Keen On Retirement

In this two-part blog series, I’m going to discuss how to plan for your transition away from employer-subsidized health care to Medicare. Today, we’ll go through the options available to folks who choose to retire early, meaning before they’re eligible for Medicare at age 65.

I believe that stress reduction should be a much bigger focus throughout our lives, especially as we near retirement age. The world we live in today bombards us with near-constant information overload, and that massive stress, in turn, can lead to true clinical anxiety and even physical illness.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology established the AgeLab to study new trends in longevity and come up with ideas and technologies that can improve people’s lives as they age. The AgeLab has determined that having enough money to sustain your retirement is only one part of the equation – a common theme on Keen on Retirement as well! In a recent article, Director Joseph Coughlin, PhD, poses three important questions that retirees should ask themselves to prepare for a long and happy retirement.

With all the modern comforts and services available to us, it’s really not surprising that many folks are deciding to “retire in place” and spend their golden years enjoying the familiar comforts of home. Plus today’s seniors are, by and large, healthier, more active, more connected, and more self-sufficient than previous generations. That means they’re also better-equipped to care for themselves longer before turning to alternative living arrangements, such as moving in with adult children or assisted living.

I’ve often seen parents, who have the best intentions, provide ongoing financial support to their adult children that comes at the expense of the parents’ retirement savings. There’s a delicate balance here between our desire as parents to help our children and our need to protect our retirement nest eggs.

More often than not, the milestones we look back on in the financial services industry are negative in nature: Black Monday in 1987, the dot com bubble burst around 2000, the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, The Great Recession of 2007 – 2009, the Flash Crash of 2010. Even as we remember how these events made life incredibly difficult for a lot of folks in the moment, the economic lessons we learn tend to trend positive: time and time again, our resilient economy continues its long-term upward trajectory.