Best Towns For Baby Boomers? Where are New Jersey Towns?
Posted by Rosie on February 19, 2009
Is your town there? Maybe we should move?
“Forty-Something” Man Moves into Assisted Living Community
Posted by Rosie on January 27, 2009
Local publisher strives to inspire adult children to be more aware of the experiences their aging parents have in transition.
Vienna, Va. – Steve Gurney is 43 years old, exactly half the national average age of residents living in assisted living communities. On Feb. 9, Gurney will experience first hand what it is like to move into one of these communities by taking up temporary residence at Paul Spring Retirement Community in Alexandria, Va. The independent living community that offers assisted living services will be the first many for Gurney.
Nearly 20 years ago, Gurney founded the Guide to Retirement Living SourceBook, a comprehensive resource that provides details on all of the senior living options in the mid-Atlantic. He said, “I realized that I have spent my entire career helping families and elders make these choices, but I have never experienced the transition first hand as a resident. I will be using this experience to help families better understand this important life transition.”
Gurney will not be utilizing this experience to evaluate the level of care and amenities or to determine if a specific community or option is “good” or “bad.” Instead, he will be focusing specifically on the feelings and emotions that an individual faces when moving to a new and different living environment.
The inspiration for this project began last September when Gurney was taking his children to their first day of school. He said, “When I give my kids encouragement about their first day of school, it’s authentic because they know I have been through the same experience. This made me realize that I need to be more authentic by going through the same experiences that the readers of our publication and website are facing.”
Gurney recognizes that his experience will be somewhat artificial due to his age and the fact that he will not be a permanent resident. However, by focusing specifically on the emotions accompanying the transition of leaving his home, he feels that he will be able to share important insights with others.
After his stay at Paul Spring, Gurney plans to take up residence at a continuing care retirement community, nursing home, an independent living community for low-income seniors, and an Alzheimer’s-specific community. “Most people don’t recognize the wide variety of choices,” said Gurney. “By living as a resident in five different types of communities, I hope that this experience will also help families better understand the options.”
Gurney plans to document his experiences through a blog at Pro Aging and in articles in Guide to Retirement Living SourceBook.
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About Guide to Retirement Living SourceBook
Guide to Retirement Living SourceBook is a comprehensive resource to help individuals, families and professionals identify every option in the mid-Atlantic (VA, DC, MD, DE, PA, and NJ). Each issue and the robust website at http://www.guidetoretirementliving.com detail the costs, services and amenities of all retirement communities, assisted living communities, nursing homes and services helping individuals age in place. Free copies or more information can be obtained by visiting http://www.guidetoretirementliving.com or calling 1-800-394-9990.
Baby Boomers-7 Reasons To Join Boomerater.com
Posted by Rosie on January 23, 2009
I just joined boomerater and I discovered seven reasons why you might want to join also.
1, User friendly site, easy to navigate and easy to sign up!
2. You are asked you for your opinion on the first page. Since the site is still in BETA, (That means they are still working out the bugs and adding improvements) it is a great opportunity to share your snags and suggestions.
3. Information Packed Forums which gives you the opportunity to ask questions, have discussions and share advice and experiences with other Boomeraters. So far, the forums cover topics and answers questions related to the areas listed below:
- Financial
- Housing & Community
- Health & Fitness
- Family & Relationships
- Travel
- Shopping
- Interests & Passions and
- Career
- 4. They have Special features which include:
Find a financial advisor
Where you can search their database of over 3,500 advisors and read what other Boomeraters have said about their advisors. COULD YOU PUT YOUR NAME THERE?
Search for vacation ideas-I know a travel expert who would love to share some ideas here.
Planning a trip or quick getaway? Get great travel ideas by checking out trips taken by other Boomeraters.
Search their shopping database
You will see products personally recommended by other Boomers in things such as Gadgets & Gizmos and Fit for Life. Oh, my I wonder if you could reccommend your own products?
Find your perfect town
Now this is about retirement locations, but once again, you know my feelings about that. I call them transition locations. But it is a super helpful feature. You can read town ratings and reviews and get detailed town profiles to help you find the perfect place to relocate or retire.
5. You can increase the font size of the Boomerater site
6. The profile questions make you think and relate to baby boomers. Although I am a wee bit rebellious with some of my answers. (I have been talking with the author of Fiesty over Fifty.)
7. There is room for growth and contributions from your expertise and experiance.
Of course, I would like to see a section on online marketing and blogging and yes, I will make the suggestion. Right now, I have a question about what to do if your site gets hacked since one of mine received a visit. But that is another post. Meanwhile, please go on over, share your insights and tell them I sent you.
When Can I Retire-Suze Orman Answers
Posted by Rosie on November 30, 2008
Someone wrote to Suze Orman and asked the question many baby boomers are asking. “When Can I Retire?” I was listening to her show on TV while at the computer and decided to go to one her sites. This was a question that she answered for a baby boomer. Read it and I may post more of her answers for you to review.
When Can I Retire?
My wife (53) and I (49) have been married for 20 years and live in the San Francisco Bay area. We live simply, have no children, have no debt, own our home (3,000 sq. ft. in a nice area), are in good health, have a long-term care policy, and have $1.2 million in cash equivalents and tax deferred investments. At age 65 I will be eligible for Social Security and approximately $43 thousand a year in pension benefits. At age 56 my wife will qualify for $43 thousand a year in inflation-adjustable pension benefits.We have listened to your specials on KQED and have benefited from your wisdom. Lately we ask ourselves, “When can we realistically retire?” Do you have any advice?
Whether or not you’re ready to retire depends on the answers to two questions. One is emotional; the other is financial. The emotional question is, Do you know how you want to spend your time after you stop defining yourself by your career and start identifying yourself by who you are? Thinking this through is more difficult than most people imagine. Please give it a lot of thought.
Now to the financial part. Since the average life expectancy of a person in good health extends in to the late 80’s, many of us will spend more years in retirement than we spent working. For you, right now, retirement might mean a period of 30 to 35 years or longer. So the following question has to be asked and answered: How long will your retirement income last? Will it last for 35 years-or for 45 or 50 years if you’re one of the growing number of people who live into their 100s? Twenty-five years from now, will you and your wife still be able to live on a combined $86,000 in pension income, plus Social Security and the conservatively estimated interest income that can be taken from your investments? I say that this interest income must be “conservatively estimated” because I want you to calculate your future income based on interest from very safe investments, and also to be sure that you project a level of interest that it’s realistic to believe you can obtain. In this environment, I would not project above 6 percent a year. Please also be sure that you won’t have to invade your principal.
About your tax-deferred accounts: Take into consideration that, if and when you start withdrawing money from those accounts, you must first pay taxes on that money. After taxes, how much will really be left to generate income for you and your wife? Also, take into consideration what would happen if one of you were to die. Would one pension stop or be reduced? Finally, please remember to calculate that the one who remains will also be losing one social security check.
So this is how to figure out whether and when to retire. Calculate your true living expenses today and what you project into the future. Remember to add in expenses that you may not be incurring now, such as medications, additional help around the house, etc., and take into consideration future inflation of at least three percent a year. Next calculate your income and expenses if one of you should die. Bottom line: If the surviving spouse or life partner has more than enough money to meet the bills today and 30 years or more into the future, happy retirement, my friend! If not, keep a working and saving.
Is The Retirement of Baby Boomers Hurting The Economy?
Posted by Rosie on October 3, 2008
Baby boomers are a large part of the economy in the US. Many do not want to retire but earlyretirement buyouts or attempts to save money by companies are encouraging the trend. An interesting article done in 2007 suggested that the retirement of baby boomers could hurt our economy. Read it here then give your insights.
