“In the U.S., the economy has been rough since 2008,” said John DeHart, co-founder and chief executive of Nurse Next Door. “You have a lot of seasoned executives getting packages, and they’re looking for new careers. And you have this disproportionately high unemployment in the under-25 group. With that you get the dad/grad trend.”
Million Hearts is a national initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017.
I can start collecting Social Security Benefits any time from age 62 to 70. The earlier I take them, the less my benefit will be, so there is some strategy to deciding when to pull the trigger. I want to figure out the ideal time to do it, and I'm also curious how much money I would have had to save up to provide the same stream of income that Social Security will provide. So I did a little calculating to see how much difference it makes.
This calculator will show you the average number of additional years a person can expect to live, based only on the gender and date of birth you enter.
Compute the present value of an annuity, for instance, to compute how much money you would have to have invested to provide a stream of income equivalent to your Social Security or Pension benefit.
View an estimate of your Social Security benefits based on your actual work record. Requires login.
It's sad to see someone get to retirement without enough money to make it through. It's even sadder to see someone save all their life and then lose it needlessly. Many Boomers realize that retirement may be the perfect time to start a new business, maybe that business you've always dreamed of owning. But Boomers have two things that make them attractive targets for schemes that may or may not be in their best interest: they may have a pool of cash that they saved up for retirement and some significant equity in their home.
No one really thinks they're going to be sick or incapacitated. There's a tendency to assume that we can keep bad things at bay by watching our diet and getting exercise. And those things are great and necessary, but they won't necessarily keep us well throughout retirement. It's sad to see people put off the things they want to do until retirement, never realizing that they may end up with health problems that may make those things difficult or impossible to do. And chronic diseases happen even to people who are scrupulously careful about what they eat and do.
As I think about options for things I could do in retirement, I realize I sometimes hedge my bets. I probably want some sort of a job, but not full time. I'd like to volunteer, but on my own schedule.
I see other people doing this too, avoiding a real commitment to anything. And I realize that it's going to be hard to find a meaningful job or task that doesn't requirement any commitment. Part time jobs with flexible schedules are not likely to accomplish anything significant.
If I want to make a difference, I'm going to have to make a commitment.
