The Platinum Living Network

My regular readers may recognize that "Number, Schmumber" phrase in today's title, because I've mentioned before that there's a tentative chapter called "Number, Schmumber," in my book-in-process, Platinum Living . My feeling is that one's retirement "number" is a moving target at best, and coming up with one requires a lot of static assumptions at a time when retirement itself is becoming more and more of a dynamic proposition. To underscore my skepticism, here's a link to a June 9th article from Yahoo Finance entitled, "Is $1 Million Enough to Retire On?" I have recommended several Yahoo Finance articles in the past, but this is not one of them, except as an example of how narrow retirement thinking can get. Yep, this one really set off my " Retirement Hogwash Detector ." For example, the first heading has the scary title, "It's probably not enough," in bold, followed by a quote from the author, Mic...

A while back, I reviewed the top ten Boomer web sites, and at the time, it turned out that my favorite happened to be PC Magazine's #1 rated site, BoomerTowne ( see my review of April 19 ). I can't say that I visit ANY of the others with any regularity, but BoomerTowne has stuck as a fun site to visit, play games and trivia contests, read jokes and quotes, etc. I used to play some of the games at Yahoo Games, but these are just as good, so now, when my brain is fried, I head to BoomerTowne games instead. There was one other feature of BoomerTowne that intrigued me. They give BoomerTowne points for just about all the things you do there. Play a game? 10 Points. Rate a joke? 3 Points. Identify the song in the weekly contest? 100 points. They even give you 35 points for your first log in each day. The reason that I'm bringing this up now is that I thought I'd see how long it took me to get to the threshold where the points had actual cash value. For me, that was a couple ...

There’s an article in today’s Personal Finance section of Yahoo Finance called “ Secret Ways to Boost Your Social Security ,” so naturally, it caught my eye. The author, Mary Beth Franklin of Kiplinger.com , outlines four strategies that do just that. For you faithful Platinum Years readers, the first one will sound very familiar, since it involves paying back your social security to obtain a higher monthly benefit, a topic we covered in a series in February, most notably here , here , and here . Franklin does a good job explaining it, though, so it's a good refresher. There's also an interesting example of someone who took out a second mortgage to repay benefits and is using the increased payment to pay back the second mortgage. There is also a clarification of the tax consequences of paying back your social security. If any of your social security benefits that you pay back were taxed along the way, you can get a refund, either through a tax deduction or a tax credit, whiche...

I saw an article tonight that reminded me of the reasons why I started Platinum years. It was on MarketWatch.com and was entitled, " How to Spot Retirement Hogwash ." The article wasn't new, but it's basically about core principles that do not change. And it includes this warning from author Robert Powell about being careful to discern what we really want out of life: "The retirement industry wants to define your retirement for you," said Nelson. "Instead of choosing a way to live, they want you to buy a lifestyle. Instead of reflecting on your values, they want you to value consuming the right investments, the right insurance, the right real estate, the right travel, the right retail goods and the right anti-aging products. Instead of discovering your identity, they want you to simply identify yourself as a consumer. They want images of products and services dancing in your head so that you make acquiring them the goal and the purpose of your retireme...

Whatever happened to the "Me Generation," the not-too-flattering description of the supposedly self-centered baby boomer generation? It turns out we're not so bad after all, according to an article in yesterday's Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: "Though sometimes referred to as the "me" generation, research is exposing boomers as "we" activists with a humanitarian focus. Sixty percent of boomers believe that work in retirement should help the community, according to a 2005 survey by Princeton Research Associates. Boomers name education, health care, youth, arts and culture and the environment as issues to tackle. Women in their 50s are especially mission-driven, with 70 percent saying it is very important that a job in retirement "give you a sense of purpose." This is not news to us or our regular readers, but I just thought I'd mention it as a followup to my article on "paid volunteerism." - Bob

One of the main tenets of the "Platinum Years Network" is that the onslaught of boomers into their the so-called "retirement years" will have a huge impact on our culture. Many of us still have a lot to contribute, and a lot of us are a little short in our retirement funding. Both of these factors contribute to the statistic that I often repeat here, that over 80% of boomers do not plan to retire in the way our parents did, and many of us do not plan to ever retire in the traditional sense. Now comes an article from Yahoo Finance via the New York Times that illustrates one of the first cultural changes brought about by boomers. Entitled "For Love and a Little Money," this article describes a rapidly growing trend toward "paid volunteerism" that I predict will snowball into a cultural norm. In many cases, such volunteers need some compensation to make up a retirement income shortfall, or perhaps build a war chest against the time when work will b...

Many of my friends began joking about having "senior moments" a few years ago. I generally joked back that I've been having them since my teaching days, which allowed me to use the convenient "absent minded professor" excuse. But today, the New York Times website carried an article, " Older Brain May Be a Wiser Brain ," that suggests that senior moments may actually be a sign of wisdom. This has to be wonderful news for all of us who sometimes walk into a room having forgotten why we made the trip, or my personal specialty, beginning a sentence and forgetting where I was going with it. In fact, according to a new edition of a neurology book entitled " Progress in Brain Research ," what actually happens to adults as they age is a "gradually widening focus of attention that makes it more difficult to latch onto just one fact." I think this is true of my mid-sentence blankouts, as I tend to talk too often in parentheticals (someth...