This begins a series of posts by MsMeta:
Liz Smith maintains that the only way to get old or sick or to retire is to have money. “I don’t think anybody can retire without money anymore, and it’s going to be proven now, in spades, with all of these people retiring,” says the legendary New York Post entertainment columnist in a group interview on wowowow.
The discussion itself is a trip, with Smith and fellow A-list (and aging) media mavens Jane Wagner, Judith Martin and Mary Wells discussing the possibilities of going to Germany for stem cell treatments, taking 200 “life-extension” vitamins a day and outliving their retirement incomes. I’d like to believe it was all tongue-in-cheek, but considering these women’s portfolios, I’m not convinced. They make bigger salaries, and likely pay less taxes, than anyone in my social set. (This type of post may be why I took wowowow off my blogroll. I just couldn’t relate.)
I have a friend who, every morning, rain or shine, checks her retirement stock portfolio. She is a nervous wreck. (Are we surprised?) I have other friends who have moved their long-planned-for retirement dates back by several years, and are still anxious. Me? I’m in one of those retirement salary lanes that will top out well before I reach 65, so I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Yet. But I will do something. I recently heard a great quote attributed to Frankie Valli of the Four Seasons, who said that, early in his pop stardom, he realized that he could only live in one room at a time and wear one pair of shoes at a time. It prepared him for the inevitable ups and downs of his career.
That outlook resonates with me.
Sometime around my late 30s, cranky and depressed about the growing income gap between me and some of my family members and neighbors (and my children’s friends’ parents, which is its own kind of problem), I decided to redefine rich, and I was surprised at what I came up with: Being rich is drinking fresh orange juice, having fresh flowers around the house, traveling and being able to eat out a few times a week. Oh, and the occasional pair of Italian-made shoes.
Most importantly, I decided, being rich is not about what you have, it’s about what you do. And do we did. We have a relatively modest house, a couple of used cars, 20-year-old furniture and a MOUNTAIN of ticket stubs: plane tickets, theatre tickets, movie tickets, professional sports tickets (for the boys), boat tickets, Disneyland tickets, valet parking tickets, etc. My kids didn’t get Mar-A-Lago, but they still talk about some happy summer vacations in a rundown beachfront house in Orange County.
While I cannot begin to predict what the future is going to throw at us, I know I can be happy with less. (So does Allison at Ask Allison. Heck, she’s even proved it.) Our one-level house will do for now, but we may have to relocate to smaller digs eventually. I’ll probably have to adjust my definition of “do,” which may not include triathlons, sky-diving and wind-surfing for much longer. Photography sounds good, as do yoga, writing, blogging and art history. For starters.
Will we Baby Boomers have to downsize? Short of an economic revolution in our favor, almost certainly. Do we have to be afraid of it? I hope not. It will all depend on the size of our retirement portfolios — and our souls.
Scary is right. My folks lived into their mid 80’s. Dad never had more than a middle class income but they lived within their means and along with two good pensions they lived very comfortably right up to the end.
I can’t say the same for my future. At 50, my husband (56) has sever coronary artery disease (no option for bypass/all arteries are too far gone) and can no longer work. I have a part-time with no medical insurance. That’s the truly frightening part. I’m looking into going back to school to improve my employment prospects. I live as healthy a life-style as I can and am desperately searching for a job with benefits – but as it stands right now, we are one illness or accident away from poverty.
Simplifying and downsizing is high on our list as is defining the good life. Many of the plans we had for mid-life and beyond are falling by the wayside, but we’re learning to enjoy life one day at a time.
I read and hear of others our age having to move back in with retired parents to make ends meet. Who’d have thought? My folks are gone and I can only be grateful they left me enough to pay the mortgage, or we’d be in foreclosure by now.
Ms Meta,
Great post, love it! It IS scary this question of how we’re all going to support ourselves in our old age. Especially since most of us can expect to live a long time.
Money DOES make everything easier, but I’m with you. Honestly even if I had a bazillion dollars, I want a simple life where I love the few things I have. My one pair of Italian shoes (that I wear until there is nothing left of them), the ability to buy fresh flowers occasionally, eat well and travel occasionally.
I think there are ways to live well on much less.
I published an article on WomenBloom about co-housing that talks about ways to live well by downsizing and sharing shelter costs, maybe even things like cars etc. And, Ms G over at http://www.Derfwadmanor.blogspot.com was joking about having a Women’s Colony basically a co-housing variation on a theme. It’s an idea worth exploring:
http://womenbloom.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=64
This is something I struggle with. I want to quit my job and focus on my other interests, some of which are income-producing. My main concern is affording health care. And learning to live on less again. We were low-income for years but not poor. We ate fresh from our farm–real butter and whipped cream, strawberries, honey from our bees, heated with wood, and enjoyed the privacy afforded by 80 acres in deep country.
Now I’m older and I wonder if I can do it again. Back then, we didn’t have health insurance and didn’t worry about it. 20 years later, it’s higher on my list of must-haves. I have 5 years before I can draw social Security, and my 401K is enough to pay off everything we owe (I know, that’s supposed to be a bad idea but I’m more scared of having bills in retirement than I am of being low-income), and still have a little–but not a lot–left over.
Have I become security-crazed by 15 years of a steady income? or just more sensible? I’m never sure of the answer to that.
Thanks all for the comments. There was a time, Rhea, when I would have laughed at the Alpo reference, but I remember an Ann Landers column about seniors eating catfood that shocked me. People really do resort to such things. I also read an article over the weekend that claimed that 40 percent of people age 45-55 have $25,000 or less saved toward retirement! While I still believe that we can still be happy even if we have to downsize, I’m afraid some of us will be downsizing to nearly nothing.
Money makes everything easier. I hope I have enough to survive old age without restoring to Alpo.
Going to live in a third world country for a while helps too. Our kids really dropped the “poor me” attitude, once they saw how most of the world lives. But be forewarned, they might not “fit in” quite as well, after shifting to a global way of thinking.
excellent post, ms meta. sometimes it’s difficult not to get caught up in the privilege tailspin, but someone once told me – think of yourself as if you’re on the freeway, stay in your lane and don’t mind the other cars that pass you. that helps me.