Planning to Retire
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Lynn Johnston Decides Not to Completely Retire 'For Better or for Worse'
Continue reading… 96 CommentsCartoonist 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.
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Old News: What Boomers Are Reading Online
Continue reading… 4 CommentsBaby 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.
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Coming Soon: Great Places to Retire
Continue reading… 0 CommentsNext 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.
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Talking About My Generation
Continue reading… 1 CommentJournalists 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.
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Don't Plan Too Far Ahead for Retirement
Continue reading… 0 CommentsMany 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.
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Doing Nothing in Retirement
Continue reading… 2 CommentsWhen 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?
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Baby Boomers Don't Deserve Retirement?
Continue reading… 14 CommentsAmericans 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:
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Life After the Baby Boomers Retire
Continue reading… 4 CommentsAll of the baby boomers will be age 65 or older in 2030. At this point, 1 in 5 U.S. residents will be solidly in the gray-hair-and-creaky-joints category.
The number of citizens ages 65 and older is expected to double from 38.7 million this year to 88.5 million in 2050, the U.S. Census Bureau projects. And the 85-and-older population is expected to swell to 19 million in 2050, triple the 5.4 million in that category today.
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Retirement in China
Continue reading… 0 CommentsNo one watching the Olympics this week has any doubt about China's economic prowess. But one economist attributes China's success to a population that is almost entirely in its prime working years pouring collective energies into the productivity furnace.
"Cai Fang, an economist who is director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has calculated that more than a fourth of China's economic growth in this reform era stemmed from the productivity of a workforce with few dependents younger than 15 or older than 65. In five years, that advantage will start disappearing, and a rising number of the elderly will slow down China's economic growth, Cai said," Jim Landers of the Dallas Morning News reports.
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3 Reasons Pensions Need Less Funding per Worker Than 401(k)'s
Continue reading… 5 Comments401(k) plans save employers money because workers fund a portion of them. But a new analysis says 401(k)'s are an inefficient way to finance a secure retirement.
The nonprofit National Institute on Retirement Security calculated that a 62-year-old with a final salary of $50,000 would need to have $550,000 in a 401(k) to have an adequate retirement income, determined by the authors to be $26,684 a year. To achieve the same income, a traditional pension would need to have only $355,000 set aside for that worker, nearly $200,000 less.
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Boomer Olympians Defy Old Age
Continue reading… 1 CommentAllegedly underage Chinese gymnasts are making headlines. But the age of Olympic athletes is actually significantly higher than it was a generation ago—at least for U.S. competitors. The average age of the U.S. Summer Olympic team rose from 24 in 1976 to 27 in 1996 and has since remained steady, USA Today reports.
The average is driven up by a handful of athletes with a decade or more of additional life experience. USA Today published a list of U.S. athletes competing in Beijing who are at least 35 years old. The list is topped by 58-year-old sailor and grandfather John Dane III, who finally made the Olympic sailing team after 40 years of trying, and Libby Callahan, 56, a retired Washington, D.C., police officer and a great-aunt 15 times over who is on the shooting team.
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Saving More and Having Less for Retirement
Continue reading… 3 CommentsSome workers this year have managed to tuck away slightly more into their retirement accounts than last year, according to new analysis. But that doesn't mean tax-deferred account balances are increasing.
The average pretax amount employees contributed to retirement plans was $3,187 in the first half of 2008, up 1.4 percent from $3,142 in the first half of 2007, according to an analysis of Fidelity's 16,723 corporate defined contribution plans representing 11.5 million participants. But the typical account balance is over $5,000 lower than last year.
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Dara Torres: The Oldest Olympic Swimming Medalist in History
Continue reading… 42 CommentsDara Torres, 41, became the oldest swimming medalist in Olympic history on Sunday. She has twice retired from swimming and has a 2-year-old daughter, but keeps returning to the sport to add to her medal collection.
"The water doesn't really know what age you are, so it doesn't really matter when you hit the water what age you are," Torres said after anchoring the U.S. team in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay, Reuters reports. "I'm hoping that my age paves the way for other athletes, who maybe think they are too old to do something, to get back in or continue in the sport."
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Whose Responsibility Is a 401(K) Plan?
Continue reading… 3 CommentsAtlas, of Greek mythology fame, is often depicted in art supporting on his shoulders a globe representing the weight of the heavens. When you have a 401(k) and not a traditional pension, retirees must bear their own nest eggs, carrying them from job to job, nurturing them with additional contributions, and taking on the responsibility of selecting investments. Of course, sometimes employers offer a little support.
A recent online survey of 208 senior finance executives at companies with $100 million or more in revenue by CFO Research Services and Charles Schwab asked, "How would you characterize the respective roles of your company and the employee in the following areas of retirement and financial planning?" The responses:
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Replacing Income in Retirement
Continue reading… 4 CommentsNo one is quite sure how much of their current salary employees should aim to replace in retirement. Recent estimates have ranged from 65 to 85 percent of preretirement income (Government Accountability Office) to an astonishing 126 percent of final pay (Hewitt Associates).
The latest study entering the fray calculates that most people should aim to replace 77 to 94 percent of their preretirement income, according to Georgia State University and Aon Consulting Worldwide, an arm of the insurance giant Aon. The numbers are less than 100 percent of income because expenses often drop in retirement. "This is primarily due to the following factors: Income taxes go down after retirement; Social Security taxes end completely; Social Security benefits are partially or fully tax free; and saving for retirement is no longer needed," says Cecil Hemingway, U.S. retirement practice leader with Aon Consulting.
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3 Unusual Strategies for Claiming Social Security Benefits
Continue reading… 24 CommentsDeciding when to sign up for Social Security could be the most important retirement decision you make. Social Security is the largest source of income for over half of retirees, and the age you begin receiving payments can vastly affect the amount of money you receive over your lifetime.
The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College published a paper describing unusual—but allowable—strategies future retirees can ponder before they sign up for their due. Here are some highlights.
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Raising the Retirement Age
Continue reading… 2 CommentsIn Social Security history, the age at which a worker can claim full benefits has increased only once—in 1983. The rise from age 65 to 67 was phased in over more than 20 years. As things currently stand, those born in 1937 or earlier get their full due at age 65, everyone born in 1960 or later can't claim full benefits until 67, and employees between those years can find their full retirement age here.
The American Academy of Actuaries says it's time to raise the retirement age again to keep up with ever increasing life expectancies. In 1940, men who reached age 65 typically lived 12 years in retirement and women just over 13 years. In 2007, those ranges were almost 17 years and 19 years, respectively. And Social Security Administration actuaries predict that life expectancy at age 65 could further increase to almost 19 years for men and 21 years for women by 2040—which is seven to eight more years of retirement that will need to be financed.
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Online Retirement Calculators: Helpful or Useless?
Continue reading… 3 CommentsEarlier this year, financial services giant ING began a television and print advertising campaign encouraging all Americans to calculate "Your Number," which refers to the amount of money you will need to comfortably retire. Almost half of workers have diligently tried to figure out exactly how much they need to save, according to an Employee Benefit Research Institute survey. And simply doing the calculation caused 44 percent of workers to save more, EBRI found.
While saving more for retirement is always good news, crunching the numbers can be a frustrating and demoralizing experience. Heather Havrilesky, Salon's television critic, chronicles her experiences trying to calculate how much she needs to save for retirement in an article posted today.
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Phasing Into Retirement
Continue reading… 1 CommentAt first, retirement might be like a vacation. No alarms clocks, no commuting, no meetings or bosses. But some people who retire actually miss the office and want to return to work at the same company. No so fast! About half of companies have rules in place that don't allow you to waltz back over to your old desk and reclaim your paycheck and benefits after you've officially retired.
A new survey of more than 140 midsize and large employers by the human resources consulting firm Hewitt Associates found that 45 percent of the companies surveyed have restrictions in place that limit the ability to rehire previously retired employees. Common policies include a minimum period of absence (typically six months or less) before an employee can be rehired (42 percent), a limit on the number of hours a retired employee can be re-employed (31 percent), or allowing retirees to return to work only as employees of an outside contractor or leasing agency (29 percent).
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Ranking Retirement Spots
Continue reading… 0 CommentsI regularly get E-mails from readers recommending great places to retire. But seldom do I get two endorsements for the same town. Using our Best Places to Retire database, U.S. News has created a series of lists of great places to retire reflecting the varied interests of our readers. Check some of them out below.
- 10 Best Outdoorsy Places to Retire
- 10 Great Retirement Spots for Golf Nuts
- The 10 Brainiest Places to Retire
- 10 Greenest Places to Retire
- 10 Bargain Retirement Spots
- 10 Retirement Spots to Get You Started
- Readers Offer Their Own Retirement Spots
You can also create a personalized list of great retirement spots using your own criteria here.
