Retirement Impossible?

My local newspaper (The Poughkeepsie Journal) ran a feature article today titled "Retirement Impossible?" I'd like to quote this article in it's entirety. It's worth reading. The article is available online at poughkeepsiejournal.com.

"When Donna Warner wanted to retire, she took a hard look at her finances. When the Rhinebeck resident was in her mid-60s, she built spreadsheets that demonstrated what would happen if she retired from her job with the Massachusetts state health department, first at age 65. Then at age 66. Then 67. And so on.
"These," she said, "were huge decisions."
Warner decided to retire at 66.
"But," she said, "I had no intentions of stopping working."
Even though she would have preferred full retirement, Warner, now 71, worked another four-plus years as a consultant in order to increase her Social Security benefit.
She is not alone among those taking careful looks about whether they have enough for retirement, especially at a time when pensions are disappearing and people are living longer.
A 2014 Gallup poll found the average self-reported retirement age in the U.S. had risen to 62, the highest since Gallup began the annual poll in 1991. In 2015, the average dropped to 60, but that was still well above the 1991 average of 57.
Gallup's survey of non-retirees' plans for retirement show similar trends. In 1995, non-retirees said they planned to retire, on average, at age 60. Twenty years later, the average was 65 after hitting a peak of 66 in 2014.

Philip Mastromarino, a 76-year-old Town of Poughkeepsie resident who owned a local gravesite monument business, retired last year because his business had slowed due to the increasing popularity of cremations..
"I am thinking about moving and getting some place where the taxes aren't like they are here right now," he said.
The cost of living, he said, is "driving people right out of Poughkeepsie and to North Carolina because they can’t make a go of it anymore."
In January, the personal finance website WalletHub ranked New York as the eighth-worst state in which to retire. Rhode Island was ranked worst and Florida best, based on an evaluation of each state's affordability, quality of life and health care.
In 2015, the Empire Center, a nonprofit think-tank in Albany, cited U.S. Census data that show New York's 50 upstate counties lost more than 14,000 people to other states, a population decline of two-tenths of one percent, between 2010 and 2014.
It's no wonder 61 percent of Dutchess County baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — and 64 percent of Gen Xers (1965 to mid-1980s) said they are anxious about living a comfortable retirement, according to a 2015 AARP survey of registered voters age 35-69.
More alarmingly, 22 percent of Gen Xers and 29 percent of boomers said they have no retirement savings account. And 25 percent of both demographic groups said they do not plan to retire at all.

"The problem starts with the lack of access to savings at work," said Bill Ferris, AARP’s New York State lobbyist.

Pensions and employer-supported retirement plans such as a 401(k) plan typically offer matching contributions. Plus, they offer the benefit of what experts say is the best tool to build retirement savings — automatic deductions from paychecks.
Once elected, automatic deductions encourage savings by taking the decision-making out of the hands of an individual.
But not every worker has access to a pension or a 401(k). AARP has been lobbying the state Legislature to create a state-sponsored savings account similar to the 529 college savings plans.
"If the state government thought that people needed to save for their children’s and grandchildren’s college education," Ferris said, "then we are asking the state government now to step in and help people save for their retirement, so they can live independently, they can live in their communities and won’t turn to government (aid programs) for help."
The most important time to save for retirement, financial experts say, is as early as possible, hopefully decades before it's time to retire.
The power of compounding — the ability of an asset to generate earnings which are then reinvested to generate their own earnings — is at its greatest over time.
Individuals over 50 can take advantage of IRS rules that allow for catch-up contributions to 401(k) plans or Individual Retirement Accounts. The rules allow those individuals to contribute up to $6,000 above limits imposed on tax-deferred income that can be set aside.
The goal, says one local money manager, should be to build a nest egg that equals eight times your projected, final salary at the time you wish to retire.
"The other thing to keep in mind as we live longer," said John Morgan of Poughkeepsie-based Marshall & Sterling Wealth Advisors, Inc., "is you need to account for health care."

 

 John S. Morgan, vice president and senior portfolio manager at Marshall & Sterling Wealth Advisors, Inc. (Photo: Alex H. Wagner/Poughkeepsie Journal)

Morgan said a typical couple that retires at 65 should expect to spend at least $250,000 on health care during their retirement. Medicare, he said, comes with out-of-pocket expenses that many people don't anticipate.
"Medicare is not free, universal health care," he said.
Experts also warn of tapping into Social Security savings too soon.
Individuals born between 1943 and 1954 can start receiving 100 percent of the Social Security benefits at age 66. (People born after that will have to wait a bit longer.)
However, the benefit increases the longer a person waits. Wait just one year, and you get 108 percent of your benefit. Hang in there until 70 — the point at which monthly benefits stop increasing — and you get 132 percent.
Morgan said Social Security should account for no more than 25 to 33 percent of your income replacement.
John Ferro: 845-437-4816; jferro@poughkeepsiejournal.com; Twitter: @PoJoEnviro
Tips

• Start saving for retirement as early as possible and use automatic deductions whenever possible.
• Get a plan. Meet with a financial planner or take advantage of retirement calculators to determine whether you are saving enough. AARP offers a free online calculator at https://secure.aarp.org/work/retirement-planning/retirement_calculator.html.
• If your company offers a 401(k) program and matches your deductions up to a certain percentage, make sure you elect to set aside at least the maximum percentage.
• Set a target for your nest egg. Based on an average life expectancy, retirees typically can expect stop working after they have saved up at least eight times their final salary in retirement funds, not including Social Security.
• Ensure your investment strategy is in line with your age. Riskier, aggressive-growth stocks and funds can be used in early years. But your portfolio should begin to shift to safer investments as you near retirement age. Consult a money manager.
• Delay tapping into Social Security as long as possible. For some baby boomers, benefits begin increasing even if you wait one month after turning 66.

How Are George W. Bush and Winston Churchill Alike?

In retirement from public office, former President George W. Bush has taken up painting. On a visit to Jay Leno on TV in November of 2013, Bush presented Leno with a portrait he had painted and commented that he was inspired to take up art after reading an essay written by Winston Churchill. The essay that Bush was referring to is titled “Painting as a Pastime.” I understand that Bush was not the first President to be inspired by Churchill to take up painting. Eisenhower was another.

 

If you’re retired and have not read this little book, I recommend that you either check it out from your local library or order "PaintingAs a Pastime" on amazon.

Here is an excerpt:

"Just to paint is great fun. The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. Try it if you have not done so before you die. 

"As one slowly begins to escape from the difficulties of choosing the right colours and laying them on in the right places and in the right way, wider considerations come into view. One begins to see, for instance, that painting is like fighting a battle. 

"It is the same kind of problem, as unfolding a long, sustained, interlocked argument. It is a proposition which, whether of few or numberless parts, is commanded by a single unity of conception. And we think though we cannot tell that painting a great picture must require an intellect on the grand scale. 

"There must be that all-­embracing view which presents the beginning and the end, the whole and each part, a one instantaneous impression retentively and untiringly held in the mind. When we look at the larger Turners - canvases yards wide and tall – and observe that they are all done in one piece and represent one single second of time, and that every innumerable detail, however small, however distant, however subordinate, is set forth naturally and in its true proportion and relation, without effort, without failure, we must feel in the presence of an intellectual manifestation the equal in quality and intensity of the finest achievements of warlike action, of forensic argument, or of scientific or philosophical adjudication. 

"In all battles two things are usually required of the Commander-­in-­Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve. Both of these are also obligatory upon the painter. To make a plan, thorough reconnaissance of the country where the battle is to be fought is needed. Its fields, its mountains, its rivers, its bridges, its trees, its flowers, its atmosphere – all require and repay attentive observation from a special point of view. 

"One is quite astonished to find how many things there are in the landscape, and in every object it in, one never noticed before.And this is a tremendous new pleasure and interest which invests every walk or drive with an added object. So many colours on the hillside, each different in shadow and in sunlight; such brilliant reflections in the pool, each a key lower than what they repeat; such lovely lights gilding or silvering surface or outline, all tinted exquisitely with pale colour, rose, orange, green or violet. 

"I found myself instinctively as I walked noting the tint and character of a leaf, the dreamy purple shades of mountains, the exquisite lacery of winter branches, the dim pale silhouettes of far horizons. And I had lived for over 40 years without ever noticing any of them except in a general way, as one might look at a crowd and say, “What a lot of people!”  

"I think this heightened sense of observation of Nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint."

I hope you will read Churchill's essay and maybe you'll be inspired to take up painting also.

The 1950s - a Turning Point in American History!

The 1950s were a huge turning point in American history. It was during this decade that television (including color TV) and the microwave oven became popular, roll and roll music hit the charts, credit cards were the new way to buy on time, diet soda and TV dinners were introduced, Velcro was invented, electric musical instruments were perfected, computers were being introduced, jet airplanes replaced propeller-driven aircraft, space exploration began, the birth control pill was approved, the civil rights movement advanced, and the interstate highway system was launched. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were born in the 1950s.

These are just a few of the extraordinary things that happened during the 1950s -- things which significantly changed forever the way we live. Although much attention has been given to the 1960s for the achievements during that decade, it was really during the 50s when things really got started. The 60s were mostly a continuation of the things that had originated in the previous decade. The 1950s were when it really got started! Let's not forget it!

Nostalgic for the 1950s 

Muscles, Sex, Money, and Fame is a pictorial history of one of the most eccentric personalities in American history - Bernarr Macfadden who was called the "father of physical culture." He was internationally famous during his lifetime but almost forgotten today. Nicknamed "Body Love" Macfadden by Time magazine, he was a flamboyant personality, visionary, millionaire publisher, and life-long advocate of physical fitness, natural food, outdoor exercise, healthy sex, and the natural treatment of disease. He inspired millions of followers and was branded a "kook" and a charlatan, was arrested on obscenity charges, denounced by the medical establishment, and campaigned tirelessly against "pill-pushers," processed foods, and prudery. He was the publisher of America's longest running health magazine as well as innumerable pulp magazines such as True Story and True Detective. This book contains several hundred vintage photographs as well as reproductions from Macfaddens' magazines. His 4 obsessions were: muscles, sex, money, and fame.

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE 

Nostalgia

This is the previously untold, true story of how racism nearly destroyed a small Southern community.

Based on actual events that happened between 1958 and 1960 in Front Royal, Virginia,  this autobiographical, coming-of-age story follows the lives of two teenage boys, Davey MacLaren, who is white, and Jackie King, who is black. The two are caught up in the calamitous events when their small, Southern community becomes the first place in the nation where the public high school is closed to avoid being integrated. Although their experiences are very different, their dreams and aspirations are similar. They confront racial prejudice, fear, anger, and uncertainty. It is a time of upheaval, struggle, and confusion for the teenagers.
The school closing in 1958 is a critical event which splits the community into two opposing camps – the moderates who recognize that change is inevitable and the hard-line, “old South” segregationists who are determined at all costs to maintain the status quo. This event and the serious repercussions that follow, threaten to derail permanently the young people’s education and the direction of their lives. Both Davey and Jackie find themselves on perilous paths where they have little control over what will happen to them.
The book reveals the depth and complexities of the human side of this civil rights story – presenting a wide-angle montage of the experiences of both white and black families and gives clarity and dimension to the historical events. The multiple plot lines of this story combine memorable characters, psychological tension, humor, 1950s nostalgia, and even a murder mystery. 

Available in print and ebook editions from amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers.

CLICK HERE to visit the website

This blog which is devoted to exploring the wonder of retirement, is just beginning.