Entries for August 2008

Cartoonist Lynn Johnston thought she would be retired by now. Her 29-year-old award-winning syndicated comic strip, For Better or for Worse, now appears in more than 2,000 papers around the world and has produced 46 books.

But the dissolution of a 32-year marriage recently caused Johnston, 60, to change her mind about retiring completely. "At this time in my life I thought I would be on a cruise ship to Panama or the Mediterranean, retired with my Tilley hats, my sneakers. But I'm a single lady now, and I want to keep working," she says. "Because I don't have to work 365 days of new material into a year, I can still take some time off to paint and travel." Johnston explains her reversal of earlier plans to retire on YouTube.com.

Baby boomers didn't grow up with the Internet, but this youth-seeking generation has adopted it as a second home. Although only 35 percent of seniors 65 and older use the Internet, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 70 percent of those ages 50 to 64 do. And this aging audience isn't satisfied with simply twittering and instant messaging.

A recent Forbes article says the 50-plus set is flocking to AARP.org and its news site launched in April, AARP Bulletin Today.

Next month, U.S. News will publish our annual list of great places to retire. Please E-mail us about your favorite U.S. retirement haven at retire@usnews.com. Descriptions should be 100 words or fewer and include your name, age, and phone number. Responses may be included in an upcoming article.

Journalists like to use the terms baby boomers, greatest generation, and generations X and Y to make sweeping generalizations about large groups of people who may or may not have things in common other than their birth year.

In turns out that many baby boomers like their title, but every other generation would prefer a more descriptive name, according to a recent survey that asked 3,868 adults ages 21 to 83 to rename their own generation. Interestingly, the younger groups choose to define themselves according to the technology developed as they came of age, much as historians dubbed the Stone and Iron ages.

Many financial advisers tell clients to make long-term savings estimates for retirement. In theory, this encourages workers to save and invest on a consistent basis. But a new series of studies found that you should focus on saving for next month instead of the distant future.

Working adults asked to estimate how much they would bank in a specific month in the future said $946 but ended up saving only $123, according to research by Paul Dholakia, an associate professor at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Management, and Leona Tam, an assistant professor of marketing at Old Dominion University. Saving over a shorter time frame produced much better results. Workers asked to estimate how much they would tuck away next month said $287 but actually saved $440.

When asked what he would do if he had a million dollars, Peter Gibbons, of the cult movie classic Office Space, replies, "I would relax. I would do nothing." Later in the movie, he actually seems quite happy about his choice to slack off and says, "I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be."

After all those years of work, haven't you earned a little leisure? Why must retirees immediately hop into a deluge of activities similar to the productivity of work? Jonathan Edelfelt, author of Who Said You Need Millions? Retirement Strategies for the Rest of Us (and a frequent Planning to Retire commenter), recently wondered on his blog why we don't read about any older people simply relaxing and enjoying their retirement. Even Edelfelt's favorite personal finance writers pushing retirement age—Scott Burns, Ben Stein, and Suze Orman—don't seem to have retirement on the agenda, even while they coach others about how to do so.

Last week, I spent some time with a group of retirees volunteering at a nonprofit garden in California. Although most were over age 65, they rattled off lists of activities that would exhaust many 20-somethings: gardening, table tennis, softball, woodshop, hiking, and part-time jobs. In fact, no one even mentioned stereotypical retiree pastimes like bingo, shuffleboard, or just watching TV. The retirees seemed quite pleased with their active lifestyles and said they couldn't imagine slowing down. And most baby boomers indicate that they intend to work past traditional retirement age for financial and personal reasons.

Tell us, do you aspire to a retirement of leisure?

Americans who have been paying into the Social Security system their entire working lives have definitely earned their due. But with an average benefit of about $13,000 a year, retirement may not be especially comfortable if it's not topped off with other savings or a pension.

In a column that seems designed to incite baby boomers who are dreaming of—but woefully unprepared for—retirement, former financial adviser Robert Brokamp argues that Americans who haven't been looking out for themselves don't deserve a retirement. He writes: