Tag Archives: encore careers

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

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Weekly Wrap: Work may not end after Findependence, as Encore Careers beckon

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Graphic courtesy Challenge Factory Inc. and Retirement Redux

By Jonathan Chevreau

Financial Independence Hub

On Wednesday, the Financial Post ran an online column of mine it titled Life After Retirement: Your Working Career Probably Isn’t Over Yet — Welcome to the Encore Act.

Regular Hub readers will know that if I had my druthers, the headline would read more like “Why Work won’t end after your Findependence Day.” (that is, the day you achieve Financial Independence).

I don’t view the terms Retirement and Financial Independence as interchangeable. By definition, Retirement (or at any rate, traditional full-stop Retirement funded with a generous Defined Benefit pension) means no longer working for money. Financial Independence (aka Findependence), on the other hand, can occur years and even decades before traditional Retirement and so seldom means the end of productive work.

This very web site — which just passed six months in existence — is dedicated to clarifying this distinction. And of course the site also constitutes a big element of my own personal Encore Act: next Tuesday will be the one-year anniversary of my own Findependence Day. In my case, I define that as no longer working as an employee of a giant corporation or government entity, and having the financial resources to work if I choose to, and not if I don’t.

How to find your Encore Career

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Budget 2015: Savers, retirees hope for more TFSA room, lower RRIF minimum withdrawals

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Finance Minister Joe Oliver (Department of Finance/Flickr)

By Jonathan Chevreau

Journalists and financial experts will be entering a “Lock-up” this morning in Ottawa, getting roughly a six-hour head start on the rest of us on the contents of the 2015 federal budget.

Even so, a combination of leaks and informed speculation give us a pretty good idea about the contents, which will gush forth within seconds of 4 pm, when the embargo is lifted.

Here at the Financial Independence Hub, we will be focusing on three main measures that if announced will do much to speed or improve our collective “Findependence.” Our hoped-for “trifecta” from Finance Minister Joe Oliver (pictured above) includes the much-delayed promise of a doubling of annual TFSA limits, a lowering of minimum withdrawal limits for RRIFs, and lower tax rates  for small business. Continue Reading…

How to Choose a Retirement Location

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By Billy and Akaisha Kaderli,

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

Chiang Mai, Thailand

So you and your spouse have decided to retire. At some point in your retirement planning you must ask yourself where you would like to spend your Golden Years. The following questions and insight should place you on the right path for finding just the location that suits your needs.

First things first

The first question you must ask yourselves is whether you want to stay in the home in which you are currently living or would like to move elsewhere. Retirement is a big step.  Sometimes people feel more secure staying in familiar surroundings because it makes the transition to your new lifestyle smoother. Others, for financial reasons, a change of pace, health reasons, or for better weather, want to relocate. In this case, the next decision you must make is whether you want to stay in your home country or move overseas.

If you want to stay in your home country you must decide what sort of climate is most attractive to you. Do you want to experience the four seasons or have a more moderate, year-round climate? Do you like mountains or beaches? What size of city or town do you most enjoy? These questions are important because they automatically exclude places you won’t need to research. Knowing what you prefer in climate, city size and geographical configuration carries a lot of weight in terms of your happiness quotient.

Another thing to consider is that if you choose a town or small city, are there adequate medical facilities nearby? Larger cities tend to have a full range of medical care. Smaller towns generally have clinics and a variety of doctor’s offices, but perhaps not the equipment needed for complex medical situations.

Narrowing your search

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Let’s give the word Retirement an early Retirement

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Here’s a piece I did recently for Money Magazine, entitled Let’s retire the word Retirement. For the convenience of one-stop shopping and archival purposes, I’ve also reproduced the piece below, with a few changes and links added since it was originally published in the current issue of the magazine.

By Jonathan Chevreau

This magazine, like its sister web site and its competitors, is devoted to the topic of money. That’s an obvious statement but stay with me.

We all need money to live, both in the present and the future. This basic fact has created the entire financial industry, dedicated to the notion of saving for a rainy day so we’ll have enough money both for today’s needs as well as tomorrow’s. And the week after, the year after that and so on, bringing us ultimately to the concept of Retirement.

Retirement is the greatest marketing bonanza ever conceived for the financial industry. If a mutual fund company, bank, insurance firm or ETF maker runs an ad, what is the major concept behind its marketing?

senior couple of old man and woman sitting on the beach watching
How Advertising portrays Retirement

Typically, it features a mature couple frolicking on a beach or golf course, care-free, active, smiling, still in love and doing nothing that resembles work.

I don’t know when work acquired such a bad reputation but I’d venture  to say that in Canada, this phenomenon started to gather steam when London Life popularized its Freedom 55 campaign. Continue Reading…