looking for, but if you have the dream and the desire, it just might work for you.
When you’ve prepared to meet opportunity, know that success may not come quickly, or without setbacks. You’ll meet some pitfalls on your journey to success. You might even have to see less of your friends who sing, in one form or another, “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me.”
So if your dream is big enough, and your drive is strong enough, you have sufficiently prepared to be lucky. You will know enough, despite how little or much education you’ve had, to look for a good opportunity, and to recognize it when you find it.
Best of luck to you!
Peter
DO WHAT YOU KNOW, NOT WHAT YOU FEEL
A slogan from the 1960s said: “If it feels good, do it.”
It was a way to assert one’s freedom , to branch out from what was socially acceptable into an area that was, well, not.
We all love to do what feels good, but it might be better to follow the advice of author, speaker and TV personality Les Brown: “do what you know, not what you feel.”
Brown is saying that we should do what we know we need to do, not just what feel like doing.
Let’s take that a step further. We know we need to eat right and exercise. But at a given moment, we might feel like relaxing on the couch with a big piece of chocolate cake. If you’ve exercised and eaten right most of the day, perhaps relaxation and a piece of cake are well deserved. But eating cake EVERY day because it feels good is not a good habit.
This works to the contrary as well. Sometimes, after a highly stressful day at work, you KNOW there is take-home work to do, but you want to just relax. You may need the relaxation more than the extra work. You may need balance in your life. Sometimes, your body tells you to back off work awhile.
Also, doing what you know you should do may mean spending more time with your family, instead of tackling that take-home work. A good rule here: if work really can wait, let it, if you are at home.
Some other activities make us feel good, but may keep us from doing what we know we should. Television is a perfect example. If you are neglecting something you know you should be doing but believe you don’t have time, think about how much time you may spend watching television.
Sure, the little screen is big entertainment, and very enjoyable. Some programming is certainly worth watching (much, sadly, is not). If you are doing what you know you should, chances are you are doing it with no remote in hand.
Many people get introduced to opportunities to change their lives and live their dreams, but pass it by because, “I couldn’t put another thing on my plate.” Some people really can’t. But most don’t want to change their lives badly enough to check it out.
You see, they will tell you that they are doing what they know they should be doing, and not what they feel like doing. Their plates may be overflowing, they are stressed, yet comfortable. Tackling something new and different would be uncomfortable. Perhaps they don’t realize what their lives are doing to them – and not doing for them.
Does that sound like you?
Perhaps you FEEL you have to do what you do, and neglecting some of what you REALLY should be doing, and don’t even know it.
Do you know there might be something better out there for you? If it were presented to you, would you want to look at it? If so, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
If you KNOW you are not doing what you should be doing much of the time, but feel like you HAVE to do what you’re doing, then look for something that will encourage you to do more of what you should be doing.
Only you can know what that is. Only you can act on doing those things. Only you can change your life, if it needs changing.
That doesn’t mean you don’t treat yourself to a little decadence once in a while. But don’t eat cake EVERY day, at the expense of the right foods and exercise.
But your dreams are waiting. Eventually, why not eat your cake, and still have it.
Peter
DANCING TO ONE’S OWN TUNE
Marina Shifrin quit her job for a Taiwanese animator and created a video of her dancing in celebration.
Naturally, the video caught on and was not only an online hit, news organizations showed it repeatedly on television.
Some of us fantasize about quitting our job and celebrating. Perhaps we have a job that we’ve hated, but suddenly find ourselves able to unload it from our lives. Some may come into a little money, so therefore they don’t need to work anymore.
Dancing your way out the door may look like fun to some, but some may need to take pause.
As an employer, would you like to see anyone so happy to quit a job? In Marina’s case, she was fed up with the long hours she was putting in. She made that video at 4:30 a.m. when she finally finished work. In fact, her employer made a follow-up video wishing Marina luck.
If you are an employer and are not bothered by such a stunt, perhaps you need to evaluate your workplace, and how your employees really feel. If you don’t care how they feel, then hopefully all your workers will dance out the door.
Departing a job is often sad. As an employee, you’ve given your heart and soul to something, and for whatever reason you have to leave reluctantly. Or, you get laid off unexpectedly, and don’t know what your next step is. All you know is that you need the paycheck to pay bills.
Leaving a job can be sad, too, because of the people you’ve befriended, but may never see again. Some pleasant workplaces are difficult to leave. Perhaps you are retiring, because you’ve reached a certain age. Yet, though money may not be a problem, you may not know what you’ll do with your time.
We have a barrage of emotions about jobs. There are those who want to spend as little time at work as possible, and more time with the rest of their lives. There are also workaholics, who never leave work, even when they are home. Regardless of your situation, you have a lot of yourself invested in your job.
Even a “dream” job may not be your dream. There may be other things you want to be doing, even if you love your work. If you win the lottery, but say you won’t quit your job, chances are, you will after a while. Let’s hope you have the good sense to manage your good fortune so it can last into perpetuity for your family.
Winning the lottery is not the only way to create a fortune outside of work. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. No matter whether you do a happy dance, or leave with great sadness, your job will probably not last forever. Everyone needs a Plan B for when the day comes that work and paychecks end.
We’ve all been told that having a job that you can work at for all of your adult life is the key to success. Those days are not so gradually coming to an end. Jobs come and go, sometimes without you knowing. Just when you think you are valuable enough to your employer that he’ll never want you to go, suddenly, you’re gone. All that hard work you put in suddenly means nothing.
But most people work hard for their own purposes, and their employers benefit. You don’t have to dance out the door from your job, but hopefully you can leave your job with a smile on your face.
Peter
ENJOYMENT AND WORK
“If you love what you do, you’ll never work another day in your life.”
This oft-quoted phrase hits home with a few.Those who have jobs they enjoy are truly blessed.
For most, though, a different, yet oft-quoted phrase is more applicable. “If it weren’t work, they wouldn’t pay you to do it.”
Rory Vaden, the New York Times best-selling author of “Take the Stairs,” talks about the “enjoyment requirement” many young folks have about work. They need a job they enjoy. They need work they are passionate about and wait — unemployed, living with mom and dad etc. — until it comes.
Often, they don’t know what it is they are passionate about. It’s, like, you know, they will know what it is when they find it.
As Vaden, who discussed this in a May 2013 column in The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville, says: “There is no perfect job. There is no perfect marriage, there is no perfect life that you find; there are only perfect ones that you create by working your butt off to make them that way.”
His point is that those who “find their passion” are willing to put in the time to be successful. Tiger Woods and other golf professionals are passionate about their sport, so they put in the time on the practice range so they can play successfully in tournaments. Passions, like anything good, need to be nurtured with hard, unglamorous work.
Some jobs are nothing but work. You have to find things about them that make it palatable, if not enjoyable, for you to keep doing them. Perhaps what you’ll find is that the job is good because it serves a temporary purpose — it gives you a paycheck while you await your passion.
Other jobs might require you to improve your skills to the point in which you are so good at them, you become passionate.
Others still may have fulfilling purpose for you, but barely make you a living. So, you have to do something a little less fulfilling to improve your financial situtionn.
“Don’t quit your day job” is yet another oft-quoted phrase. If you have a “day job” or a “night job” and are looking for your passion, you may find it by visiting www.bign.com/pbilodeau. If you like what you see, know that a potential fortune is there — if you work at it. But, you can work at it while you are working at something else.
Perhaps you’ll adopt the oft-paraphrased mantra: work full time at your job and part time on your fortune.
Don’t wait for the ideal, Work for it, to paraphrase Vaden. You don’t have to love what you do. You have to create a situation you love. Or, in another oft-quoted phrase, “life is what you make it.’
Peter
TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION: PART 1
“If I had only an hour to live, I would spend it in this class because it feels like an eternity.”
That was one student’s comment to Jason B. Huett, a technology guru and University of West Georgia professor, when evaluating one of his courses.
Maureen Downey, education columnist for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, quoted Huett for the Dec. 10, 2012, edition. Huett was making the point that education is slow to change the way students are taught, despite the technological advances.
But a larger point might be: must students be bored in school?
As Downey paraphrases Huett, a frontier teacher from a century ago would be agape at the changes in the world, but the classroom would still largely look the same.
That teacher probably was taught that school needs to feel like work to a student. School should be the student’s job. When the student finishes school, he would go to a job that would be tedious and hard, so they had to learn to endure that in school.
If you read a typical textbook of yore, it’s hardly something you’d take to the beach to read – unless, of course you were cramming for an exam in the sun.
TEDIUM AND DUPLICATION
But what if teachers concentrated on ways to make learning more fun, or at least enjoyable? Sure, learning IS work, but a century ago, it seemed we taught students how to be good employees – how to duplicate repetitive tasks that they would do in the workplace when they graduated. We taught routine. We taught doing what you are told, and only asking questions if there was something you didn’t know.
In yesteryears, we gave students information in the only way we knew how. Today, however, students can get their own information through technology, faster than a teacher can convey it. The jobs of the future are going to require more innovation, because machines will handle the repetitive and tedious tasks.
Incidently, there are ways to make good incomes through repetition and duplication. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau.
But, if we want kids to be more innovative, the education system has to be more innovative. If we want kids to be more collaborative – employers are looking for good, team players – we have to teach them that collaboration trumps competition with those on the same team. Sure, we have to evaluate students in terms of what they’ve learned, but what if the grading system were less about beating the person next to you, and more about the student’s and the person next to him’s mutual achievement?
Technology is changing our workplaces, but it is changing our education system at a much slower pace, Downey paraphrases Huett. Huett refers to the education system as a factory model that puts students on a conveyor belt at medium speed.
The workplaces of yesteryear had few innovators. To compete globally as a nation, innovation has to be encouraged at the earliest stage of life possible. Technology can make education more productive, and, perhaps, more interesting to students.
How refreshing it would be for educators to have more students in their classroom who WANT to be there? The jobs of the future will be less repetitive, less duplicative and more innovative – no matter the level a person works in an organization. Workers will relish the mutual success with those around them. It will be work, but it will seem less like WORK. Why can’t school be work, but seem less like SCHOOL?
Peter