First Blog

  Tips for Retirement You’re going to retire, plan to retire, or you are retired.   What to do? First, I’m retired and seem to be doing ok, so far. I’d like to offer a few tips – generally from my working plan.   1.        Know yourself, and especially the little tricks you play on yourself. 2.        Save money. Build your nest egg while you’re still working. This takes years of discipline, self-denial, and self-limitations. Examples: Limit new car purchases and fancy vacations. 3.        To have any level of comfort, you’ll probably need at least a million stashed in some funds that earn interest. Assume about 3% annual inflation long into the future. Plan to live on the interest and hopefully dividends. Try not to draw down the principal. Finally, living only on Social Security cannot be fun. 4.        Plan activities. You’ll need them foremost. You are less likely to take up some activity you don’t do already, no matter how much you like the idea. Develop several plans

  On the job, I wasted much time. In retirement, time is wasting me. 😉

If you are over 50, you are probably among the last people on earth where you will complete your life in a traditional way.  Namely,... You were born, grew up, matured, reproduced, grow old and then pass away, without the assistance or hinderance of massive data about you, nor excessive intrusion into your life.  If you’re younger, you’ve been fully tracked.  By the time you retire, there will be so much information about you online and for sale, that just about anyone with a couple of bucks can purchase your life story in data.  AI (Artificial Intelligence) will project accurately your future medical problems as you age. Your financial condition will be known even sooner. Your credit history will cover decades. All your jobs and performance ratings will be available. Your complete family and their records will be correlated as well into the giant record, which will be you.   In future, you may see the courts order an AI monitor to assist with your finances, diet, and exercise i

Imagine finally having time to do what you want, but then find there is nothing you want to do.

Dear Kids,  Experts recommend you save 10% of your income each year for retirement. Do you? This is just the beginning.  Make sure you put the money into a 401K plan, the only way you can build a substantial nest egg.  For me, I would need $500,000 in savings just to pay my property tax with the 1% interest, if I invested in a bank savings account.   Put your money where you can't get at it .  Not banks. "Banks shaft you in two ways, high interest when you borrow and minuscule interest when you save." Only 39% of Americans can meet a $1000 emergency.  Can you?  If you cannot, you are in dire straits.  About 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.   Is you, then ditto.  Have a two month minimum, hopefully eight month financial cushion. Actually, much more if you're in your forties. About 38% of Millennials believe $200,000 is enough for retirement.  Do you?  Of course, this is ridiculous.  You need at least $1,000,000 just to begin thinking about ret