Jonathan Clements's Blog, page 116
October 27, 2023
Forever Calling
I’m an Episcopal priest. My decades of fulltime active service were spent leading several parishes. Upon retirement, turning off my phone at night meant I was no longer readying myself for emergencies and crises. My wife—and our children in the early years—would no longer have me leaving suddenly because something awful was unfolding in the lives of others. Dinners, holiday celebrations, even vacations would no longer be interrupted—either briefly or at length—by whatever the phone might bring. Others, of course, live the same way, everybody from doctors to firemen to plumbers.
A parish is a nonprofit corporation with staff and property, which a rector manages as head of the board of directors known as a vestry. In addition, as a parish leader, I was responsible for all worship, education, community involvement and pastoral care.
Not all Episcopal clergy serve congregations. Some work in the business world. Others are school and university faculty. Clergy may be therapists, chaplains, counselors, physicians, lawyers and so on. Some serve in the military and as research scientists. All have assignments as clergy, but they aren’t on call 24/7/365.
No parish cleric is a solo operator. We advise and support each other, and we also encourage members of our congregation to care for one another. I certainly encouraged such service, and I remain forever grateful and inspired by what these congregants offer.
Still, as a rector, I was the one who would get the calls, usually without warning: victims of terrible accidents, people at the end of life, babies not able to survive, families having to discontinue life support and donate a loved one’s organs, people in hospice at their life’s end, nurses and doctors devastated when a patient died.
For these emergency calls, I was taught it was important to wear “the uniform”: a dark suit with a black clergy shirt and white “dog collar,” and traditional black cap-toe Oxfords with over-the-calf plain black socks. I was to be both immediately identifiable and personally invisible. I was to be an icon, a visual symbol of the church before I even opened my mouth.
I also got the calls for all church matters, from no light or heat to robberies, flood and weather damage, and all manner of uproar in the congregation. I was called to help find runaway children, locate wandering older people, help families cope with the painful and disruptive consequences of addiction, infidelity and scandal, and more.
I wore the uniform every day.
There was nothing special about me in any of this. It is what parish clergy do. There are men and women doing this work everywhere you look. For those who know better, the jokes about clergy working a half-day a week fall on deaf ears.
Retiring meant I was no longer always on call. I was quite ready for the change: 60-plus hour weeks were a labor in my 30s, but a burden in my 60s. Four factors helped me move into retirement smoothly:
It was a choice. I had served fulltime for more than 30 years. This qualified me for some retirement benefits. I know not everyone is as fortunate as I am.
I had accomplished the tasks I was given when I was called to serve the congregation. They didn’t need me any longer.
I was bone-deep weary. Giving a younger priest the opportunity to serve was a good thing all around.
I was only leaving my paid work, not my calling. I am a priest forever. Only the work changes.
Now, about the socks. I still wear clergy shirts for calls and services, but I wear brightly colored socks most of the time, as a reminder to myself that I am retired. I still wear black ones when I need them.
As I write this, I have on hot crimson socks covered with music notes. I wear really silly socks on Sundays when I’m helping out somewhere.
I have become the “silly socks” priest. No one knows what I’ll wear next. I’ve got rainbow socks, screaming yellow socks with electric guitars on them, pale green socks with fishing lures, Nancy Drew socks, and many more. Church folk give them to me, and we laugh about them. And, it turns out, they recognize me, even without the uniform.
Tom Scott is a retired Episcopal priest. He and his wife live in Evanston, Illinois. They love retirement because they get to see more of their children and grandchildren, and they can spend more time at concerts, the opera and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Tom's previous article was Starting Late.
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My Haunting Heritage
"AMORTIZATION, STEVIE, amortization. When I make a mortgage payment, part goes to the bank, the rest comes back to us." My father’s cigar flailed as he patted his back pocket. “Listen to a man who worked his way up through the college of hard knocks. Don’t be a jerked-up kid.”
Wearing a sharkskin suit, charcoal shirt and wide red tie that preceded The Godfather’s Michael Corleone, my father confused talking about himself with teaching me.
Amortization? I couldn’t care less about stupid amortization, or even real estate for that matter. I was worried Sandy Koufax wouldn’t pitch the first game of the 1965 World Series because it was on Yom Kippur.
We turned onto the Long Island Expressway for our monthly sojourn to “The Buildings,” two apartment houses inherited by my mother. They were monuments to my father’s cunning and a highlight of family lore. My maternal grandfather didn’t leave a will and, as Jewish immigrants, my parents trusted neither lawyers nor the courts. Unperturbed, my father wrote and signed a will on behalf of his deceased father-in-law. Aunt Sarah and my mother each got two apartment buildings.
Enter Uncle Lou, Aunt Sarah’s husband. Louie was a bungler. He proved to be a bumbling landlord and disgraced himself by never making it “really big.” He came close. On one of his misadventures, Louie produced a record by the Aquatones, a rock group he discovered and managed. Their heart-wrenching ballad You rose to No. 3 on the Billboard charts in 1958. The Aquatones had potential, but not with Uncle Lou. He neglected to get a signed contract and lost them, along with his entree to the entertainment world.
In the end, Louie frittered away his rental income and had to sell both buildings, a family "shanda." Tired of the ridicule, he tossed a grenade that ensured him a place in family purgatory.
Louie reached back some 30 years and accused my father of having taken the best buildings when he wrote the will for his father-in-law. Uncle Lou may have been shrewder than his reputation let on. But in the end, the accusation came to nothing.
My father struggled with Louie’s flirtation with fame. “Stevie, how much money could he have made on that record of his?”
How the hell did I know what Uncle Lou made? But I hastily guessed about 30,000 records at a 50-cent profit each. “About $15,000,” I blurted out, hoping for a show of approval from someone who regularly beat me in flash-math at dinner.
“That’s all, you must be kidding?” He pounded the steering wheel three times and looked up at the sky as if in prayer.
It was raining hard by the time we reached 2-0-1, reverential shorthand for our apartment building on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. The black Cadillac Fleetwood with the taillight fins screeched to a stop, with my father bolting from the car without an umbrella, an affirmation of his indestructibility. We went directly to the superintendent’s apartment on the first floor.
The month’s only problem was Mr. Schoenfeld in 3C. Ralph Schoenfeld was a widower who owned a toy store and had been a steadfast tenant for many years. But he missed last month’s rent and now he was late.
“Okay, Winston, what’s up with Schoenfeld?
“Business stinks, short on cash. Says store traffic usually picks up right before Thanksgiving. He’ll include the back rent in his December check.”
“On a lease?”
“No, month-to-month.”
“Don’t jerk me around with that nonsense, Winston. He’s got a week to make things right, including the late fees. Otherwise, it’s 30 days and he’s out.”
Schoenfeld out? One bad move and you’re gone? If he could be so easily banished, how safe was I?
I was born in 1945, the year after Allied troops discovered thousands of bodies and the mass graves of Eastern European Jews. Like many, my father never forgot. “Stevie, don’t get too comfy in a VW bug. You may be sitting on your grandpa’s hair.”
We are all wounded in youth, and spend a lifetime trying to repair and overcome those assaults. Embittered and enraged by the Holocaust, my father resolved to avenge centuries of religious persecution. His belligerence and self-aggrandizement concealed layers of vulnerability and fear.
The world was cruel and unpredictable, and he would seize a piece of the dignity stolen from his forebears while he could. By threatening to uproot Ralph Schoenfeld for his rent hiccup, my father temporarily fended off his panic that the dam could break at any moment. Schoenfeld was Jewish, but even that couldn’t spare him from my father’s wrath.
Last month, my 36-year-old son asked if I would help him learn about the real estate business. I’d been angling for an opening for several years, but Ryan had been preoccupied with his own dreams, much as I was with the World Series 58 years ago. My grandfather bequeathed a gift to his daughter, my parents paid it forward to me, and I will soon bequeath that legacy to Ryan.
When we talk, there won’t just be a treatise on rents, capital appreciation and amortization. Like the rest of us, Ryan needs to control the impulse to retaliate indiscriminately, and to recognize that a sense of protection is an illusion and not a solution.
Steve Abramowitz is a psychologist in Sacramento, California. Earlier in his career, Steve was a university professor, including serving as research director for the psychiatry department at the University of California, Davis. He also ran his own investment advisory firm. Check out Steve's earlier articles.
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October 26, 2023
Movin’ On Up
WHEN I GRADUATED high school in the 1950s, I was age 17—and totally directionless. But living in New York City offered many opportunities, some of them right outside my front door.
At the time, the larger banks and insurance companies sent letters to recent graduates offering job interviews. I chose to accept an invitation from American Surety Co. I had no idea what a surety company did.
The venerable old company was housed in the second largest skyscraper in Manhattan—the American Surety Building at 100 Broadway in lower Manhattan, near Wall Street and across from Trinity Church. My best interview outfit was my almost new Easter outfit, a prim green and white checked suit worn with proper white gloves, white purse and appropriate pumps. I got an entry level job doing clerical work.
I soon got the lay of the land and was promoted to the stenography pool in the bond department. Nothing is more boring than transcribing notes relating to bond contracts. I often took dictation from an elderly lawyer who kept dozing off in midsentence. So much for my foray into the insurance industry. We all have to start somewhere, but it wasn’t for me and I was never one to delay action. It was time to broaden my horizons.
A minor but memorable distinction I achieved at American Surety: I won a jitterbug contest, more like a swing dance, with a coworker at the company’s 36th annual Christmas party. The company was serious about its contests, with a dance committee and all. First, there was a sedate waltz and fox trot contest, and then me and my spirited swing dance. It was the most fun I had at the company.
Onward and upward: The ad for the job of executive secretary at Melodee Lane Lingerie Co. caught my eye. It mentioned “a little modeling on the side.” Only kidding—there was no mention of modeling, but it did pay $35 a week more than my current job.
I had my own little office and nobody bothered me. The boss was easy going and traveled often. Most of my work consisted of typing letters recorded on a dictaphone machine. At least, at this job, I didn’t have to worry about dozing dictators. And I got a nice discount on the racy, er, lacy merchandise. Remember babydoll pajamas? Actually, the line consisted of nice quality, mid-priced lingerie. Victoria’s Secret had not yet been uncovered.
The office manager was a little intimidating and a character—a seemingly unattached woman “of a certain age” who used to come to work on Fridays with her hair wrapped in those big pink cylindrical plastic hair curlers popular in the 1950s and ‘60s. Her head would be swathed in a large scarf, making it look twice the size it was, in a futile attempt to hide the curlers. We got along fine, although Shirley was a little temperamental and I was glad we didn’t have too much contact. She was somewhat a Joan Holloway type, the curvy red-haired office manager depicted in the television series Mad Men, sans curlers.
The factory and warehouse where the lingerie was manufactured was part of the same building. The company wasn’t in the best neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the travel time via subway and bus was a little too long. I soon realized there had to be more in my future than my little office, the dictation machine, the typewriter and Melodee Lane Lingerie. Time to depart Petticoat Junction.
A close friend who worked for General Motors told me of better opportunities, with good pay, excellent benefits and chances for advancement, if only within the confines of secretarial work. I was assigned to the Chevrolet Division, which was at the pinnacle of its success following the introduction of its luxury sports car, the Corvette, in 1953 and after hitting a new record—50 million cars manufactured.
Thus began my first professional secretarial job in the corporate world. I enjoyed working in the Rockefeller Center area, in the heart of Manhattan. It was magical at Christmas time: the store displays, the tree, the ice rink, the lights. Everything was exciting—a wonderful, different time. I was age 19 and thought the world was my oyster. At least now I had some direction. I was a Chevro-lady.
A footnote: My first car was a 1963 red Chevrolet Corvair bought that year, a former company car with just 3,000 miles on it. I liked it so well I ordered the 1965 model when the design changed. By then, all the flaws had been addressed. But after Ralph Nader’s drubbing in Unsafe at Any Speed, the Corvair never bounced back in the minds of the car-buying public.
With the employee discount, I paid $1,763.12 for my 1963 Corvair, using money I’d saved up, because there was no room in my budget for car payments. Unfortunately, the bad publicity sealed the Corvair’s fate, coupled with the popularity of the 1965 Ford Mustang. To this day, the Corvair remains an object of detractors and devotees, both panned and praised.
Marjorie Kondrack loves music, dancing and the arts, and is a former amateur ice dancer accredited by the United States Figure Skating Association. In retirement, she worked for eight years as a tax preparer for the IRS’s
VITA
and TCE programs. Check out Marjorie's earlier articles.The post Movin’ On Up appeared first on HumbleDollar.
Looking to Leap
I'M THINKING ABOUT retirement—again. But this time, it isn’t my retirement, but rather my wife’s. I earn our family’s primary paycheck, so I’m usually the focus of our discussions when we sit down to scrutinize the numbers and comb through the calendar, looking for a date when we should each hang up our physical therapist’s goniometer.
Even though I earn the bigger income, my wife has diligently worked just as long as I have, albeit in a changing capacity. In our 30s, we each began second careers as physical therapists at more or less the same time. I talked her into a blind date the week I started my first physical therapy job. She graduated PT school a couple of months later, and began work shortly thereafter. For five of the first seven years of our marriage, we spent most of our work days side-by-side in the same outpatient clinic.
After our daughter was born, my wife’s hours on the job dwindled, while her responsibilities at home increased. On weekdays, she now applies her experience as a former high school biology teacher to instructing our daughter at home. On top of that, she acts as caregiver to family members, including round-the-clock on-call assistance for any needs that arise. And then, of course, there’s the usual tasks involved in keeping up a home. I help, but the brunt of the burden falls on my wife.
Despite her hectic schedule, my wife continues to make a small but significant contribution at our workplace. She gives a few hours each month, plus some holidays, at our acute care hospital. Every few months, I ask if she’s ready to retire from her work away from home. My question brings a thoughtful expression, then the same reply of “not yet.”
Our ongoing conversation about our respective retirement dates would have been rare a couple of generations ago. Planning for a joint retirement is a fairly recent phenomenon. Retirement planning was once a mostly solo endeavor, even for married couples. In most families, the husband was the sole breadwinner. The income side of the family’s economic life revolved around his career, with the wife playing a supporting role.
The latter part of the 20th century witnessed a huge demographic shift. Women started pouring into the workforce. The percentage of women working doubled from 34% in 1950 to 60% in 2000. Last year, the figure stood at about 57%, and was even higher, at 60%, for women in the pre-retirement ages of 55 to 64.
With dual incomes came a new challenge for couples—how to coordinate two retirements. Researchers note that retirement is increasingly complex, with variables that include when to call it quits, whether to move or not, how to use our time in retirement, and the implications of declining health. Doubling those factors with the addition of another person compounds the planning intricacies.
Not all couples are adept at this financial dance, though they may not readily admit it. Seven out of 10 respondents to Fidelity Investments' 2021 couples and money study say they communicate at least very well about financial issues. But a deeper look at specific retirement topics reveals 48% disagree on the retirement date. Also, 51% are out of sync on the size of the nest egg necessary to retire, and a significant number lose sleep thinking about it. Additional worries are retirement health care expenses, outliving savings and being derailed by economic conditions beyond their control.
The Fidelity survey also found gender continues to influence the planning partnership, with men more frequently taking the lead on longer-term retirement and investment planning. But in our case, the situation is more nuanced, because my wife has more of the planner personality.
Against this backdrop, my wife and I dance to our own beat. Still, we’re not far out of step with other couples as we ponder if we’re retirement ready. We share the familiar financial concerns about income and insurance during retirement, along with the subjective query: Will retirement make me happier? I’m not yet ready for a permanent vacation, but how does my wife answer those questions?
Income. When we launched our life together, my wife and I earned essentially the same amount. We also both started saving and investing for retirement with our first paychecks, kicking it off with 401(k)s and then soon adding IRAs. In the beginning, though, we followed different paths in choosing our funds. We even compared performance in a friendly competition. Eventually, however, we came to view our individual accounts as part of the same portfolio, a perspective that aids optimal planning.
While I tend to take the lead in longer-term planning, my wife is thoroughly versed on our overall money plan and intimately involved in every decision. She also handles the daily money chores, and knows how much money flows in and out of our household accounts. For these reasons, she’s aware that the loss of her income wouldn’t create financial headaches.
Insurance. My employer currently provides health insurance for my family and me. Even if I go part-time, we’re still covered. If I decide to retire fulltime at age 65—a little over three years’ away—Medicare will insure me. But at that juncture, my wife will be 62 and not yet eligible for Medicare. We’ll need to buy a private policy for her and our daughter, which we may pay for with my wife’s Social Security. According to Mike Piper’s Open Social Security calculator, 62 is the best age for her to claim, with me waiting until age 70.
Emotion. When our young lives are weighed down with work, and retirement is a distant dream, it’s hard to imagine postponing the day we call it quits. Yet, when the moment arrives, the choice can bring indecision and even trepidation. The path ahead may appear greener, but who knows how much we’ll miss what we leave behind?
My wife and I have a good bit of the interdependence—a “melding of the minds” in a relationship—that’s shown to be helpful during the shift to retirement. Still, I’m giving her room to decide when to give up her paycheck. Initially, she held onto her few hours of work as a caution and a comfort, just in case my income disappeared. Keeping a foot in the door would have allowed her to jump back in more easily. That concern should have faded as our savings grew, but old habits often die slowly. Maybe there’s still a sliver of uncertainty lurking in her mind.
Her real hang up may be her feelings of guilt about leaving me to carry the weight by myself. But the weight isn’t solely on my shoulders. How does she retire from being a daughter, wife and mother? Even when she finally leaves her job behind, she’ll still only be half-retired.
Ed Marsh is a physical therapist who lives and works in a small community near Atlanta. He likes to spend time with his church, with his family and in his garden thinking about retirement. His favorite question to ask a young person is, "Are you saving for retirement?" Check out Ed's earlier articles.
The post Looking to Leap appeared first on HumbleDollar.
October 25, 2023
Seeking Higher Ground
WORK ON A HOUSING development began in early 2000 about a mile from where we lived. This was right around the time that my wife Lisa and I were starting to feel like we wanted some more room for our family. In addition, we were concerned about our current backyard. There was a swale—a shallow ditch—that ran the length of the yard, parallel to the house.
When we bought the house, there was grass in the base of the swale and nothing looked unusual. The first summer I mowed, I noticed that some parts of the swale seemed wet even though there’d been no rain for days. The second summer, mowing the swale became a bit more difficult, and the mower dug deep grooves into the soft, wet soil.
By the third summer, we had standing water in the swale and it was impossible to mow. It was now a swamp. I had a friend who’s a landscape architect come out and look at our backyard. His conclusion: The swale intersected with a spring. Years later, we found out that the previous owners had dumped six truckloads of dirt into the swale and grew grass there, shortly before putting the house on the market.
I went to the nearby development to look at lots. By then, I’d settled on a nonnegotiable criterion: a level lot that was at a higher elevation than the rest of the neighborhood. I didn’t want water issues again. In the entire development of 50 or so lots, lot No. 30 stood out. It was the perfect size, it was rectangular, it was at the neighborhood’s highest elevation and it was almost completely flat. There was only one problem: It also had a “sold” sign.
I told Hope, the realtor for the new development, that if lot 30 had been available, I would have made a deposit that day. She picked up the phone and made a call. She confirmed that the folks who had put a deposit on lot 30 had changed their minds and, in fact, it was available. I quickly wrote a check for $1,000 and we were on our way.
As I mentioned in an earlier article, I wanted to keep the cost of the new house to under $200,000. My wife and I decided on a standard two-story colonial design, about 2,200 square feet in size. We picked white siding, black shutters, a red door and a three-car garage. My dad, who lived nearby, was especially enthusiastic about the three-car garage.
The day before we were to meet with the builder and sign all the contracts, we got a call from Hope. She knew we’d already determined the design specifics for our house, but she’d recently come across a floor plan that she thought we might like even more. I wasn’t too excited about considering changes to our design. But since Hope was such a stellar realtor, we agreed to take a look.
She showed us plans for a colonial house of nearly 3,000 square feet that would cost just $5,000 more. We were kind of dumbfounded and I repeatedly asked if she was certain this new model was priced accurately. Hope had actually called the president of the building company and received his assurance that it was indeed an accurate price.
It didn’t require much thought on our part to go with the new option. To keep the total cost under $200,000, we did have to downsize the garage, much to Dad’s chagrin. We signed the papers the next day.
It was a long summer for me. I had anticipatory anxiety as we awaited the start of the homebuilding process. I was relieved when construction finally got underway. My dad went to the job site pretty much every day, befriending the workers and confirming that things were being done right. He had a great time, perhaps reliving memories from 50 years earlier when he had built his own house.
Our new house was completed with few difficulties and, in November 2000, we moved in. We’ve been very satisfied homeowners. We didn’t skimp on the basement waterproofing package and have never had any water-related issues. Of course, my dad never let me forget about the three-car garage we should have built.
Meanwhile, we had to sell our existing home. We used Hope as our realtor for that transaction as well. This time, the swale, with its perennial damp soil and overgrown weeds, wasn’t hidden from prospective buyers. Even so, the home sold easily.
I’ve never won the lottery. I don’t remember ever even playing the lottery, except for a couple times when I joined the office pool for a mega-jackpot drawing. Eventually, I became one of the few office holdouts when the signup sheet would come around.
Remember the suspiciously low price for our house? A few months after we had signed on the dotted line, Hope informed us she’d learned that the builder had indeed made a mistake on the price, to the tune of some $36,000. I’m pretty sure that’s as close to winning the jackpot as I’ll ever come.
Ken Cutler lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has worked as an electrical engineer in the nuclear power industry for more than 38 years. There, he has become an informal financial advisor for many of his coworkers. Ken is involved in his church, enjoys traveling and hiking with his wife Lisa, is a shortwave radio hobbyist, and has a soft spot for cats and dogs. Check out Ken's earlier articles.The post Seeking Higher Ground appeared first on HumbleDollar.
October 24, 2023
Retirement Takes Work
Retirement isn’t a destination but a journey with three key stops. The first stop is the “honeymoon.” Excitement prevails. Retirees rest, go on trips, indulge in hobbies and do the things they always wanted to do. This part of the transition usually lasts about a year.
After an initial high, many retirees suffer a letdown. Retirement, as imagined, is not a permanent vacation. The second stop is “hitting the wall.” Is this all there is? Often, this phase will begin with restlessness. We start to miss the interaction with former colleagues. Boredom can begin creeping in and may even turn into sporadic depression. This is the most dangerous stop on the journey. A minority start abusing alcohol or drugs to alleviate the depression. Some may never progress beyond this second stop.
Meanwhile, the vast majority continue to the third stop—“redefinition”—where they build a new identity and develop new habits. This is the most difficult stop in the journey. A sustained effort, often involving substantial trial and error, is needed to move beyond this stop and successfully complete the journey. This can take anywhere from six months to a couple of years. Unfortunately, many fail to achieve closure and remain stuck in a traditional retirement mindset, embracing a passive lifestyle with little to look forward to each day.
How to avoid this fate? New retirees often lack direction, so they need a plan that’ll guide how they use their time. Fortunately, a number of studies help. For instance, a recent study found that retirees’ happiness correlates with participation in active versus passive activities. Will you be a participant or a spectator? This study is reinforced by another study, which documented that happy retirees have twice as many “active” activities as unhappy retirees.
Active activities or pursuits can be either outer-directed, occurring in a social setting like volunteering, or inner-directed, such as a hobby practiced alone. Research has shown that a balance between both types is necessary for an optimal retirement. Interacting with people other than our immediate family can add as much as four years to our longevity. By contrast, loneliness can shorten life by as much as eight years. In addition, active solo activities, such as crossword or jigsaw puzzles, and hobbies, such as painting or gardening, can help us maintain our cognitive abilities.
The bottom line: Our happiness after retirement hinges on our pursuits. And the more pursuits we have, and the more diverse they are, the happier we’ll be. The worst part of retirement is losing our identity. The best part is finding a new one. I know all about this.
I retired initially at age 58, having run a successful marketing research firm in Manhattan for 25 years. I sold the firm to my junior partner and off I went. For two years, I did some consulting and taught at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus. I finally packed it in at age 60.
The first year or so was great. My daughter got married. My wife and I took trips to Italy and San Diego. We also visited a number of good friends and many close relatives. And I enjoyed not commuting to Manhattan every day.
But after about 10 months, I started to become restless and bored, and subsequently slipped into depression. Thankfully, a friend suggested psychotherapy, which I underwent for six months. I consider myself lucky. Two of my fellow retirees spiraled into alcohol abuse and one into drug addiction.
After undergoing psychotherapy, it took another year or so to develop a meaningful and enjoyable direction. I’ve been assisting other seniors on a voluntary basis, first teaching computer basics and then helping retirees—those who still wish to work—to obtain jobs. More recently, I’ve been giving a presentation titled “Creating Yourself in Retirement: The Emotional Aspect” at libraries in New York and Connecticut.
Nowadays, I belong to the Retired Men's Association (RMA) of Greenwich, which currently has 237 members and is dedicated to good fellowship, community service and fun. It's a great organization for men to network. Activities are plentiful and I’ve developed some new friends.
It’s been 26 years since I fully retired. I'm 86 years old and my wife is 81. Although it took me a little time to get going in retirement, I now have a full schedule—and I look forward to almost every day.
Michael Amoroso, BBA, MBA, has been retired for 26 years, after previously running a highly successful marketing research firm in Manhattan. Following his retirement, he was the director of a nonprofit helping retirees, who still wish to work, to find jobs. Mike currently lectures on life after retirement at libraries in New York and Connecticut. His 25 presentations have been attended by more than 500 people.The post Retirement Takes Work appeared first on HumbleDollar.
Seeing It for Myself
THE TOPIC OF TRAVEL pops up occasionally on HumbleDollar, and I’ve even written about my own travels. The reasons for not traveling go from “can’t afford” to “no interest.” I can understand “can’t afford.” But the “no interest” is a mystery to me. The only budget we have in retirement is for travel. It’s funded with our Social Security checks.
When I was in school decades ago, my favorite subject was history. That interest has never waned. Few days go by when I don’t watch a documentary on YouTube. Understanding history is vital. What happened in the past is how we arrived at our world today, both good and bad. I believe that, to understand the past, we must see it and feel it.
That has driven me to view firsthand where things happened, to stand on the spot where a major event took place, and to absorb the atmosphere of the location and its people. You won’t find us traveling to lounge on a beach somewhere, but you might see me where the Battle of Little Big Horn was fought, looking out from the highest point.
Several years ago in Sicily, we hired a driver to take us to the small village where my wife’s grandparents had lived. At the town hall, we obtained copies of their birth and marriage certificates, and visited the church where they were married. Even the town clerk was emotional when he gave the papers to my wife.
In the center of the town square was a monument with scores of names engraved. I assumed it was a war memorial. But in speaking with an old man, I learned it was people killed by the Mafia.
In Crimea, we walked the site of the Charge of the Light Brigade. My great, great grandfather fought in that war, before coming to America and joining the Union Army. In Ukraine, I touched the chair where Franklin Roosevelt sat at the Yalta Conference. When I watch footage from today’s war in Ukraine, I occasionally see places we’ve visited.
I’ve walked on Omaha Beach, into a gas chamber at Auschwitz and on Hadrian's Wall. I’ve kissed the Blarney Stone in Ireland and drank from the Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, Florida—don’t rely on it.
For me, it was overwhelming to climb the Eiffel Tower, stand where Joan of Arc was executed, and walk among still-thriving 2,000-year-old olive trees in the Holy Land. On Malta, we visited a church bombed during World War II. The unexploded bomb still sits near the altar.
Overcoming claustrophobia, I entered an old bomb shelter in Malta. I also overcame my fear of close places to walk through the catacombs of Rome and enter what’s traditionally accepted as the tomb of Jesus in Israel.
Understanding our world is essential, and seeing and feeling it is important to that understanding. Three weeks in Russia provided a better understanding of a truly different culture, as did visiting Israel, and speaking with Palestinians and listening to their stories.
People in other parts of the world relate to Americans differently. One July 4th in Ireland, the driver decorated our bus with red, white and blue ribbons and American flags. It was quite a feeling. On the other hand, when flying out of Moscow, they let Russians jump ahead, seemingly making it as difficult as possible for us to leave—a somewhat scary feeling.
While visiting Edinburgh Castle, we walked on cobblestone lanes built by Colonial prisoners from the American Revolution. Sometimes, I just stand in a spot, trying to imagine the past.
Who knew I would walk among the penguins on the Falkland Islands, or speak with people who lived through the Falkland’s invasion in 1982? We’ve visited many European families in their homes, some poor and others well off. It can be very different from the way we Americans live, but always a good experience.
Once in the backcountry of Russia, we visited an old widow living in two rooms, sleeping on a cot in the mini kitchen and living on $250 a month. It makes you wonder what they think of “rich” Americans. Children aggressively wanted to sell us their crayon scribblings.
We always try local food. The best meal I ever had was in a home in Bordeaux. I can still taste the cassoulet—as I can the paella in Madrid, the octopus in Rome and the ox tails in… where was that? Don’t get me started on the farm in Italy, with its homemade pizza, rabbit stew and cannolis. On the other hand, don’t make the mistake of ordering a bacon omelet in Jerusalem.
Travel provides an education like no other. No book and no news report can capture the feeling of places and people. History teaches so many valuable lessons, and yet it’s often dismissed as no longer relevant. Every aspect of our lives is affected by the past, by some other place, by some other people.
Richard Quinn blogs at QuinnsCommentary.net. Before retiring in 2010, Dick was a compensation and benefits executive. Follow him on Twitter @QuinnsComments and check out his earlier articles.
The post Seeing It for Myself appeared first on HumbleDollar.
Never Mind
WHEN I LAST REPORTED on our retirement journey, we’d decided to put our search for a second home on hold. Well, in the immortal words of Saturday Night Live’s Emily Litella, “Never mind.”
We looked at many properties in several communities earlier this year, but we didn’t find anything we wanted to purchase. We decided on a cooling-off period, while we pondered what our next step should be. We kept a casual eye on properties coming up for sale, but nothing grabbed our attention.
One Sunday morning in mid-July, my wife received a Zillow notification that a property in a desirable 55-plus community had just been put on the market. There was to be an open house that afternoon. We had nothing better to do, and it was a cloudy and rainy day, so we jumped in the car.
To make the trip more enticing, we’d get to see two of our grandsons, ages seven months and three years old. We found two other open houses nearby that also seemed worth a visit. The first two homes we toured were single, ranch-style homes. Both were nice, and would have been great for a young and growing family. But they were more house and property than we need at this point.
The last property was a townhome in a 55-plus community. It had a large first-floor master bedroom, upgraded kitchen, hardwood floors and a big two-car garage. The second floor had a large bedroom, bath, storage area, and huge loft area that could easily accommodate an office, sitting area and additional sleeping. The unit had a private deck looking out onto woods. The community had a pool, community center with fitness room, and courts for tennis and pickleball.
The realtor running the open house lived in the community, and spoke glowingly about it and its residents. After talking to her for a bit, we determined that she was originally from the Philadelphia suburbs, not far from where Vicky and I grew up. This led to an extended conversation about life in the community. She was a great salesperson.
We were very interested, as were several other couples who toured the property while we were there. Apparently, this community is popular with downsizers leaving the New York City area. We had seen a unit for sale back in March, but it was small and dingy, with an unappealing layout, plus the asking price was $749,000, which seemed high.
The asking price for this unit was $745,000. The most recent sale in the neighborhood was a few months back, at $770,000. That unit was slightly larger than the one we saw, and pristine. The dingy unit we saw back in March eventually sold for $723,000.
We decided to put in an offer. We knew there would be other bidders. We spoke with our realtor, and discussed recent sales and how they compared to the property we saw. I recalled the article that HumblerDollar’s Dennis Friedman wrote about the sale of his wife’s house. It was useful, because I thought we were in a similar situation. The asking price felt low for a property in great condition in a desirable community. I thought the seller was encouraging over-asking price offers. Our realtor agreed. We were the first bidders on the property, submitting an offer that night of $770,000—$25,000 above the asking price.
Two days later, we were told our offer hadn’t been accepted. Our realtor said we had one more chance to counter, but she felt we had made a very strong offer. We discussed it and decided to take one more shot, offering $799,000. Later that evening, we heard that the seller had decided on another offer.
We were pretty disappointed. But it gave us an opportunity to revisit our thinking. We agreed that the original reasons we wanted to move nearer to our children still existed, and had actually strengthened. Spending half the summer in our crowded beach community also reminded us of how much we prefer the town in the off-season. Imagine if your quiet little town went from 11,000 residents to 150,000. That’s what it’s like to live in a popular beach town.
A few days later, we saw a listing for a townhouse in the same community where our younger son and his family lived. It’s about a 50-minute drive from our older son and family in New York City. It looked in great shape. We contacted our realtor and asked to set up a showing.
Before we called the realtor, we spoke to our son and daughter-in-law to gauge their feelings about us living that close. They were supportive of us moving to the area, but this would be closer than any of us had anticipated. Their only concern was that we would expect them to be our only social life. We understood that concern and emphasized that wasn’t our intent.
With that resolved, we set up a showing. We liked the house very much, and decided to put in an offer. The listing price was $795,000. We thought that was high, so we came in with an offer of $750,000. The seller countered at $779,000, and we agreed to their price if they included the dining room and living room furniture. They said, “yes,” and we had a deal. We settled in mid-September.
When we told friends and family that we were buying a home, they were uniformly happy for us, but some were also confused. The confused folks were those who’d read my previous article. Several politely asked what changed. I told them that nothing had changed. The reasons we wanted to be closer to our children and grandchildren were just as valid—and perhaps more so. For instance, during the cooling-off period, our eight-year-old grandson joined a travel soccer team. We want to attend as many of his, his brother’s and his cousin’s games as possible.
The layout of the house doesn’t meet a couple of criteria we’d set. It’s a three-bedroom townhouse, with a basement and detached one-car garage. One of the best features is a two-story sunroom off both the living room and master bedroom.
But it doesn’t have a first-floor master suite—instead the master bedroom is on the second floor—and the laundry is in the basement. We’re very capable of navigating stairs. But we have experience with aging and infirm parents, and know that can change rapidly. My wife accurately captured the risk-reward nature of the purchase when she told a friend, “We are buying a lifetime of experiences, and a house comes with it.”
We’re considering what to do with our current home in a Jersey Shore beach town. We’d like to keep it, and I’m working to figure out how to structure our finances to our best advantage. We will likely rent it out for the summer season, and use it in the offseason. We have experience owning a seasonal rental property, and I’m confident we can manage it. There are some interesting tax ramifications when converting a vacation home to a primary residence and then back to a rental property. But that’s a subject for a future article.
Richard Connor is a semi-retired aerospace engineer with a keen interest in finance. He enjoys a wide variety of other interests, including chasing grandkids, space, sports, travel, winemaking and reading. Follow Rick on Twitter @RConnor609 and check out his earlier articles.The post Never Mind appeared first on HumbleDollar.
October 23, 2023
By the Numbers
WHAT'S THE STATE of America’s family finances? The Federal Reserve just released its once-every-three-year look, in the guise of the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, which is based on in-depth interviews with some 4,600 families.
You can read the Fed’s analysis here. Below are some key insights from the latest survey:
Net worth. The typical (or “median”) net worth—meaning the value of all assets minus all debt for those American families halfway down the wealth spectrum—was $192,700 in 2022. But the average (or “mean”) wealth, which measures America’s total net worth divided by all households, stood at $1,059,470. This is a classic example of skewness, with a small number of outliers—in this case, America's wealthiest families—skewing the results higher.
Indeed, for those in the bottom 25%, the typical net worth is $3,500, versus $3.8 million for families among the top 10%. The two most widely held assets were bank and other “transaction” accounts, held by 98.6% of families, and cars and other vehicles, at 86.6%.
Income. Skewness also shows up in pretax family income. As of the latest survey, the typical household income was $70,260, while the average was twice as high, at $141,390.
Stocks. As of 2022, 58% of U.S. families were invested in the stock market, up from 48.9% nine years earlier. Direct stock ownership—as opposed to ownership through, say, mutual funds or retirement plans—had been trending lower in recent decades. But it jumped to 21% of families in 2022, from 15.2% in 2019, no doubt driven in part by the proliferation of trading apps and by the introduction of zero-commission stock trades by discount brokers. The jump in direct stock ownership shows up across all age groups, except those 75 and older.
Real estate. The Fed's survey found that 66% of American families owned their primary residence, up from 63.7% six years earlier, but below the peak of 69% in 2004. Among homeowners, 63.9% had some sort of home loan. The median home equity—home value minus home loans—soared to $201,000 in 2022 from $139,100 in 2019.
Retirement accounts. Among all families, 54.4% have a retirement account. Even in the age group where retirement accounts are most widespread—those ages 45 to 54—they’re held by just 62.2% of households. Those ages 65 to 74 had median retirement account balances of $200,000, enough to generate $670 in monthly income, assuming a 4% withdrawal rate.
Credit cards. Despite all the handwringing, credit card balances in inflation-adjusted terms are at their lowest levels since the 1990s. In 2022, 45.2% of families had card debt, down marginally from 2019, with a typical balance of $2,700 and an average balance of $6,120. Credit card debt is the most common form of debt, ahead of home loans, which 42.2% of families have, and car loans at 34.7%. Overall, 77.4% of families have some form of debt.
Education loans. Roughly a fifth of families have student loans, with a typical balance of $24,500 and an average balance of $46,980. These figures are little changed from three years earlier.
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My Money Education
LIKE MANY OF MY generation, I grew up in a family that never talked about money. I had some sense that I should save, but no sense of where to save. This made me susceptible to a lot of advice—both good and bad—that shaped my financial journey.
I married a teacher and I became a school-based speech pathologist. I knew we’d never be rich, but we would have a comfortable life. In those early days, the teachers’ lounge was often visited by guys I called “lounge lizards,” who pedaled 403(b) plans specifically for educators. I usually avoided the lounge on those days, but one salesman happened to visit on “Friday treat day.” As I walked into the lounge to grab a delicious treat, I overheard him say that people of my generation “will need $1 million to retire.” I thought to myself, “That’s absurd.” Yet the statement stayed with me and quickly became the foundation for my financial journey.
Fortunately, those 403(b) plans weren’t our only retirement savings option. At that time, our state retirement system—which covered school district employees—was providing a small match for those who saved in its 401(k) plan. Thinking about that $1 million, I opened my first 401(k) and saved just enough to get the match. Three months after I signed up, the match was eliminated. Still, the momentum of automatic savings had begun. A short time later, my husband opened his 401(k). We never thought about or missed the money that was deducted.
We also saved outside of our 401(k)s. When we amassed a small sum, we wanted to do more than just keep it in a savings account. We didn’t know where to invest it, so I asked my dad for advice. He gave me the name of his “guy,” who invested it in a few mutual funds and took 1.5% for himself. After a couple of years, we looked at our statements and thought, “Why are we paying this guy 1.5% while our money just sits in these funds? We can do that ourselves.”
Around this time, just as we were gaining the confidence to do our own investing, we made our biggest mistake. Two insurance agents were making a slick, compelling presentation in all of the local school districts about a new product that would make everyone a lot of money. We saw all of our colleagues signing up for it. One of the insurance agents was the trusted parent of one of my husband’s students, so we signed up, too.
“It” was variable universal life insurance. When we finally figured out it was complete garbage, it cost us $4,000 in surrender fees. That was painful, but we concluded it was better to lose $4,000 now than tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars later by sticking with the policies.
While feeling stupid and mad about being so gullible, I happened to be watching Suze Orman on PBS. I’m not a huge fan of following the advice of a financial personality. Still, Orman said something that profoundly affected our financial journey: “No one will ever care about your money as much as you do.” That’s when we finally agreed that we’d never again let anyone manage our money. We opened a brokerage account with Charles Schwab and transferred the mutual funds from my dad’s “guy” to our new account.
Eventually, we talked about starting a family. We read that four years of college would cost around $100,000 to $120,000 for a child born in the early 2000s. It was another absurd number, and yet it spurred us to save money for our son’s college education before he was even born. At the time, 529 plans were still new and most didn’t have great investment choices, so a Schwab advisor suggested we each open a Roth IRA and earmark the dollars we contributed for future college expenses. That advice was both good and bad. Arguably, no one should be dipping into retirement savings to fund a child’s college education. Still, the advice did get us to open and regularly contribute to Roth IRAs early in our careers.
Through all of this, we lived below our means. That advice was never spoken, but it was the behavior I learned from watching my parents. This allowed us to consistently put money into our 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. We worked to keep our living expenses low, so our savings naturally rose with each pay increase. When my husband became a school administrator, we continued to spend as if he still only had a teacher’s salary.
We also paid off our mortgage early, which then freed up money each month to cover our son’s college expenses. Thanks to that, along with a generous scholarship, we never touched those Roth IRAs for college costs. At the same time, we taught ourselves about low-cost index funds. Today, we keep our accounts simple, holding just a few low-expense ETFs and mutual funds.
My husband retired a year ago and I’ll retire in the next year or two. As our son gets ready to graduate, we gave him the only advice we ever needed: Live below your means, save early and automatically, and learn to be a do-it-yourself investor—because no one will ever care about your money as much as you do.
Allison Foster is a soon-to-be retired speech pathologist in Colorado. When she's not at school, she's busy hiking, biking and kayaking in the Colorado mountains. She's looking forward to exploring new trails in her retirement.
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