The Platinum Living Network

There’s an interesting, and I think, encouraging thing about mortality tables. No, seriously, I mean it. Here’s a table right from the social security website . Actually, there’s a lot of good stuff on the social security site . I think I’ll add it as a Platinum Web Site …. There, that’s done. Let’s start with my current status. I am a male, age 61. The table says that out of 100,000 of us born in 1946, there are 83,653 of us left. No that’s not the encouraging part, although it’s undeniably happier to be among the 83,653 than among the 16,347 … but I digress. The table also says that my probability of death this year is .014617, or 1.4617% No that’s not the encouraging part, either, especially if you’re among the 1121 of us who will croak this year. No, here’s the encouraging part. When I was born, my life expectancy was 74.40 years. Having reached my 61st birthday, my life expectancy is 80.24 years. On my 62nd birthday, my life expectancy will be 80.50. In other words, for every year...

Before I forget, I should mention that, based on the stellar article that got me going yesterday, “ Boomers’ Eagerness to Retire Could Cost Them ," and some other fine stuff, I’ve added USA Today’s Retirement Section as a “Platinum Web Site.” Now on to “new business” …

While I'm working on a new "Platinum Finance" section of our sister website, www.platinum years.com (OK, and watching a little football - This is my favorite football watching weekend of the year, and so far, it hasn't disappointed), I thought I'd give you some links to some excellent financial websites with entire sections on Personal Finance and retirement: http://www.marketwatch.com/personalfinance/retirement - MarketWatch was run by CBS until recently but is currrently labelled "from Dow Jones." It is my primary source for general stock market news during the trading day, but they also have many good articles on many financial topics, including retirement. http://quote.yahoo.com/retirement - This is better known as Yahoo Finance. I actually use this more than Marketwatch because it is better for researching individual stocks. Again, they have a specific Retirement section with tons of valuable information. http://www.fool.com/retirement.htm?so...

I knew at a pretty early age that I was interested in finance. I remember begging my father to let me take my lawn mowing money and buy a stock with it. The only one he would let me buy was A T & T, which proved to be a modest loser. But in my second job, as a dock boy at a local marina, I used to listen to some of the boat owners talk to their brokers over the pay phone in our office. One guy in particular convinced me of the merits of a stock called Lear Siegler. Founded by Learjet inventor William Lear, they had developed an automated system for landing planes in zero visibility situations (this was in the 1960s, mind you). I was convinced to buy, and since I already had the account from the A T & T, I called the broker myself and invested a summer’s worth of lawn mowing money, buying 100 shares of Lear at 12 5/8. I remember the first few weeks of owning that stock. My pay as a dock boy was $1.25 per hour, so every 1/8 that Lear went up or down represented more than a day’s ...