Tag Archives: retirement

Breakfast With Marvin

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Mother Dear just moved into a very nice apartment building for seasoned citizens in Tampa, FL. My Betrothed and I are ensconced in a guest apartment on the third of five floors.

Mother Dear isn’t answering her door and the Gal Pal is on a walk. So I’m recovering from my “hot as Hades” morning run by watching the Olympics in the internet cafe. Next, I head to breakfast with the Tampa Tribune sports page. Dallas Clark, the Bucs new tight end, is healthier than expected.

I eventually glance up, and when I do, there’s a grey haired man staring blankly at me. I set the paper on the floor and chat up Marvin, a former technical writer from New York City. He’s happy to answer my questions, but doesn’t ask any. Come on Marv, work with me.

On one level, Marvin is living large. There’s about four or five women for every man in this joint and he’s more mobile than most. But on the other side of the ledger, his memory is failing him. That, in combination with being surrounded by elderly people, makes me think about getting older.

I ask Marvin how old he is and the wheel in his head spins wildly just like when I asked about his apartment number and what his daughter teaches. He was embarrassed he couldn’t remember either one. He also couldn’t recall his age, but he knew he was born in 1933. I told him he was 79 and that brought a smile of recognition. In hindsight, given all the eligible women he’s constantly surrounded by, I should have written his apartment number down for him.

The end of life isn’t really funny. The body breaks down. And the mind. The past, a source of strength for most people, inevitably blurs. Friends die. Loneliness looms. And there’s no promise of watching future Olympics or seeing grandchildren marry.

But with the support of family and friends, it doesn’t have to be overwhelmingly sad either. My sister has pressed pause on her own life and taken my mom under her wing for the last month. Spending day after day wading through her too many possessions, the move would have been impossible without her. My sister’s daughter, my niece, decided to attend the University of Tampa in part to provide Mother Dear moral and practical support. She’s partnering with my sister to smooth the move.

Sitting here, post-waffle, back in the internet cafe once again watching NBC commercials interspersed with athletic competition, I can’t help but think about my own future. How long will I live? How about my Betrothed? Will I lose my ability to walk unassisted? To drive? To live independently? Will I lose my memory? The answer to the last four questions is most likely yes. The passing of time is the great equalizer.

I don’t want to be a burden, but when the time comes that I can’t remember my age, will my daughters press pause on their lives long enough to help me pass into the final chapter of my life as peacefully as possible? More importantly, will I live this next week, month, and year to the fullest given the limits of time? Will I take risks, teach well, love deeply, live purposely?

A sunny, early August Tampa morning filled with many more questions than answers.

The Worst Retirement Advice

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Divide oldsters in the U.S. into three parts—1) those who haven’t saved nearly enough money to stop working; 2) those with modest savings who with social security can retire if they live super simply; and 3) those with sufficient savings to stop working and move anywhere they’d like.

Some of the “sufficient savers”, once they stop working, follow “experts'” advice and head south where it’s warm and sunny. I grew up in SoCal and as these pictures from a recent visit to CentralCal attest, I dig nice weather as much as the next guy.

Here’s the problem with that advice—financial “experts” don’t factor social capital into their retirement equations. Given what we’re learning about happiness or “subjective well-being”, it makes no sense to sever longstanding friendships in the interest of better weather.

The counter argument—we’ll make new friends, especially with spare time—doesn’t factor two important things into consideration. Close friendship stems from personal history, a treasure trove of shared experiences over decades, memories and stories that are retold (and embellished) and thereby relived. It’s tough to build up meaningful deposits in those memory banks late in life. Another cost of moving to a Sun Belt retirement community is the loss of mix-aged life and friendships and the vitality that provides.

Some well-to-do “Snow Birds” split the difference and divide their time between two homes. The GalPal and I may someday try out snow birding lite, renting a Golden State condo for a few months in the dead of winter.

However, I can’t see myself relocating altogether. Today I ran around Capital Lake with a close friend who I’ve been running with for 13 years. We’ve logged over ten thousand miles fixing our wives’ and the worlds’ problems. Ran past Sue who cleans my teeth. I thought I might see her at Christmas eve service, but she must have attended a different one. A few minutes later we passed Denny, who always has a smile and Seattle Marathon entry for me. We can’t go to the Farmers Market without seeing someone we know. After moving around most of my life, it’s nice being rooted. To take the social capital we enjoy for granted would be a mistake.

Save or Spend?

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There are three types of people in the material world: savers; spenders; and somewhere, someone, who perfectly balances the two. Too bad young lovers rarely get around to asking, “Saver or spender?” because mismatched partners no doubt deal with more than normal stress and conflict.

A consummate saver, I’m a distinct minority. News outlets have been churning out report after report about Baby Boomers not having saved nearly enough for their impending retirements. Look for older and older employees in the workforce.

Recently, a Wall Street Journal writer (article link—Want to Retire Wealthier?) asked, “Why is it so difficult for people to set aside money for the long-term future?”

Then answered, “Low earnings and high temptations are obvious reasons. But perhaps the most basic cause is a fundamental human frailty: We view our future selves as strangers.”

The intriguing article continued:

Estimating with any precision what you will want 30 or 40 years from now is almost impossible. You don’t know your future desires, because you don’t know your future self. What will you want or need when you are 65 or 70 or 80 or older? Who knows?

Viewed this way, it isn’t surprising that the young typically don’t want to save for their retirement, since that stage of life feels as if it will be lived by someone else. And when you save money today on behalf of your remote future self, you deprive your immediate present self of cash you could use right now.

Of course, if you spend tomorrow’s savings today, you won’t have cash when you need it in the future—but that day of reckoning is decades off. That is true for those of all ages, but the lost opportunity is greatest for young people, because money set aside at an early age has more years to grow.

Yet it is highly unusual for people to think more vividly about their future selves than about their present selves, say psychologists.

The project underway at Stanford seeks to close this gap between the present self and the future self, without turning young people into misers. By enabling the young to see themselves as they will be when they are old, virtual-reality technology can transform their urge to spend for today into a willingness to save for tomorrow.

Interesting finding. Pictures of people’s future elder selves inspire them to save more.

Reminds me of the “marshmellow study” described here.

In that study, researchers learned that young children who couldn’t wait to eat one marshmellow (“low delayers”) and thereby sacrificed receiving a second one, seemed more likely to have behavioral problems, both in school and at home. They got lower S.A.T. scores. They struggled in stressful situations, often had trouble paying attention, and found it difficult to maintain friendships. The child who could wait fifteen minutes for a second marshmellow had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.

You and I know S.A.T scores are inconsequential in the bigger picture, but it’s hard to underestimate the importance of delaying gratification.

I wonder, what’s the secret to striking the best possible saving-spending balance? Put differently, how should one balance living in the present on one hand and in the probable future on the other? And if virtual-reality technology holds promise for helping spenders save more, what might help hyper-savers strike a better balance?