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Retirement – Opportunity, Survival, Wasted Time
How do you stack up in the realm of retirement?
Maybe you’re already in retirement mode, or soon will be. If not, suppose for a few minutes that you are. While you may not be as productive as you once were, you are probably well off, or just somehow surviving. Quite possibly, you’re wasting good time whether you realize it or not. Maybe you’ve been blessed with good health and sufficient resources. If you are, what are you doing with your time and resources? Maybe you’re still married, or maybe your spouse has passed away. Maybe you’re concerned or worried about your sustainability. Perhaps you’re sick, lonely, or even depressed; maybe several of these scenarios apply to you, or soon will. For today, anyway, life isn’t yet over, and maybe it’s high time to change up a few things, and look at your senior years from a new perspective. Is it possible that you might kick start a new beginning, regardless of your age, health, and opportunities?
‘Pulling in’ as many resources as possible
Generally speaking, it seems that as people approach their retirement years, there’s a concerted effort to accumulate sufficient resources to carry them through their retirement years. Who can acquire enough? Resources are needed so that aging parents are able to take care of themselves without the assistance of their family, right? Isn’t that how society views the retirement years at this time in many places? Maybe the rationale is due to the standard of living the retired parties have maintained, the big house, the expensive vehicles, the travel, the clothing, and whatever else. Who wouldn’t want to maintain the same way of living in their retirement years, right?
‘Pushing out’ as many resources as possible
But, what about a different strategy? What if you, the retired person(s) decided that you have enjoyed a wonderful life up to this point, and what if you downsized everything, and pushed your resources out to your family members, or grandchildren, so that they too could have a leg-up in today’s difficult world? Couldn’t you sell those assets and reduce your standard of living similar to that of a newly-wed couple? But, would you be willing to change your mind set and deploy a new strategy that pushes resources out to that newly-wed couple or family members, as opposed to pulling more and more resources in? Why not seek to minimize the wealth factor by sharing that wealth away much earlier than would normally be the case; do you want to pull resources in, or push them out? Elderly people may not need the size of housing they currently live in or their expensive vehicles, etc. Perhaps those things can be somehow shared with your children and grandchildren, and you could get by with something less.
Really, truly, think about the financial well-being of your posterity
If you have wealth at a (very) senior age, share it away with those whom you love and care about. Create new and stronger relationships of trust with family members and others. If you would just be willing to change your heart a bit, you will clearly see opportunities to get outside all the aches and pains and troubles, and your heart will forever be focused on how you can make your family’s lives better, stronger, and happier. It must be human nature or something, but from a young age, you’ve always known that we feel better when we get ourselves out of the way, and find opportunities to bless the lives of others, right? Maybe it would be too great a sacrifice, you say? So, what? Who cares? Tunabudget believes most senior people should share their wealth. There needs to be a shift, a change, in the way wealth is transferred. Older seniors who have much wealth, something their families may never have in today’s world, should share with their families now, sooner, rather than later. And families, they need to step up and lovingly take care of their parents. It goes both ways, right? Both, the children, and the seniors need each other now, more than ever. As to the seniors, it may be that they need the most help in so many ways. If families open up their resources and time to each other, lives will be blessed for generations.
So, get practical about it; will you change?
So, like what? First, ask yourself where you stand financially and health-wise. For example, what resources do you have at your immediate disposal, and those that may be tied up in long-term assets? Are you rich by the world’s standards? Do you need all that money to last you ‘for the rest of your life’, because you don’t want to be a burden on anyone? Do you have assets tucked away so that you can live off the ‘return’, and plan to leave what’s left over when you pass away? Do you have a home that is way too big for you? Is your home and garage full of ‘stuff’ that you’ll really never use, but you keep it because it’s such good quality and ‘worth a lot of money’? Is your mind set on ‘keeping hold’ of your money and stuff because, you know, ‘you never know’? Are you willing to cash-in a lot of those assets, or significantly downsize, and share them with your family members and grandchildren? As an older senior, can you not reduce your standard of living and work something out with your family to better take care of each other? Fine, don’t. You’ll be missing out and blessings will not have been extended – pure and simple.
What other gifts and talents do you have to share?
In addition to your assets and income, what other resources do you have? Have you acquired skills and talents throughout your life that are now resting dormant? What is your talent? What is your passion? Are you volunteering service in your areas of expertise or profession? How much of your time could you give away to others? If you have that desire, to simply serve others, multiple opportunities will pop up. But you have to change your heart first. You have to really want to bless others; it’s not about you. It’s all about how you can serve others. Meanwhile, are you watching endless hours of television, and surfing the web? Do you have many close relationships with friends and family? Are you capable of doing more for others but ‘just don’t want to’? Are you now sitting back in cruise control mode, because, hey, you ‘earned it’? You just spent that last 40+ years working hard, and it’s ‘your time’ to relax and enjoy life a little, right? Do you need or want a change of pace or scenery? Or, maybe you are bogged down with limited and declining income, high bills, and mountains of debt? Throw in sicknesses too. Are you able and willing to ask for help? If you’re more or less in survival mode, talk to your family members immediately and with candor. If necessary, get this thing turned around; speak up.
Create your Tunabudget worksheet plan with your loved ones
Either way, together, you and your loved ones, should complete your Tunabudget worksheet plan to forecast your income and expenses for the next year or so. This allows you and your loved ones to actually see your financial well-being and sharing opportunities– everybody can see it all on a single page. Doing so will allow you to see what you’re really facing in your senior years. Again, the Tunabudget worksheet plan is a tool that you can share with those whom you love, and who love you. Consider whatever changes or adjustments might be made to your assets, debts, income, and expenses; discuss those options openly and candidly with your loved ones. You’ve loved and served others for your entire life, and it’s okay to ‘open up’ and talk about these things. The opportunity to share your burden and possibly your resources, is still there. You just have to figure out a way to do that. Ask for help creating a Tunabudget worksheet plan, and tell them the adjustments you want to make.
Restore family ties, immediately
But what if ‘loving’ family ties are not in place? Life happens, and family members might not be communicating. Well, for one thing, that has to change immediately. And, you are the one to make that possible. Whatever it takes, fill your heart full of love, forgiveness, or ice cream, and reach out to your loved ones and ask for their help in putting together your plan. Once again, it’s okay. If you want family relations to be restored, it will happen. Maybe not today, but it will someday. As an older senior, you know that there’s now an opportunity to share resources with your family now as opposed to waiting until you’re ‘very’ old. Maybe your family will also realize they have an opportunity to return some of that love to you too. But at a minimum, they need to be given the opportunity to fulfill their natural duty and responsibility to you, and family ties need to be restored with open communications.
Spontaneous opportunities; look for them; take action
If anything, Tunabudget believes seniors have a unique way to experience ‘real living’ every day; call it small acts of loving kindness to those in need. And, of course, please remember that some things should be done anonymously – you’ll know when that approach is more appropriate. Basically, there are a multitude of opportunities to lift up a fellow traveler on this Earth, everywhere, all the time. If you want to see them, all you have to do is ask for them, and you’ll get them. It’s pretty unlikely that your budget will suffer much at all, and there will be countless individuals and families, and hearts, that will be bolstered, strengthened, and reassured. Your senior years will have more purpose and meaning than you will be able to take in. For example:
Look at the young couple standing in the grocery line in front of you, or behind you. Notice any stress in their faces, the small child, and an upset or sleeping baby. The grocery cart may seem to be not as full as one would expect, perhaps just enough to get by for another day or until payday next week. Is your debit (or credit) card, or cash, fired up yet? What will you do about it?
While you’re at the store, you notice a young mother standing next to the meat counter, who you just know she and her family are trying to ‘get by’ on little money. Oddly, she takes her selection of meat ‘from her cart’ and slowly places it back on the meat counter; you know she wants it but can’t afford it. Could you not have a store employee hand her some of your cash without anyone knowing? What will you do about it?
Maybe you go to the prescription line at the Pharmacy, and just look around for a few minutes. You soon notice someone that it’s clear to you could use a loving hand. Frankly, it may not even be about the money, but that someone was not feeling well, and a stranger lifted his burden – that would be you – with a loving heart - and a flaming hot debit (or credit) card, or cash that ‘gets it’. What will you do about it?
Maybe you ‘go big’ and stop by the local high school automotive shop as school gets out one afternoon. You talk to the shop teacher and ask if there wasn’t a young man that really had a knack and passion for automotive work, but couldn’t afford, and didn’t have, his own set of tools? Would it not change a young man’s life (and possibly give him a start to his life-long career), if for some out-of-the-blue reason, the nicest set of tools he could ever imagine showed up the next day or two as an anonymous gift just for him? Want to change a person’s life forever? You didn’t know that he was the son of a single mother parent, and how she will react when she hears the news? What might you do to bless someone’s life like that? Your wealthy purse wouldn’t even know any money was spent, right?
The opportunities are endless. Is watching TV, with a fat bank roll, more important? You call that living? Not. Hardly.
CANDID QUESTIONS
Are you a stubborn and crusty?
Are you rich and sassy?
Are you consumed with the finer things in life?
If you have an abundance, do you know how many automotive tools $1,000 could buy and anonymously be given as a gift to high school young man who loves to fix cars, and how that would impact his life?
Contrary to pulling together resources for your old age, have you ever thought about sacrificing your excess wealth and pushing it out, or sharing it with your loved ones now?
Would you at least be willing to ponder about any of these things for a few minutes?