Rock Retirement: A Simple Guide to Help You Take Control and be More Optimistic About the Future

ISBN-13: 9781683505730

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Morgan James Publishing

Publication Date: 03-20-2018

Pages: 256

Product Dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

Roger Whitney is a practicing financial planner with over 25 years experience walking life with clients. He developed an Agile Retirement Management System focused on helping people make the most of the only life they have. He is past instructor of the Retirement Planning & Employee Benefits CFP® certificate program at Universityof Texas Arlington and of Wealth Management at Texas Christian University.

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CHAPTER 1

YOU ARE NOT YOUR PARENTS

"The things that make me different are the things that make me ME."

— PIGLET (A. A. MILNE)

Sigmund stood only five feet eight inches tall and weighed just over 145 pounds. A member of the "Greatest Generation," Ziggy was tough as nails. He grew up poor, worked with his hands from the time he was eleven, and could fix almost anything. He married my grandmother young, and they had their first child — my mother — just before he was drafted into World War II.

He served as a tail gunner in the B-17 Flying Fortress. I recall him telling me that he volunteered for every possible mission so he could get back quickly to his wife and daughter. Was he scared?

"Sure," he said, "but I figured if I was going to go, it didn't matter which flight it was on."

When he returned from the war with a Purple Heart, he worked a variety of jobs to provide for my grandmother and their young family. He made money as a boxer, taxi driver, factory worker, and — finally — as a postal carrier throughout the cold Michigan winters. He did whatever was needed to provide for his family.

My grandmother, Mary, worked hard too. She built a loving household for her three daughters (including one who was mentally disabled), and tailored clothes for her girls and the grandkids. I remember watching her pin paper patterns on cloth to cut, and then sewing all the pieces together. While she deeply loved her sewing machine, my sisters and I were intimidated by it — especially after my sister Joanne ran her finger under the needle.

In the backyard she kept a garden of carrots, zucchini, green beans, and tomatoes. We loved to help pick them with her. She canned preserves and even made her own wine in the basement. She would put her concoction into a big, glass water bottle with a balloon on top, and when the balloon inflated, she'd know the wine was ready. I never got to taste it, but I still remember hearing her sing "Tiny Bubbles" as she cooked her homemade chicken soup in the kitchen. That was when she wasn't working part-time at Minnesota Fabrics for extra money.

There was no money or mentality to outsource the chores of my grandparents' lives. When the house needed cleaning, they cleaned it. If the car broke down, Grandpa fixed it. When the walls needed painting, they painted them. When the grass needed mowing, Grandpa mowed it. And if a project came up that was too big or complicated to handle alone, they called their friends to chip in and figure it out together.

Big fun for my grandparents was playing games. My grandfather taught me to play backgammon and would whip me at it every chance he got. My grandmother taught me to play Michigan Rummy and poker. We'd spend hours playing for pennies. There were no big vacations or eating out; fun was had at home.

Once they retired, they moved to a small home in Florida to escape the cold Michigan winters. Retirement for them was simple. They read more books than I could count, watched television and went to church. A big trip for them was going to the movies. Worn out from saving the world, working with their hands for years, and raising a family on little money, they were ready to sit on the park bench of life and rest in retirement.

If you're a baby boomer, you likely recognize Ziggy and Mary in your parents.

PARK BENCHES AND PLAYGROUNDS

When past generations retired, they found a comfortable bench on the edge of the figurative playground of life and settled in. They were physically tired in the most literal sense. Worn out from fighting wars, engaging in physical labor, and raising families, they were ready to sit. Rarely did they venture out onto the playground of life. When they did, typically it was to play in the safe zones: a trip to Las Vegas or a visit to the grandchildren.

Recently, I was talking with a fifty-five-year-old planning client, Mark, about his plans to retire. We were creating a road map for his retirement at age fifty-six.

"Mark, you're obviously very skilled and have a lot of drive left, what will you do?" I asked.

"Roger, I've given a lot of my life to my company," he replied with confidence. "I'm ready for a life outside of work. I'm ready for a life without the constant drumbeat of projects, deadlines, and meetings. My wife and I are ready to explore life together. We're ready to live our lives."

If you're a baby boomer like Mark, your life is drastically different than your parents' lives. Vast transformations have taken place in just a few decades. The following five changes make absolutely essential the movement from paint-by-numbers retirement to creating a Retirement Masterpiece.

Living Longer in Retirement

I'm guessing if you're reading this book, you already know that you and I, on average, are going to live longer in retirement than our parents did. In 2016, the average age of retirement in the US was sixty-three (Wallace, 2016). Although the average age of retirement hasn't moved much in the past forty years, the amount of time we live in it has. According to the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL), the average number of years men spend in retirement has increased from eight years in 1950 to almost twenty years today. That's a 150 percent increase! It's going to continue to increase, too. If you're sixty today, you have a 50 percent chance of living to age ninety or more. That implies a retirement of thirty-plus years.

When my grandfather retired at the age of sixty-three in 1980, he lived nine years, until the age of seventy-two. The paint-by-numbers retirement approach worked well for him. The math was simple.

We will live a lot longer than that, which means the math gets more complicated. We're going to have a lot of free time on our hands. Spending twenty, thirty, sometimes even forty years in retirement is a reality now, and in the not-too-distant future, it may be even longer. As exciting (or scary) as that is, it creates retirement-planning issues that paint-by-numbers can't address.

Living Healthier

"Wait a second," you say. "Healthier?" Time magazine recently reported, "American baby boomers are more stressed, less healthy, and have slightly less health care coverage than people in the same age group did a decade ago." So how can I say "healthier"?

It's true; studies show that baby boomers, as a whole, aren't so healthy. It's a big problem. When I say "healthier," I mean focused on being healthier. Most of our health issues are self-inflicted, and more often we're recognizing this and doing something about it. We've realized we're going to live longer and have decided we want to be healthy enough to make the most of it. And unlike our parents' generation, there's plenty of help.

Here's a good example: Not long ago, a fifty-five-year-old couple I work with went on a cruise up the Rhine. Each day, the boat stopped along the river so they could spend the day exploring the ancient cities by foot. It took a lot of walking, and the husband's knees ached the entire trip. Afterward, sitting in my office, we discussed their vision for their retirement.

As he told me the story of their trip, he said, "Heck if I'm not healthy enough to enjoy retirement with my wife! We've worked years for this moment, and I'm not going to miss it."

In that meeting they set action items to meet with an orthopedic surgeon and to start eating healthier. As of this writing, he's had one knee replaced, and he and his wife have each lost ten pounds.

This is our reality. We may not have always had the healthiest habits (I'm looking in the mirror now with a frown), but we're committed to living healthier to make the most of the only life we have. We're taking advantage of all the advancements in health and fitness to invest in our well-being.

In addition, recent studies have shown that although longevity is increasing, morbidity is compressing. Morbidity refers to health-related quality of life before death. In their book The 100-Year Life, professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott discuss this point: "In the twenty years between 1984 and 2004, the number of people aged 85–89 who were classified as disabled fell from 22 percent to 12 percent, and for those aged over 95, from 52 percent to 31 percent. Older people seem to be fitter and also can achieve more as technology and public support improve."

So not only will you live longer, you'll also live healthier as technology and public support improve.

Being More Active

We'll have a more active lifestyle in retirement than our parents. Retirement wasn't a chance to live; it was a chance to rest. Compare that to Jim. Jim is fifty-four, and, as a result of a successful career in IT and careful planning, he'll retire at age fifty-six.

During one meeting I asked him, "Jim, what are you going to do with your time? You'll be fifty-six with a lot of energy and passion left in the tank."

He pulled out a piece of paper. On it he had listed thirty-five things he and his wife wanted to do during retirement. Here are a few:

• Help run the local Junior Achievement chapter

• His wife, Mary, wanted to mentor young professional women

• Be a bigger part of their grandchildren's lives

• Teach a parenting class together at church

• Travel to each continent

• Help out at the local entrepreneur center

No park bench for Jim and Mary. Retirement for them isn't a time to go rest; it's an opportunity to gain freedom and independence from corporate life in order to dedicate time to their passions.

I confirmed this desire for independence and freedom a few years ago on my podcast, The Retirement Answer Man. For five months, I invited listeners onto the show to share their journey toward retirement. Each week, I'd interview a listener, asking him about his journey and what he wanted for the future. When I asked about his concept of retirement, a common theme echoed on each show: the time to pursue passions. Men and women alike wanted freedom from the daily grind of full-time work to pursue their own interests. Each interest was unique. They included:

• Start a business

• Teach

• Travel

• Serve

• Consult

• Compete (racing, riding, sailing, running, swimming, trivia)

• Create (knitting, woodworking, glassblowing, painting, writing, dancing, music)

• Focus on relationships

• Do work for enjoyment, not obligation

Before we move on, it's important I point out that sitting on the park bench is still part of retirement. As one podcast listener put it, "Roger, I earned the right to rest. During my career, I traveled the world many times and missed out on many little things. Retirement for me will be about living a slow-paced life." Creating a Retirement Masterpiece allows for exactly that.

Being More Connected

We don't write letters anymore; we post status updates. We post cute dog videos and selfies from our latest adventures. We use social media to stay connected to friends and family. Baby boomers are the fastest-growing segment of Facebook and the biggest users (Lockard 2015). From our PC — Mac, for me — and smartphone, we're able to glimpse into the lives of those we care about and connect with friends everywhere. We don't place long- distance phone calls; we Skype or FaceTime for free with family and friends across the world.

We're wired!

Our parents and grandparents, on the other hand, lived a local life. They watched local news and read the local papers. They talked about what was happening down the street or in their city. They watched the world from the local mall and on television.

They had local friends. The people they played cards or watched the game with were friends from the neighborhood, church, or the local lodge. It was harder then to stay connected with people who lived elsewhere. Catching up with family or friends meant long-distance phone calls during off-hours to keep the charges down (remember those?). Flying to visit family or friends was a really big deal.

They had local activities. They sewed, tended gardens, worked on cars, did crafts, and cooked. Their hobbies revolved around their local community. Their neighborhood, church, or lodge was the center of activity. Walks to the park, lunches at the local diner, and club meetings at church were trips "out."

Many accuse social media of pulling people out of life and into the computer. However, for baby boomers, social sites like Facebook and Meetup have allowed them to stay connected to faraway friends and connect with others who have similar interests.

Take John, for example. John liked to ride his bicycle two to three times a week on the country roads near his home. For years he rode alone, until he started posting his rides on Strava, an app which tracks your rides and compares you to others who ride the same roads. One day while riding, he came alongside another cyclist and chatted for a bit. Subsequently, they connected via the Strava app and discovered that they rode similar routes each week. Now, a year later, he and Ralph have a cadre of local friends who ride together.

Or take Sally. When she retired, she reconnected with past friends on Facebook. At first they just peeked into each other's life via status updates. Then they started to comment on each other's posts. This led to phone calls, which lead to group video chats, which ultimately led to annual trips.

People with similar interests are connecting more and more online and meeting locally. Whatever your interest, it's getting easier to find others who share the same passion. Whether you're a cyclist, runner, knitter, brewer, or virtually any hobbyist, social media allows you to find and connect with others who enjoy similar pursuits.

Being Experience Focused

As we saw, the Stanford Center on Longevity report showed a 150 percent increase in the number of years spent in retirement. What isn't captured in that statistic is that when we retire, we're more educated, skilled, connected, mobile, and engaged than any generation in history. In short, we still have fuel in our tanks, and we're not content with small, local experiences.

We view the freedom and independence gained during retirement as our ticket to live life on our own terms. It's an opportunity to become more active, to go out and explore and create the experiences we didn't have the freedom to pursue while working.

Unlike our parents, we have the money and the mentality to outsource most chores. There is little time or inclination to mow the yard or clean the house. There are things to do and places to go!

We are experience focused. We rent RVs and explore the country. We serve on boards and consult for companies. We start businesses around our hobbies or passions. We fly across the country and around the world. We go back to school and back to exploring our passions. There's no time to sit on the park bench or sing "Tiny Bubbles" like my grandma. We're too busy getting dirty romping around the playground.

I have a client whom I'll call Susan. She's seventy-four years old. Susan spends her summers living on the shore of Lake Michigan, and her winters, in Texas. She travels with friends to watch PGA tournaments. She doesn't cook much and eating out at nice restaurants is one of her hobbies. Her husband passed away eight years ago, and she's had three or four boyfriends since then.

And then there's Jack; he's sixty-eight. He retired at age sixty. After a brief honeymoon of rest, Jack was ready for action. He realized pretty quickly that although he enjoyed the slower pace of life, he needed to stay active. He connected with a company that placed him on consulting assignments for the very company from which he retired. From time to time, they'd contact him with an offer. If the project interested him and fit his schedule, he'd take it. If it didn't, he would decline. He did interesting projects off and on for twelve years until he stopped to spend time with his young grandkids. For Jack, this was the best of both worlds. He was able to earn income and take assignments that interested him, and still have the free time to pursue his passions.

Susan and Jack are not anomalies. They represent the new reality of retirement. Every time I survey my podcast audience, I find the chief desire of retirees is the freedom to pursue life more on their own terms. They may sit on the park bench from time to time, but they're out on the playground of life mixing it up as well. A paint-by-numbers retirement is no longer relevant to them.

As you'll see, not only is it no longer relevant, using it could cost you your life.

THE PROBLEM WITH TRADITIONAL RETIREMENT PLANNING

"We cannot solve our problems with the same kind of thinking we used to create them."

— ALBERT EINSTEIN

My first car was a 1972 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. It was 1982. I was a sophomore in high school, and I was driving. I was cool, 'cause anyone who drove was cool. You'd think having a Karmann Ghia would make me extra cool, but it didn't. It was rusty, with no heat or air-conditioning, and I lived in Michigan. In the winters, I'd drive while scraping frost off the inside of the windows. On icy roads, the car would drift regardless of how I turned the wheel. Even though it looked cool, it was not that fun to drive; it wasn't reliable, and at times it could be outright dangerous.

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Excerpted from "Rock Retirement"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Roger Whitney.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements,
Disclaimer,
Notes from the Author,
Foreword,
Introduction,
Chapter 1 You Are Not Your Parents,
Chapter 2 The Problem with Traditional Retirement Planning,
Chapter 3 How to Rethink Your Retirement,
Chapter 4 Embracing Uncertainty,
Chapter 5 Dream Big about Your Retirement,
Chapter 6 The Cash Flow Equation,
Chapter 7 Managing Your Net Worth,
Chapter 8 The Negotiation — Getting to Possible,
Chapter 9 Start Your Journey,
Chapter 10 Go Create a Great Life,
Resources,
About the Author,
References,