February 28, 2019

Depression Abates When Women Hit 60

Motherhood, career anxiety, menopause – women, throughout their lives, move from one psychological stressor to the next.

Well, ladies, there’s hope: your stress should start to ease around age 60.

With the #MeToo movement against workplace abuse of young adult women dominating the headlines, there’s a quieter movement of baby boomer women exploring what it means to get old. Book publishers are flocking to writers of self-actualization books like “Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age” and “50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life.”

Perhaps publishers sense a market for these books because women of all ages suffer depression at rates two to four times higher than men. But a study in the journal Maturitas finds that many women shed their depression as they move from their mid-40s into their 60s.

To pinpoint individuals’ psychological changes over time, this study analyzed the group of women who participated in a telephone survey from beginning to end, 1992 to 2012.

The women, who live Melbourne, Australia, were asked a battery of questions to determine whether they were depressed – questions about whether they felt optimistic or discontented, socially engaged or lonely, impatient or cheerful, clear thinking or confused.

They were also asked whether they suffered from bad moods, which can be a precursor to depression. The researchers found that the women’s moods improved significantly as they aged. …Learn More

January 15, 2019

Savings Tips Help Millennials Get Serious

This is young adults’ financial dilemma in a nutshell: you’re well aware you should be saving money, but you admit you’d rather spend it on the fun stuff.

Yes, paying the rent or student loans every month takes discipline. But it isn’t enough. Even more discipline must be summoned to save money, whether in an emergency fund or a retirement plan at work.

Tia Chambers, a financial coach in Indianapolis and certified financial education instructor (CFEI), has put some thought into how Millennials can overcome their high psychological hurdles to saving.

The 32-year-old lays out six doable steps on her website, Financially Fit & Fab, which she recently elaborated on during an interview.

Get in the right mindset. “It is the hardest part,” she said. “When I speak with clients, money is always personal, and it’s also emotional.” The best way to clear the emotional hurdles is to keep a specific, important goal in mind that continually motivates you, for example buying a house. Or create a detailed savings challenge, such as vowing to save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week, etc. This adds up to $1,378 at the end of the year, she said.

Cut expenses. Some cuts are no-brainers. Scrap cable for Hulu and Netflix subscriptions. Drop that gym membership you never use. The biggest challenge for young adults is saying no to friends who want to go out for dinner or drinks. Chambers suggests enlisting your friends to help – after all, they’re probably spending too much too. She and her friends have agreed to go out one weekend and save money the next weekend by hanging out at someone’s apartment. Another idea is happy hour once a week instead of twice. …Learn More

November 20, 2018

Workshops Teach Salary Negotiation

At a recent workshop in downtown Boston, the mostly female audience was asked whether their anxiety level goes up when they ask for a raise or negotiate a salary for a new job.

Hands shot up, and the room erupted in boisterous conversation. “I’m worried about being perceived as being greedy,” volunteered one woman. Another said that her employer told her she earns less than her coworkers because she’s only in her 20s – “even though I’m doing exactly the same things!”

Workshop facilitator Lauren Creamer explained that many women find it difficult to ask for a raise, because they face a double standard that treats them differently than men. “Women are expected to behave a certain way. They’re either nice or competitive and aggressive,” she said. Asking for a raise can be perceived as too aggressive.

Over a lifetime, lower pay for the same jobs their male coworkers are doing put millions of women behind the 8 ball when they’re trying to pay back student loans, buy a house, and save for retirement.

To help them overcome their fear of asking for a raise, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) is introducing salary negotiation workshops around the country. “Pay equity – and financial security – is one of our major goals right now,” said AAUW’s Alexandra Howley, who coordinates the Massachusetts program with the Boston mayor’s office and the state government.

In AAUW’s workshop in Boston last month, Creamer and Robbin Beauchamp gave advice in four areas to the women – and three men – attending.

Know Your Value

• Before negotiating a raise, be clear on the unique benefits you bring to your workplace – effective facilitator, top salesperson, organizer, etc.
• When applying for a new position, tailor your skills and experience to fit the job description in a way that highlights your value to a prospective employer.

Know Your Target Salary …Learn More

September 25, 2018

Americans’ Compulsion for Clutter

Anthropologists took a deep dive into Middle America’s clutter a few years ago, and here’s what they found:

A wall of shelves holding hundreds and hundreds of Beanie Babies and dolls. Giant packs of multiple paper towels, cleaning fluids, Gatorade, and Dixie cups piled high in the garage or laundry room. Frozen prepared foods jam-packed into twin refrigerators in the kitchen and garage – enough to feed a family for weeks.

I write frequently about the financial challenges facing the middle class today and their perception that the American Dream is slowly and inexorably eroding. This feeling is very real.

But surely hyper-consumerism has something to do with our financial stress. U.S. households have more possessions than in any other country, UCLA anthropologists said in this video:

Money spent unnecessarily to stock our own personal Big Box store in the garage leaves much less for long-term goals like savings, retirement, and college tuition – the same expenses middle class families struggle to afford.  “We buy stuff we don’t need with money we don’t have,” summed up one commenter on the video’s YouTube page.

The United States has long been a prosperous and material culture. But anthropologist Anthony Graesch argues that the magnitude of consumption has grown by leaps and bounds. This trend has probably been encouraged by the proliferation of inexpensive imports from countries with lower wages. Over a lifetime, these small expenses add up to boatloads of money.

“The sheer diversity and availability and fairly inexpensive array of objects that are out there – this has significantly changed over the years,” Graesch said. Toys are a prime example. “We’re perhaps spending more on kids’ material culture than ever before.”

Minimalism goes in and out of vogue, but there are few minimalists among us – this takes work, self-control, and a willingness to part ways with sentimentality. For the rest of us, there’s a personal finance lesson in this video. …
Learn More

September 11, 2018

Personality Influences Path to Retirement

Only about a third of the older people who are working full-time will go straight into retirement. Most take zigzag paths.

These paths include gradually reducing their hours, occasional consulting, or finding a new job or an Uber stint that is only part-time. Other people “unretire,” meaning that they retire temporarily from a full-time job only to decide to return to work for a while.

A new study finds that the paths older workers choose are influenced by their personality and by how well they’re able to hold the line against the natural cognitive decline that accompanies aging.

Researchers at RAND in the United States and a think tank in The Netherlands uncovered interesting connections between retirement and cognitive acuity and, separately, and a variety of personality traits. To do this, they followed older Americans’ work and retirement decisions over 14 years through a survey, which also administered a personality and a cognition test.

Here’s what they found:

• Cognitive ability.  The people in the study who had higher levels of what’s known as fluid cognitive function – the ability to recall things, learn fast, and think on one’s feet – are much more likely to follow the paths of either working full-time or part-time past age 70.
  
  The probable reason is simply that more job options are available to people with higher cognitive ability – whether fluidity or sheer intelligence – so they have an easier time remaining in the labor force even though they’re getting older. …

Learn More

September 6, 2018

Personal Finance Videos for Young Adults

PBS Digital Studios is producing an excellent video series to guide 20-somethings who are starting their careers and want to get a handle on their finances.

In “Two Cents,” financial planners Julia Lorenz-Olson and her husband, Philip Olson, will make you laugh as they convey their very solid advice about personal finance. “How to Ask for a Raise” is perhaps the most relevant video to young adults – especially the ladies. Only one in three women believe that their pay is negotiable. Nearly half of all men do.

The potential for pay raises is highest for employees when they are in their late 20s and early 30s. But the boss isn’t likely to volunteer to increase anyone’s pay, the hosts explain – you have to ask. This is a scary thing to do, and the couple eliminates some of the anxiety by explaining how to prepare for that meeting with the boss.

The “Love and Money” episode asks the questions that are crucial to a successful partnership: how much does he or she earn and how much does this person owe? In “How Cars Can Keep You Poor,” the Olsons advise against buying a new car, which depreciates 63 percent in just five years – they compare it to investing in an ice cream cone on a hot day. A used car is a much better deal and the only sensible option for someone who’s already juggling rent and student loan payments. And the answer to “Should I Buy Bitcoin?” is, uh, no. Nearly half of all bitcoin transactions are illegal, Olson says.

For future-minded young adults, “How Do You Actually Buy a House?” walks through the entire process, explaining why it’s critical to get preapproved for a mortgage, how to choose a realtor, and what to expect in the closing. “Insta-Everything lays out the few pros and many cons of paying for on-demand services such as Grub Hub, InstaCart, and Task Rabbit.

Lorenzo-Olsen explains that the goal of their “Two Cents” videos is not to help young adults get more money (though a raise would be nice), “but to be happy with the money you have.”Learn More

June 19, 2018

Work-Life Imbalances Spur Retirement

When young people are dissatisfied with a job or feel it intrudes too much on their personal lives, they find a new one. Not so easy for older workers.

Their decision is complicated partly because they have fewer employment options as they age, but also because they must ask themselves whether or not it’s time to retire.

A study out of the University of Michigan’s Retirement Research Center found that people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s often choose to retire when long hours, inflexible schedules, and work responsibilities don’t allow them to do what’s required to help a family member or a sick spouse or to enjoy more leisure time.

Many things are constantly pushing and pulling older workers toward retirement, from lower pay, job stress, or unrealistic job demands to accumulating their required pension credits or having enough money in the bank. But the focus here is on lifestyle.

Marco Angrisani and Erik Meijer at the University of Southern California and Maria Casanova at California State University used a survey of some 6,000 older workers that asks about work-life conflicts and then followed them for nearly a decade to see if such conflicts led to decisions to reduce their hours of work or retire altogether.

The main takeaway was that both older men and older women who’ve had a work-life conflict in the past two years are far more likely to retire. This may not be surprising for women, who are typically the default caregivers for an ailing spouse, parent, or even a grandchild. …Learn More