HAPPY ABOUT BEING A BABY BOOMER:

Listen up, Boomers! I just learned about a great company and free web search tool to help you make decisions about Medicare health plans - something that we'll all have to deal with very soon (and we all should be planning now!). The company is Joppel, and the website is http://www.joppel.com/. By entering a few variables at their website, their speedy algorithm determines the right set of plans and coverage to meet your needs. Visit their site and try it out!

Wow, the healthcare debate has gone ballistic, and we Boomers are firmly caught in the middle. No matter which version of the healthcare changes makes its way into law (if it does), it will affect us in two ways. The first will be our health insurance NOW, before we retire. (Remember that health insurance is one of the big 3 expenses in longevity planning.) There may be changes that affect our ability to get, keep, or pay for health insurance. Then, in about 3 years when Boomers approach their 65th birthdays, it's MEDICARE time.

Why do I focus on expense-based planning in my book? For the simple reason that our primary goal is to make sure we can pay for our basic living costs during those extra decades (what I call our Longevity Cost). The only way to do that is to look at what we are spending now and then project that into the future! You can't do it by income. My income may be higher, lower, or may not exist when I get ready to retire, but my expenses will likely continue To me, using the expense-based approach is the only way to do that because it's the variable that you can control, for the most part.

Yesterday, June 25th, 2009, was a real shocker. We lost two of our own, both Baby Boomers, at the opposite ends of the Boomer age range. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson left their imprint on acting and singing, and their legacies will live on. When I see people my own age die (whether they are ordinary people or famous celebrities), I begin to wonder about our supposed longevity again. I think it serves to remind us to live more in the present, because longevity is not guaranteed. Statistically, there is a likelihood that we will live longer, but many of us won't make it.

I've had a lot of conversations with my Boomer friends lately, many of whom were featured in Chapter 8 of the book (Personal Stories). It seems that everyone is affected in some way by the current economic crisis, and many Boomers are having to re-examine the income side of their retirement plan. Most everyone's 401k and IRA accounts have taken a hit, so we are resigned to figuring out where else to find the money; the most common source will be from working, and working more years than we thought. Ouch, a real re-balancing act.

To celebrate spring (oh, and the April 15th tax deadline), I am offering a special price of $12.00 each (or 2 for $23) !!! This special pricing is ONLY AVAILABLE via email, NOT the "Buy the Book" button above. Send an email to this address:

Okay Boomers, it's that time of year. Get out that shoebox full of receipts from 2008 and put together your Where'd It Go? report for 2008. It's especially important to do this now because you may need to make some serious adjustments in your spending this year to prepare for our deteriorating economy (and the hit that your 401(k)s took in the last few months). So get out your books, turn to page 27 and get to work. Don't have the book?

Well, Boomers, the next few years will be rocky!! That's my take on the election results and the subsequent dive in the markets. Hold onto your investments and don't do anything rash. Wait for things to settle down on the economic front. Remember that you won't have to dip into those IRAs or 401(k)s just yet, so things can turn around. Even though things look grim right now, the market will come back up at some point. If you're very close to retiring from your job, you might want to consider staying a little longer --to help pay that mortgage and continue your health insurance.

Posted September 30, 2008
What a wild week, and it's not over yet! My fellow Boomers and I are wondering about the impact to our retirement plans, in other words, will be able to??? My advice: calm down, retrieve your baseline Longevity Plan and take a look at it to assess the impact.

I have been learning about this growing trend of "aging in place", mainly because my 88-year-old mother is doing just that. What I didn't know was the infinite range of in-home services available; it is quite remarkable. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, "aging in place' refers to an alternative to assisted living or nursing home care for the elderly. It means the person is able to stay in their home with services brought to them.