Hidden Secrets about Aging and Retirement - Part 3 of a 3 Part Series

We have all heard it said that you are only as old as you feel, right? Well, I have news for you. Your feelings are lying to you! Truth is you are only as old as you think you are! Through this final chapter of our three part series on aging and retirement, I hope to demonstrate that what we have all heard about aging, getting older, and our retirement years has all been propaganda!!!

I have recently written a couple of hubs surrounding how people should be using what they know to take them where they want to go. That the life that you and I now have, for good or for bad really is all in our minds. Through those articles, and the different writing assignments that I have done as a freelance writer, I discovered something interesting that I guess I had never really thought too much about before. Everything we know, hear, and read is simply propaganda.

• It’s what we do with that propaganda that makes the difference.

Sorting through the fifty shades of grey

While I have not watched the movie, nor have I read the book by a similar title, I do find that it fits appropriately within the context of our topic on propaganda. There are three types of propaganda, White, Grey, and Black. The White propaganda and the black are pretty self-explanatory; however it is within the “Grey-zone”, that people can lose their way. The Grey-zone around aging and retirement must be looked at for exactly what it is; a mine field of misinformation.

• You need a half of a million dollars or more in your retirement fund before you retire.

This is one of those topics that really gets me on my soapbox. We have all seen the commercial, at least here in the USA, with a group of people stretching out ribbons representing how much money they will need in retirement, Right? Can I just raise my voice and say, BULL! And here is why.

Let’s look at this without the Hype and scare tactics:

While our average life expectancy is up to 78 years of age, many are living full and rewarding lives into their 90’s and beyond.

So you basically can say that if you retire at age 65, you are looking at having 20+ years after your working years. This is where many financial companies induce F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real).

• They tell us that we should worry Today about Tomorrow, without providing anything but hype about the doom and gloom of the future. I ask you, what good has ever come from worry?

• 1/4 = 0-25 yoa spent learning about the world and people

• 1/4 = 26-45 yoa spent raising a family and working

• 1/4 = 46-65 yoa spent career building and saving

• 1/4 = 66-80+ yoa retirement

Interestingly enough through my research I discovered an article published in Money magazine April 15, 2013, giving some wealth building tips to people 35-44 years old. See that fits within our Second Life Phase shown above.

According to the article, the cost of raising kids from age 0 to 17 years of age costs on about 5 times your annual income.

• And let me ask this, if we waited to start having kids when we could afford them, we would have never had children. Would you?

• Then why do we think that we should buy into the hype about our building our retirement at the same time while we are trying to raise our children?

Can you see how the added stress of building a retirement fund account at the same time as raising a family can make us a little crazy with money worries? No wonder so many have sleepless nights worrying about money!

• That is why I believe my Life Phase Chart for De-Stressing your Life is vitality important to teach our children.

• Knowing what life phase you are in allows you to learn and enjoy the different phases!

In the second phase of life, typically called the child bearing or child raising phase your focus should be on living beneath your income level, and teaching your children how to allocate money.

Unfortunately, if you didn’t get the lesson yourself when you were in the first life phase, this will be a challenge for you; however it’s not impossible to learn. However, this is a topic for another time, and will be discussed at a later time.

• The point that I wanted to make clear was that knowing your Life Phase will uncomplicated your financial life as well as your overall well-being. Not to mention your sleeping patterns.

See how the advice from my other mother, Mary P. in part 2 of this article series is truly a key to enjoying life without worry when you live within the Life Phase you’re currently in!

• 1/4 = 0-25 yoa spent learning about the world and people

• 1/4 = 26-45 yoa spent raising a family and working

• 1/4 = 46-65 yoa spent career building and saving

• 1/4 = 66-80+ yoa retirement

With the average child rearing age couple going up, which tends to flip flop the Life Phases that have been outlined. However, the Life Phase Chart, I believe is still applicable, just the middle two Phases are in the process of flip flopping a bit. As a general rule, the third life phase of your life, is where most of your retirement funding will come from.

You hear mysterious reports that say that most workers haven’t saved anything for retirement. Well, guess what? The reason is because they are still raising children. I can’t say this enough, when you are raising children, if you aren’t one of the ones that flipped your Family phase and Career building-savings phase you will not have anything to save.

• Ok, so basically I have told you here that if you aren’t at least 46 years old, you shouldn’t be overly concerned about your retirement fund or lack thereof…you are right on track, you are raising the next generation.

While the actual term for Social Security benefit payments are actually called “Entitlements”. And while this has had a lot of “airtime” all across the internet these days, let’s look at these entitlements rationally for a moment, without the propaganda, hype and fear.

When the Social Security payments first came into being through FDR’s New Deal program, it was designed specifically to help the aging, children and the disabled.

• America’s children that are promised a Matching Funds program (Social Security Tax) toward our golden sunset years because the employers couldn’t or wouldn’t help provide for workers and their families. Many of whom would work until they dropped dead on the job.

As I stated at the beginning of this series, “Thank God we planned on 70, so that we are ok at 60”. Now I can say Thank God that we seek out the Truth of the matter and refused to swallow the propaganda and lies about getting older and planning for retirement.

Monthly Social Security Entitlements

Each year the Social Security administration mails out an annual statement that every wage earner should at least look at when it comes in. This annual statement includes every payment that you have put into the social security tax program and what you are entitled to receive upon reaching retirement or disability from your very first paycheck written after December 31, 1939.

While I am not a professional financial planner, attorney, or any other legal representation, what I have provided is fully researched information and have and am personally experiencing. Basically, it is our own personal opinion and financial advice.

We can not be held responsible if you chose to look at retirement with a different perspective after having read it in it's entirety. And it is always possible that your results might be a bit different than ours due to different circumstances in different situations.

What we use to call an accident, has become a blessing in disguise simply because we have been allowed behind the "Veil of Fear" that surrounds aging and retirement.

We are willing to do the research and provide you information to help calm your fears about life, aging and retirement.

I also invite you to ask your questions, and if we don't know, we will help you discover the facts before you get bogged down in the propaganda.

1. Monthly Social Security Entitlement payments at age 70 years of age are approximately one-half of your last annual salary divided into 12 equal monthly payments.
2. Taking your social security entitlements early, you leave approximately 30% of what you would have received at age 70 on the administration’s table fund.
3. Social Security Disability entitlements are automatically bumped to the amount you would receive at your full retirement age. (Still a loss of monthly income based on age 70 of approximately 15%)
4. Medicare doesn’t start until age 65 or 2 years after you have been receiving disability payments. (That means that you will be responsible for providing your own health insurance…and Cobra ain’t cheap or long winded. As a matter of fact I have witnessed where having employer paid insurance as part of a pension/cobra plan can actually hurt you financially when it comes to considering accepting the lower cost Medicare premiums.)
5. When spouses reach early or full retirement age, they can actually receive one-half of what the highest wage earner is entitled to and this is while everyone is still alive and well, just receiving entitlements or suspended entitlements.

It was through what we believe to be our God Given choices that led us to see clearly early on in our marriage that the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt still rings true; “The only thing to fear is fear itself”, because once you cut through the BULL and find out the facts, life, aging and retirement isn’t quite so scary.