Reviews

We review books that deal with everything from financial independence topics to politics, and anything in between. We may sometimes stray into films and music if there is a “Findependence” angle.

5 Asian locations where retirement is more affordable than North America

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book-cover-finalBy Jonathan Chevreau

Financial Independence Hub

I’ve personally never travelled to southeast Asia, although my family has and my daughter currently is posted in Hong Kong for a one-year teaching gig. As a result, I was more than usually interested when a review copy came in the mail titled Planet Boomer: Retire now for less in Southeast Asia.

It’s written by a boomer Canadian couple, Jim Herrier and Ellen Ma, who left marketing and advertising positions in 2006 to move to Singapore and Shanghai, then researched a bunch of other locations to help them write the book.

The book is slated for release in mid-August.

Asia 50% more affordable than North America

The pair argue that the financial crisis of 2008-2009 battered the investment portfolios of many Canadian boomers, and that “the math of a comfortable retirement for many of the nearly 10 million Canadians between 44 and 64 is not working anymore.” On average, those boomers are $400,000 short of their ideal retirement savings goal. Most of the 15 destinations in five Southeast Asian countries are at least 50% more affordable than Canada or the United States. Continue Reading…

Weekly Wrap: Happy Financial Independence Day! Eternal Truth # 7 completes series

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Independence day conceptBy Jonathan Chevreau

Financial Independence Hub

To all our American readers, the Findependence Hub wishes a happy  Independence Day, or  as we like to say around here, Findependence Day.

Bloggers are fond of building posts around the July 4th celebration, and this year several are using the phrase Financial Independence Day. For instance, Forbes.com just published a blog titled Financial Independence Day for Millennials.

In fact, a year ago, Richard Eisenberg of Next Avenue and Forbes.com did just that, writing a similar piece entitled How to Declare Your Financial Independence. And he did make an explicit reference to Findependence Day, more on which below.

This weekend’s Motley Fool Money podcast is titled Declare Your Financial Independence.

And a few days ago, the Energy & Capital Site alos used the same phrase in an online commentary: Financial Independence Day. However, the piece merely outlines 55 trading rules and doesn’t get into the topic the way the Hub does.

The trend is clear and it seems from our vantage point that the next logical step is to use our contraction and call it Findependence Day!  It’s not exactly a new term any more: the original book bearing that name was published in 2008 (more about which  below).

So for those for whom the term may still be unfamiliar,what exactly is Findependence?

It’s simply a contraction for Financial Independence.

And Findependence Day? That’s the day you achieve Financial Independence. Continue Reading…

The Ageless Generation

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Jane Fonda at the Jane Fonda Hand And Foot Print Ceremony as part of the 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival, TCL Chinese Theater, Hollywood, CA 04-27-13
Jane Fonda in 2013

Are the Baby Boomers part of the Ageless Generation?

Many of us seem to act as if that were the case but there’s little doubt most of us feel younger than we appear. To me, the poster child for this ageless generation is Jane Fonda, whose famous workout videos appear to have held her in good stead in her personal twilight career.

(Technically, since she was born in 1937, Jane Fonda is not a post-war baby boomer but her spirit certainly seems to epitomize the zeitgeist of the generation that came soon after her).

If you get Netflix check out the recently released series Grace & Frankie, where  Fonda plays a 70-year old recent divorcee: even though she herself is actually 77! Equally vibrant are her aging costars: Lilly Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston (best known as the prosecutor on Law & Order). Tomlin is 75 and the two male co-stars are 74.

Medical advances will transform the global economy

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Amazon.com

The Ageless Generation also happens to be the title of a recent (2013) book by Dr. Alex Zhavornonkov, director of the Biogerontology Research Foundation and founder of the International Aging Research Portfolio. It’s one of about a dozen books I read in recent months in preparation for a talk on Longevity that I gave on Monday to the National Elder Planning Issues Conference in Niagara Falls.

The book’s subtitle summarizes the gist of it: How advances in biomedicine will transform the global economy. Since the focus is on the United States, it will come as no surprise that  Zhavornonkov believes breakthroughs in extending Longevity can only make a shaky Social Security and Medicare system that much more fragile in the United States, and by extension their equivalent programs in other advanced nations.

Pressure on Social Security & Medicare

Continue Reading…

The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer

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BlueZones.com

The front-cover blurb on this 2008 NYT bestseller by Dan Buettner is “A must-read if you want to stay young!” Based on that, you’d wonder why every person on the planet hasn’t bought or read The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer, since who doesn’t want to stay young?

The next best thing is to live to a ripe old age and in vibrant health right up until the end. Buettner travelled five “Blue Zones” around the world to study locations that have statistical proof of the extended longevity of many of its residents. They include Sardinia (Italy), Okinawa (Japan), Loma Linda (California), Nikoya (Costa Rica) and Ikaria (Greece.)

In the United States, there is only one centenarian (someone 100 years old or more) per 5,000 people. In the Sardinian “Blue Zone” they found seven centenarians in a single village of 2,500 people.

Fortunately, these Blue Zones often share common lifestyles that North Americans can emulate.  Buettner — who originally visited the Blue Zones courtesy of National Geographic magazine — concludes with a chapter he titles Your Personal Blue Zone, providing nine major ways affluent and stressed out North Americans can emulate the lessons learned by the centenarians in the Blue Zones.

Create a pro-longevity environment in your own home: your personal Blue Zone

Continue Reading…

Re-introducing Tontine Annuities Might Shave Years Off Your Findependence Day

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Moshe Milevsky

By Moshe A. Milevsky

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Here is a non-surprising fact. Most retired individuals do not choose to voluntarily annuitize their accumulated wealth or savings at retirement. They prefer the lump sum. This has been christened by financial economists: “the annuity puzzle” and has been the topic of Ph.D. theses for decades. I am guilty of supervising a few of these myself.

Sadly, life annuities are relatively unpopular – especially compared to stocks and bonds — in a large part of the world and simply unavailable in most others. Indeed, the few jurisdictions and countries in which there is a sizeable market for annuity products – such as Canada or the U.S. — it is often driven by tax-advantaged treatment and/or government “nudging and defaults” as opposed to an intrinsic consumer appreciation for longevity insurance. Like most insurance products, they are ‘sold’ but rarely purchased.

Could the past hold the key to Longevity Insurance?

Continue Reading…