“Forever young, I want to be forever young.” —Bob Dylan
I now ask planning clients about time more than work cessation after 65. Sadly, my father just disappeared into television and disease quickly with a Judge’s pension. With finances and health intact, seniors travel broadly for adventure or family, better their homes or work vibrantly in new professions, volunteer and donate enthusiastically. Family is their greatest reported pleasure and Alzheimer’s the greatest fear.
Let me summarize the noble research of Ken Dychtwald and Robert Morison’s “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age” (Wiley 2020): “During the past decades, there has been a great deal of focus on helping people add years to their lives. Now, it seems, they want to also add life to those years.”
Before 1900, retirement meant withering with family on farms. But the industrial revolution brought city workers and exhausted retirees. Franklin Roosevelt institutionalized retirement for an average lifespan of 62 in 1934 with Social Security and, by 1960, half the workers got pensions. Hygiene and medicine raised today’s average projected lifespan to 89 years. “Americans 65 and older…account for 17% of the total population and 38% of net wealth,” (p. 12). The majority own homes with paid mortgages. “16% of people aged 65-69 need care due to health problems or functional limitations,” they say, “nearly 60% of those 85-89 need care,” (p. 18). Savings are inadequate, averaging $135,000—leaving uncertainty.
Stages of Retired Life
The stages of retired life really begin with “Imagination” when people are still struggling with children and careers, time constrained. In “Anticipation,” workers do their last savings and short vacations immediately planning a celebration. The “Liberation” of retirement day brings “time affluence” and potential for self-discovery for many, but some are bored or anxious. In a way this is forced meditation, and in “Reorientation” people try and enjoy newfound leisure activities involving adventure, learning, growth, etc., and they create new routines around leisure involving shopping, reading, volunteering, exercising and socializing. In “Reconciliation,” health care and the familiar dominate.
“Ageless Explorers” envision retirement as opportunity, adventure, exploration and personal reinvention. Accomplished in their lives, careers and savings, they may achieve even more in new callings. “Comfortable Contents” or “Balancers” seem happy enough with well-deserved rest and recreation, sometimes adventurous and often helping nonprofits; they gladly work little and mostly for social life. “Live for Todays” may work for necessity, but they really want fresh experiences that may turn sour with financial or health difficulties. Most wish they had planned better.
But America’s “Worried Strugglers” fare worst in health and happiness and work any job from necessity until health fails. Family and adventure rank high always, but many seek Abraham Maslow’s peak experiences: “The happiest moments, ecstatic moments, moments of rapture, perhaps from being in love, or from listening to music or suddenly ‘being hit’ by a book or painting, or from some creative moment.”
Dueling Joyously with Health
Retirees may plan for over seven hours, on average, of daily leisure. Twenty percent of gamblers are retirees, and the bankruptcy courts grey. Many give to charities or work for charities, but some will give too much and make themselves dependents. Yet new businesses succeed more frequently with older owners and a quarter of workers over 65 are self-employed with flexibility being their great desire. Elderly workers are thrice as likely to report good health. Studies have shown that if you have a positive view of aging, you live seven-and-a-half years longer, and you’re 44% more likely to fully recover from a disability. These are correlations, not causal,” (p.122).
Mercifully faster than Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer kill half the elderly population. Seventy-one percent of retirees want and get in-home care and only 6% prefer nursing homes. Twenty million Americans lost spouses, and five million will remarry, about a third of women and a tenth of men. Loneliness or lack of purpose hurts health.
When the price of retirement is roughly a million dollars, realize that retirees most want their freedoms: from financial worries, pain, loneliness, inflexible work, care home restrictions, elder abuse and from ailments that burden others. Peak experiences and great family motivate. Social Security is inadequate and even most pensions; invest now for freedom later.
Robert Arne, EA, CFP, MS, of Carpe Diem Financial Life Planning, gives holistic financial advice as his client’s fee-only fiduciary. He serves mostly Santa Cruz Mountain dwellers. These articles must not be read as personal financial, mortgage, tax or investment advice; consult appropriate professionals. Learn more at www.carpediem.financial.
