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Miscellaneous thoughts and ramblings
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
 
Prepare for Retirement
Ben Stein wrote an article for Yahoo on preparing for retirement. He made an insightful comparison between Hurrican Katrina and retirement. Said he, "Those who prepared [for the hurricane] got off relatively cheap. Those who had an evacuation plan, plenty of canned food, flashlights, medicines, and batteries got away from the storm or weathered it while others struggled. The hurricane that's coming now is called retirement. It's a storm that's been forecast over and over and it's bearing down on 78 million baby boomers. For most of them, the preparations have been pitifully small."

I agree. If you don't know what you'll need to live comfortably in retirement, you've got work to do. When you figure it out, the next step is planning how to get there. I found that a spreadsheet is a useful tool. I've forecasted the contributions, expenses, and investment returns that I expect to see throughout my earning years and my retirement years. I consider any combination of variables that puts my kids through college, lets me play golf once a week, and gets me to age 90 with more than $0 a winning formula.
Comments:
What a great topic!

B&C is the boss here and I'm blissfully ignorant of the details. I think the big fuzzy picture is like this. We have some money in a 401K or some such thing back from when I was a mild-mannered employee of a major metropolitan medical center. Since going into private practice, though, we haven't funded our retirement much. Au contraire, we had to borrow a lot to make the transition. We have many unfunded future obligations, like college for the kids. Our retirement is somewhere at the bottom of the list.

The Strategic Coach Program has an interesting take on retirement. They teach that people who are unfulfilled in their career and don't take enough free time see retirement as an escape. The goal is to build a career that generates value for others (=money for you) while also being meaningful and emotionally rewarding. Combine that with enough free time, and you won't want to retire; you'll want to keep doing what you enjoy as long as your health permits. This jives with what I see in my patients. I have healthy people in their 80s still working part time, not because they have to, because they like it. That doesn't mean we don't have to save, of course. You shouldn't count on perfect health or great longevity…

Dear readers: If you're financially very successful and wish to contribute to my retirement, please consider seeing me as a patient!
 
Move out of the blue states. I'm ready when you are.
 
Of course I am all in favor of you spending your golden years however you want, whether that is in a fulfilling career or a God-fearing red state full of guns and low taxes. I am also in favor of you having the financial means to have choices when you are older, and that seldom happens by accident.
 
"whether that is in a fulfilling career or a God-fearing red state full of guns and low taxes"

You act as though there would have to be a choice. There would not.It is much more likely to live in a red state and do well than it is to live in a blue state and do well.
 
No contradiction was implied. I was directly responding to both you (Mr. Red State) and Bean (Mr. Fulfilling Career).
 
ROFL! No worries. It was just worded oddly.

Hey, we need good doctors here too. I'd do a lot to get a decent doctor, I haven't had much success.
 
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