June 7, 2018

Be Optimistic. You Might Live Longer!

People who have a college education are known to live longer. But could a sunny disposition also help?

Yes, say two researchers, who found that the most optimistic people – levels 4 and 5 on a 5-point optimism scale – live longer than the pessimists.

But this effect works both ways. The biggest declines in optimism have occurred among older generations of Americans who didn’t complete high school at a time when this was far more common. It’s no coincidence, their study concluded, that the white Americans in this less-educated group in particular are also “driving premature mortality trends today.”

The finding adds new perspective to a 2015 study that rocked the economics profession. Two Princeton professors found that, despite improving life expectancy for the nation as a whole, death rates increased for a roughly similar group: white, middle-aged Americans – ages 45-54 – with no more than a high school degree. They suggest that addiction and suicide play some role, both of which have something to do with the deterioration in the manufacturing industry that once provided a good living, especially for white men.

To make the link between mortality and optimism, Kelsey O’Connor at STATEC Research in Luxembourg and Carol Graham at the Brookings Institution examined whether heads of households surveyed back in 1968 through 1975 were still alive four to five decades later. They controlled for demographic characteristics and socioeconomic factors, such as education, which also affect longevity. …Learn More

April 26, 2018

Can Caregivers Help Seniors with Money?

When once-simple financial tasks become difficult or confusing, it can be the canary in the coal mine signaling that an elderly person is developing dementia.

Financial problems will soon follow once people with cognitive impairment start miscalculating and missing payments, forgetting and misplacing accounts, or falling victim to fraud.

But some good news has come out of a new study of Medicare recipients: the vast majority of the 5.5 million people over 65 with established dementia – usually, though not, always Alzheimer’s disease – are receiving help from family and other caregivers with balancing their checkbooks, depositing and withdrawing money, and conducting transactions.

Even better, they are actually benefitting from it. The seniors who receive assistance are more likely to be able to pay for their essential expenses like rent, food, prescriptions and utilities, according to researchers at the Center for Retirement Research, which also sponsors this blog.

There was bad news in the report too: a nontrivial share of the older Americans with established dementia – that is, dementia for at least three years – aren’t getting any help. This problem is expected to grow in future generations. One major reason is longer and longer life spans, which exponentially increase the risk of dementia. Nearly one in three people over 85 are in some stage of dementia. Compounding this is the fact that today’s older workers have fewer children and have divorced more, which shrank the pool of who would be willing to pitch in and help them.

Having a caregiver helping with money management wouldn’t necessarily make an elderly person better off financially. Suppose a daughter is unfamiliar with her mother’s finances or a husband isn’t good at managing his own money. In extreme cases, caregivers sometimes steal from the trusting seniors in their care. Even so, it turns out that it’s better to receive help than not. …Learn More

April 5, 2018

An Ever-Expanding Sandwich Generation

Two new “sandwich generations” are getting into the thick of things: Generation X and Millennials.

Baby boomers first latched onto this label as they juggled caring for their parents and children simultaneously.  With lifespans continuing to increase, the squeeze from parental caregiving is tightening among Gen-X and Millennials.

As baby boomers and their parents get older, all three generations are feeling the financial strain of this familial obligation, which people take on either because “it is what family has always done” or “there was no other option,” according to caregivers’ responses to Northwestern Mutual’s new annual survey of adults between the ages of 18 and 64.

A separate 2017 report, by the Center for Retirement Research, estimated that one in five people will, at some point in their lives, care for their elderly or ailing parents. They spend an average 77 hours per month assisting elderly parents with everything from simple activities like getting out of bed and taking medications to frequently driving them to doctors’ offices.

The largest group in Northwestern’s survey are adult children caring for parents. The other caregivers identified in the survey care for adults under 65 or children who are either ill or have special needs or disabilities – there were no questions in the survey about routine childrearing.

The major findings indicate that parental care has significant financial and lifestyle implications, which disproportionately affect women: …Learn More

March 27, 2018

Boomers Do Retirement their Way

In the two years since starting a series of blogs, “Boomers: Rewriting Retirement,” I’ve profiled five willing baby boomers in various phases of retirement as they grapple with a variety of issues.

The individual profiles are again posted here, in the event one of them might be helpful to a reader who missed it the first time.

And we’re always looking for more guinea pigs, if anyone has an interesting story to tell!

Click on the links at the end of each headline:

• “A Familiar Dilemma: to Work or Retire.”

• “Finally retired. Now What?”

• “Caring for her elderly parents 24/7.”

• A Californian’s Retirement is Part-time.”

• “The Ultimate in Travel: Retiring Abroad.”

Learn More

March 20, 2018

New Use for College Loans: Spring Break!

Yup, more than half of college students are using some of their student loan money to pay for spring break.

It’s the peak season, and 21^st century ingenuity is being applied to the age-old problem of paying for college trips to popular, sunny climates like Miami and Cabos San Lucas in Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.  LendEdu decided to do a survey to answer a question that Mike Brown put so succinctly in his blog:

How can “so many students living on a shoestring budget afford to go on a not-so-cheap weeklong getaway”?

The mechanism allowing this can be found in college financial aid offices, which funnel loan money directly to students after, wisely, deducting tuition and fees.

Fifty-one percent of the students who were surveyed are financing their beer, hotels, and air fares with another popular source: parents. Spring break is typically paid for with whatever they can scrape together from parents, loans, and part-time jobs – frequently in that order.

LendEdu, a New Jersey credit card and student loan refinancing firm, hired Pollfish for its March survey of 1,000 college juniors nationwide who have student loans and are planning spring break 2018.

Brown is 24 and earned his University of Delaware degree in 2016. His parents paid for his Cancún trip during junior year, and he did not have to use his loans, which he’s still paying off.

“If my parents found out I was using that loan check to pay for spring break, they would’ve had a couple words with me,” he said.Learn More

March 15, 2018

Boomers are Longing to Retire Overseas

Australia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, Ecuador, Belize, Nicaragua – our readers living all over the world, or planning to, shared their experiences in comments posted to a February blog, “The Ultimate Travel: Retiring Abroad.”

The article profiled a Houston couple on the verge of retiring who are systematically exploring cities that interest them in Panama and Costa Rica. Few blogs have elicited so many comments – no doubt because thoughts of retiring overseas are more fun than worrying about whether the 401(k) account has enough money in it.

The success of retiree Dennis Desmond and his wife’s relocation to Australia makes it hard to resist temptation. “The weather here is incredible, the people are fantastically friendly, and the scenery is wonderful,” Desmond said in his comment.

But the picture isn’t all roses. William Pederson wrote in his comment that he knows five couples who’ve moved overseas and returned stateside. “You get what you pay for,” he said.

Here’s more of the fun stuff, and a few downsides, from our readers: …Learn More

March 13, 2018

Dreams of Retirement? Watch for Pitfalls

Early last year, a client who was a month away from retiring walked into Matthew Jackson’s office and asked him to manage his money. Then the client started pulling financial statements out of a folder and slid them across the desk.

“I’m excited for you,” Jackson recalled was his first reaction. “But let’s talk more about what you want to do with your money, rather than want you want to do for your money.”

The client “looked at me and then past me. In 4 or 5 seconds he said, ‘Matt I have no idea.’”

To prod others into weighing this critical question for themselves, Jackson wrote a book, “The Retirement Dreammaker: Master the Art of Retirement Abundance.”

And the dream maker is not Jackson – it’s you.

People facing impending retirement are about to hop on a wild ride that will take them from the emotional high of having the freedom to do whatever they like to an unfamiliar low: no job to give them purpose.  Because of that, Jackson is on a mission to warn baby boomers they need to really prepare emotionally for retirement, just as they should prepare financially. (A financial planner turned financial coach, Jackson’s new book also includes a financial chapter.)

“The ultimate freedom is the freedom to follow your purpose,” he said in an interview.

Jackson’s goal in trying to help people who don’t prepare emotionally is not simple but boils down to this: he does not “pump people up – rah-rah.” He prefers to warn of the six retirement pitfalls: …Learn More