Longevity & Aging

No doubt about it: at some point we’re neither semi-retired, findependent or fully retired. We’re out there in a retirement community or retirement home, and maybe for a few years near the end of this incarnation, some time to reflect on it all in a nursing home. Our Longevity & Aging category features our own unique blog posts, as well as blog feeds from Mark Venning’s ChangeRangers.com and other experts.

Life Annuities: What to Watch Out For When You Buy

chantal-marr-findependence-hub
Chantal Marr

By Chantal Marr,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

An annuity is a type of investment sold through insurance companies. You can think of a life annuity as a life insurance policy in reverse — you pay the insurance company a large lump sum of cash and in return the insurance company pays you monthly premiums for life.

This can act as a form of retirement income after you leave the work force. Although life annuities can be a great option, here is some advice on the things you should look out for when it comes to life annuities.

Know the Difference between Immediate and Deferred Annuities

You should understand and watch out for the language in an annuity agreement. There is language that will signal if the policy is an immediate or deferred annuity. As its name implies, an immediate annuity means that you will obtain your fixed payments right away. There will be no delay in receiving your money. A deferred annuity is different. Continue Reading…

Aging, longevity & the Urban Agenda

markvenning
Mark Venning, ChangeRangers.com

By Mark Venning, ChangeRangers.com

Special to the Financial Independence Hub 

Unless extreme wild-card world events occur that might change the urban agenda, over the next fifteen years the global population will be at the highest level of its migration to cities. It is no longer a question of looking for clues in the shifting elements of demography. The lab results are in and the evidence is firmly in front of us.

I will submit here, that if there is one place where the longevity revolution is to play out most prominently, it is in the urban space. The evolution of cities will be every generation’s project – function, form, flow and the fabric of human interaction. Over the same next fifteen years, the percentage of persons older than 65 will be significantly higher and thus the need to adapt the urban agenda to a workable inter-generational model for an aging population is a key opportunity.

Need for more age-inclusive cities

Continue Reading…

Why “Healthspan” trumps “Lifespan”

danrichards
Dan Richards (youtube.com)

By Dan Richards,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Advisors spend a great deal of their time with clients who ask, “Will I run out of money?” As a result, few issues get more attention than the sustainable withdrawal rate in today’s environment.

But new research shows that an equally pressing question is, “How can I enjoy life in my 60s, before health issues creep in?”

Remarkable growth in lifespans

A couple of years back, I wrote an article titled “Will I be able to pay for a hip replacement when I’m 85?,” highlighting the boomer focus on withstanding the ravages of age. In another article, I described boomers as not your parents’ retirees. Compared to their parents: Continue Reading…

Weekly wrap: Hope for those touched by Alzheimer’s, Hobbies that pay, taxes in Retirement

stillaliceBy Jonathan Chevreau

Families confronted with dementia may be encouraged by this New York Times article this week: Biogen reports its Alzheimer’s drug sharply slowed cognitive decline.

Fortunately, awareness of the scourge of dementia has been greatly raised by the success of the novel and then film, Still Alice, about a Harvard professor who suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s. The movie version debuted last autumn at the Toronto International Film Festival and Julianne Moore won an Academy Award for her performance.  Just before the Hub launched in November, our sister site ran this piece, entitled The downside of rising longevity: Dementia.

But on the plus side of extended longevity come the stories of those who found business or creative success only late in life. Check out this piece posted earlier this weekend in the Hub’s Encore Acts section: Hope for late-bloomer Boomers: Success as an Encore Act.

From the Good Financial Cents blog comes 16 hobbies that can actually make you money. We at the Hub have always thought it makes cents (sense) to turn an avocation into a vocation that pays. That’s the whole point of the Encore Acts section of the Hub.

At his Chicago Financial Planner blog, Roger Wohlner takes a look at Schwab’s entry into the robo-adviser space — Schwab Intelligent Portfolios: The Evolution of the Robo Adviser. Continue Reading…

Live long & prosper

longevityprojectHere’s my latest MoneySense blog, which they’ve titled Working to Live Better, LongerSince it’s based on a reading of books about Longevity and even Immortality, we’re housing it here at the Hub in the Reviews, Encore Acts and Longevity & Aging blog categories.

Click on the red link above to reach the MoneySense version or if you want to see images of the book covers discussed, they are in the version posted below. (The two sites tend to use different images to illustrate):  Continue Reading…