All posts by Financial Independence Hub

How Travel prepares you for the unexpected

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Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Even before we met, as individuals, Billy and I have always loved to travel.

I have written about my cross-country adventure on the back of a motorcycle when I was 19. Billy also traveled with his van to Guatemala in the 1970s and back again to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.

As a couple we lived and journeyed through Europe for six months before we purchased our restaurant in Santa Cruz, California.

These trips were life-changing experiences and we just got hooked on adventure.

When we left the traditional work force in 1991, we sold everything and began to travel the world. These experiences forced us to be flexible even when we didn’t want to be.

Power outages

For instance, when we lived on the tiny island of Nevis, West Indies, every afternoon or early evening, the power in our home would go out. It could happen at 4pm or at 7:30, but it would happen. Lights would go out and the TV would click off (right as the plot thickened in the movie we were watching). The pump bringing water to the kitchen sink or toilets wouldn’t work without the electricity, so things like doing the dishes, taking a shower or using the restroom had to be prepared for in advance.

We read books by flashlight or had discussions on future travel plans.

No running water!

Speaking of taking a shower, in Nevis we shared the Governor of Nevis’s home with other housemates who were opening the Nevis Four Seasons Resort on the island.

Aside from us and Billy’s best friend who was the head chef, all the rest of the roomies were young twenty-somethings and used to First World Living. One young woman would start her hot shower, go to the kitchen, toast bread, smother it in peanut butter and jelly, eat the sandwich, then return to a steam-filled bathroom with the water still running and take her hot shower.

As natural water-savers ourselves, we thought this was over the top.

However, we had no idea how much so, until one day … we found out the cistern was empty. The only way the tank was filled was by rain that fell or by water trickling out of the city’s pipes from 10 am to 11 am daily. And by trickle, we mean drizzle by drop.

Our spectacular house in Nevis, West Indies with a view of the Atlantic Ocean

We were out of water, with all the conveniences that running water brings to living, so how were we going to take a shower?

Being in the tropics, rain came fairly regularly, like every other day or so. One morning around 9:30, it was a typical tropical downpour. Billy and I saw the flooding of water through the gutters and into our rain barrels and we both grabbed towels and soap. Moving a barrel and standing under the drainpipe of the gutter we lathered up and enjoyed this pleasure of a beautiful shower out in nature. The jungle and sugar cane fields pushed up against our house, and we had a straight shot of Nevis’ volcano. Spectacular.

Then … the rain stopped.

Oh Lord. There we were, soaped up, naked, and out in our back yard when the maid popped in for her thrice weekly cleaning. Continue Reading…

Another emotional reason to take CPP early

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By Michael J. Wiener

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

 

For some reason, people seem wired to want to take their CPP and OAS benefits early, myself included. They grasp for reasons to justify this emotional need even though a rational evaluation of the facts often points to delaying the start of these pensions to get larger payments. I recently read about another emotional reason to justify taking CPP and OAS early.

We can choose to start taking CPP anywhere from age 60 to 70, but the longer we wait, the higher the payments. Less well known is that we can start taking OAS anywhere from age 65 to 70 with higher payments for waiting loger. It’s hard for us to fight the strong desire to take the money as soon as possible, and we tend to latch onto good-sounding reasons to take these pensions early.

But the truth is that most of us have to plan to make our money last in case we live long lives. Taking CPP and OAS early would give us a head start, but the much-higher payments we’d get starting at age 70 allow us to catch up quickly. If we live long lives, taking larger payments starting at age 70 is often the winning strategy.

Here I examine reasons to take these pensions early, ending with a longer discussion of the reason newest to me. Many of these reasons are inspired by other writing, such as a Boomer and Echo article on this subject. However, you’ll find my discussion different from what you’ll see elsewhere.

Let’s start with the best reason.

1.) You’re retired and out of savings

This is a good reason to take pensions early if you’re really running out of savings other than a modest emergency fund. However, just wanting to preserve existing savings isn’t good enough on its own. It makes sense to do a more thorough analysis to see what you’re giving up in exchange for trying to preserve your savings.

2.) You have reduced life expectancy

If you’re sufficiently certain that your health is poor enough that you’d be willing to spend down every penny of your savings before age 80, then this is a good reason to take pensions early. This is very different from “I’m worried I might die young.” If as you approach age 80 you would try to stretch out your savings in case you live longer, this has repercussions all the way back to how much you can safely spend today. Almost all of us have to watch how we spend now in case we live a long life. In this case you need to do a thorough analysis to see what you’re giving up in exchange for taking pensions early.

3.) You have long periods before age 60 with no CPP contributions

If you don’t work after age 60, but delay taking CPP until 65, the 5 years without making CPP contributions can count against you. Everybody gets to drop out the lowest 17% of their contribution months in the CPP calculation. So, if you never missed a year of CPP contributions from age 18 to 60, you can just drop out the years from 60 to 65, and you won’t get penalized. But if you had many months of low contributions over the years, then having additional low months from 60 to 65 will reduce your CPP benefits.

I am in this situation. However, from 60 to 65 you go from receiving 64% to 100% of your CPP plus any real increase in the average industrial wage. Taking into account all factors, I expect my CPP to rise by about 47% by delaying it from 60 to 65. This is less than it could have been without the penalty of not working from 60 to 65, but it is still a significant increase.

Delaying CPP further from 65 to 70 is a simpler case. There is a special drop-out provision that allows you to not count the contribution months between 65 and 70. CPP benefits increase from 100% of your pension at 65 to 142% at 70.

CPP benefits rise significantly when you delay taking them. Even if you can’t use your 17% drop-out for all the contribution months from age 60 to 65, you may still benefit from delaying CPP.

4.) You want to take the CPP and OAS and invest

People don’t generally get this idea on their own. It often comes from a financial advisor. You’re unlikely to invest to make more money than you’d get by delaying CPP and OAS, particularly if you pay fees to a financial advisor.

5.) The government might run out of money to pay CPP and OAS

The government might introduce wealth taxes on RRSPs too. Despite what you might have heard from financial salespeople, CPP is on a strong financial footing. Many things may change in the future. It doesn’t make sense to overweight the possibility of cuts to CPP or OAS.

6.) You want the money now to spend while you’re young enough to enjoy it

My wife and I are retired in our 50s. When I analyze how much we can safely spend each month, the number is higher when we plan to take both CPP and OAS at 70. That’s right; we can spend more now because we plan to delay these pensions. It works out this way because CPP and OAS help protect against the possibility of a long life. Continue Reading…

Mapping your Aging Journey: Review of Options Open

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By Mark Venning, ChangeRangers.com

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Over umpteen years, my ideal number, working as a career consultant, the most significant rewards came about in one to one conversations, notably with clients seeking new career directions in later life, with the unique pleasure of meeting my oldest client who on the day we met was two months shy of turning ninety.

Rare this was and I wish I could tell more here, but to say the least, his was an adventuresome journey, not without challenge but certainly lived with sociability, creativity and curiosity.

So imagine how startling it was, with all my years of listening to hundreds of stories of later life journeys suddenly in mind, that I began the new book Options Open by Sue Lantz hearing an invitation call in the first chapter to “start with curiosity.” The Options Open book subtitle is “The Guide to Mapping Your Best Aging Journey,” and so serves as an artfully laid out roadmap using travel planning as a relatable metaphor, useful in practical conversations with partners, friends or even an eclectic mix in a Zoom group.

Skillfully promoting self-reflection, practicality and of course curiosity, this later life travel planning guide works with an interconnected “Five Strategy Framework” that charts a course taking you through your: Health, Home, Social Network, Caregiving Team and Resources (financial and otherwise). This is the book I wish I had to supplement all those later life career conversations, when many people saw a road ahead through a narrow lens; eying a fated future as a so called Retirement, almost like a vanishing point.

Book does not restrict itself to the word Retirement

Two positive overall attributes of this book instantly drew me into it. First, Sue Lantz thankfully does not hinge the book on that restrictive word Retirement, which is certainly not a travel planning guide destination I’ve ever seen. If travel can be metaphoric for our aging journey, I agree with Sue when she says from the onset, “Successful aging is a process that involves making several transitions.” That goes for all our trips through airports or train stations in our life course; we are much on foot in transition.

However, it can’t be escaped: reference to Retirement plops quietly in a few places in this book. Try as we might over the last twenty years, other books have made multiple contemporary rewrites to recast the vocabulary for a dated concept or social construct Retirement, while still casting it as a state you reach in later life. Most of these attempts miss the mark or leave gaps that Options Open addresses sagaciously.

The second prominent point to make about Options Open is that in the category of aging and longevity, it is the first book I have read, published in 2020, written with a consideration to the context of a COVID world. In the book’s Preface, Sue positions the relevance of working with this book in our current time:

“Our world changed dramatically during the global COVID-19 crisis. We realized what is essential to our daily life … We directly experienced the link between how prepared and proactive we are as a society, and how this plays out in terms of our individual risks, and whether or not our own health (and life) is maintained.”

Still further, Sue confirms something I have often reflected upon after many conversations I have been part of this year: “… our worst fears were amplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, if we let our fears stop us from thinking about our own aging, we are actually discriminating against ourselves.” As I write this post, COVID world continues unabatedly, but if you are leaning to a hermit’s way, perhaps the curious pilgrim in you might emerge to make time to explore your options.

If you have been at home more this year, it is somewhat fitting that one of the strategy areas in the Options Open framework covers the topic of Aging in Place. This might be as good a time as any to think forwardly about the right place, and as Sue Lantz accurately puts it in the section Consider YOUR choice of place, “Your best housing plans will be guided by how well this sets you up to achieve the other four Strategies, including your healthcare access, social networks, and caregiving resources.”

Two coincidental thoughts come full circle in my mind that underscore for me how timely this book is and why I recommend it as one that makes you think realistically and therefore one you can actually use.

It was three years ago this week in 2017, that I heard Sue Lantz speak at the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) where she talked about acting like Pixar – “animating aging in place” – animating the options that is, by co-creating, co-locating to build as a whole, what I prefer to call age inclusive communities. As Lantz went on to say, we are dealing with a diversity of issues across the board, which are interconnected. Looks like the concept of her book grew shoots back then.

Most hauntingly, I also recall when in Chicago, 2004 – I heard William Bridges, author of Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes – a book that stands the test of time, (first published in January 1980) speak on “Finding Your Own Way”. At the end of his talk, you could hear a pin drop. The Bridges Transition model is classic and stemming from it is a statement he made that lingers still from that day: “Uncertainty is a fluid state that allows for openings”.

We are in a fluid state these very days, so as that allows – why not find our Options Open.

Review Part 2: Continue Reading…

Precious Metals are the bedrock of the financial world

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By Nick Barisheff

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Precious metals are the bedrock of the financial world. They have permanent value and are the oldest form of money in the world. If you don’t own physical gold and silver, your investment portfolio lacks a sound foundation. Precious metals are often sought after as a store of permanent value, and as a method of diversifying portfolios.

While cash, bonds, stocks and real estate offer investors financial diversification, precious metals underpin all other assets, particularly during times of economic turbulence and market turmoil.

Imagine an upside-down pyramid containing successive layers of asset classes.

Exeter’s Pyramid

That’s what the late John Exter envisioned when he devised a model ranking assets based on their risk level and financial soundness. The American economist and central banker placed risk-free gold at the apex of the inverted pyramid, below Federal Reserve cash, U.S. treasury bills, notes and bonds, AAA-rated corporate bonds, paper currencies, certificates of deposit (CDs), bank deposits, commercial paper, state and municipal bonds, junk bonds, segments of the Eurodollar market, Third World debt, insolvent borrowers and thrifts. [See graphic on the left]

A monetary researcher and visionary, Exter understood how gold’s scarcity and trustworthiness made it foundational in an unstable financial world. He knew gold would endure amid expanding debt and an unlimited supply of paper currencies, which he referred to as “IOU Nothings.”

Exter’s original gold-based pyramid is a simple yet timeless way of viewing a top-heavy financial infrastructure, which today is burdened by $1 quadrillion in unregulated derivatives, $270 trillion in snowballing global debt and trillions more in unfunded liabilities. In an overleveraged and indebted world, gold is the keystone, supporting all other assets that bear greater risk and loss potential.

Consider these examples:

  • Cash deposits and government bonds lose value to inflation in a low-interest or negative-interest rate environment.
  • Corporate and municipal bonds can become worthless when companies fail and cities default due to excessive debt.
  • Stocks can decline during stock market crashes and may become worthless.
  • Even real estate investments can decline in value when financial bubbles pop and property markets collapse.

All investments ebb and flow with the economic tides. Less stable ones drift like shifting sand. Some wither and perish in the barren financial desert. Physical precious metals endure through the ages. They withstand market chaos and weather financial storms. They retain value. Physical bullion will never become worthless. That’s why gold, silver and platinum are essential in a balanced and diversified portfolio.

Paper-based precious metals investments are riskier

Not all precious metal investments are alike; however, some are riskier than others, especially paper-based products.

Trading precious metals contracts — such as futures and options — on the commodity exchanges is the most speculative, along with owning stocks of startup mining companies that explore for gold and silver deposits. Continue Reading…