As Obama Seeks Healthcare Reform, Now’s the Time to Stand Up, Make Your Voice Heard: You Do Want Solid, Affordable Benefits & to Enjoy Excellent Health, Don’t You?

My friend Shelby — who was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes a couple of years ago, at the same time I was  –  confided to me last week that this year, for the first time in her 50+ years, she’s actually put off her normal healthcare maintenance appointments.

She says it’s not because she doesn’t believe in their value. That wouldn’t make sense, as not only does she have diabetes, but her husband’s a 10-year cancer survivor, whose tumor was discovered during a routine physical…  She knows the value of regular health maintenance appointments!

No, her decision is based on financial necessity: she’s been laid off, so money is tight. Oh, she still has health insurance through COBRA, but she says she’s saving that for real medical emergencies. On a preventive care basis, she can’t afford the out of pocket portion her insurance expects her to pay.

This has to be a “bitter pill” for Shelby, after all, she’s:
Read more

Boomers, Seniors, Retirees: Need to Replace Income Lost In Recession? Have You Discovered How to Get “Linked In” to the Social Networking Sites to Assist In Your Job Search?

Does the Recession Find You with a Decimated 401(K), Your Savings Tanked and – Worse – Forced to Look for Work?

If so, you’re not alone. That’s what happened to one of my daughter’s co-workers, a guy we’ll call “Ron.”  Perhaps you’ve known someone like Ron, or had a “Ron” at your office, too. If so, he’d be the guy who’s famous for taking penny-pinching to the “nth degree.”

According to my daughter, Ron scrimped and saved his whole life, building up a huge stock portfolio – with the intent of leaving his former college and several charities major endowments on his death.

She tells me Ron was the epitome of financial prudence. While she’s no slouch when it comes to being economical, she says this guy could one-up anyone when it came to scrimping and saving.

Read more

Daring New (Non-”PC”) Topic for Cocktail Party Conversation: “Do YOU Think You Will Have Enough Money When It Comes Time to Retire?”

This very provocative question is of the type that my socially correct mother raised me not to ask: Everyone knows it’s socially unacceptable and completely impolite to discuss topics like how much money someone makes, or how well off they are. Questions like that are “Totally CR and SU,” as we used to say in college: “crude, rude and socially unacceptable.”

But the point is, we are starting to ask this question of each other, and I say this is a good thing.

If we don’t talk and plan, we’ll end up unpleasantly surprised, as many of my Boomer-aged coaching clients have discovered.

Consider one of my former clients, a dentist from Indiana who sold off his practice for slightly more than $1 million at the young age of 61, and then began looking at his options. Only to discover that a million dollars doesn’t go as far as it once did – especially since he still had school-aged children living at home.

• He quickly realized that unless he took massive action of some sort, he was in no condition to maintain his current lifestyle.  Especially since he was in good health and had every reason to suspect he would live for another 30 years!
• Thankfully, he was quite entrepreneurial, and we quickly came up with several business concepts based on his professional expertise, which would generate a steady passive income stream, and would not require him to get back into the daily grind of seeing patients in a clinic setting.
• I’m happy to say he is living the good life, these days!

Read more

Wondering How You’ll Keep Family Peace While Liquidating Your Parents’ Estate? Author of “The Boomer Burden” Offers Tips to Reduce the Stress

Whenever a close friend of ours visits his parents, a wonderful couple we have also come to know and love, he inevitably returns with a bit of concerned grumbling about the on-going battle they always have over his efforts purge his parents’ garage of what he sees as a lifetime accumulation of junk.

The punch line is always the same: his father defends this “quasi warehouse” as a collection of treasures, while our friend half-joking threatens that upon their death, he’ll return to clean house with a backhoe!

Happily, I’ve just come upon a fantastic solution to end this family stalemate:

Prior to his next visit, I plan to gift him with a fantastic book, which he, his brother and his parents can read together before jointly working out a plan for the inevitable future.

The book is called “The Boomer Burden – Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff,” by Julie Hall, who is known professionally as The Estate Lady®. Next to infirmity or death, estate settlement is the most stressful challenge a Boomer will go through with their parents, she says, “and often leaves everyone involved feeling upset, resentful and frustrated.”

Read more

Love, Romance May Still Flourish in the Nursing Home, But Can An Advance Directive Give Residents the Right to a Sex Life?

I just read a thought-provoking article which begins, “She was 82. He was 95. They had dementia. They fell in love. And then they started having sex…”

Written by Slate’s Melinda Henneberger, it’s a modern day Romeo and Juliet tragedy titled “An Affair to Remember,” which is somewhat of an ironic title, since it deals with Alzheimer’s and loss. In the article, we read that perhaps a document which doesn’t yet exist — a sexual power of attorney — might have eased the pain all around.

I agree, and I’m all for it. But as it doesn’t yet exist, I’m suggesting that at minimum, Dororthy and Bob could have been protected by an Advance Directive, especially if when issuing it, each had had a frank discussion about their wishes with their Power of Attorney-designee. But that would have involved having some REALLY frank discussions…something few of us might be up to talking about with our parents — or our children.

When Dorothy Met Bob…

This is the true story of Dorothy and Bob (not their real names) who met in their assisted living community. As backstory we learn that: Read more

Is There a Luxury Travel Club in Your Future? Why These Clubs May Prove More Enticing Than Buying Full Ownership in a Traditional Vacation Home. (And what the heck’s a “luxury fractional?”)

Recently I’ve begun thinking taking a spectacular vacation. We haven’t gone on a cruise for over a year, and since 2008 marks twenty years of wedded bliss, I figure we have a perfect excuse to find the time for something a bit more “grand” than usual.

That’s why I opened an unsolicited email last week titled: “The Most Elite Travel Club in the World.” And kept reading, once it opened up to a breath-taking shot from the interior of a fantastic villa in St. Barth’s, French West Indies, complete with the tantalizing headline, “Wouldn’t You Rather Be Here?” Darn right! Who wouldn’t? As usual, those travel marketers sure know what they’re doing!

As I kept reading about this French-speaking tropical paradise venue, I realized I wasn’t just being offered the opportunity to rent this particular house for a dream vacation, I was being solicited to join a private vacation club.

As a member, and after parting with a significant upfront fee, I’d have the opportunity to vacation at a choice of 250 stunning luxury vacation venues worldwide. AND, the solicitation promised me, when I compared the membership fee with the cost of buying a vacation home and/or taking my family on an all-inclusive vacation, I’d discover that the membership fee was a BARGAIN…

Talk about Marketing to Boomers, these people knew all my “hot buttons.”

Read more