I hope this finds you well-immersed in the joys of the holiday season. This year has been an especially propitious one for me. I am fond of saying that things are not new often nor do they stay new for long, so we should celebrate! And 2024 was certainly a year of things being new—from my New York-to-Ohio commute to the launch of Madrina Molly™.
In a few weeks, we can all start our Wish/Want/Will exercise for 2025—articulating what we wish for, what we are willing to work for, and what we are willing to sacrifice in pursuit of … well, whatever it is that we choose to pursue. And that requires, for me, a review of my list for 2024 and an assessment of my progress.
Well, it certainly looks like “crypto,” sometimes called cryptocurrency or digital currency, is having its moment. And I’ve received a whole slew of questions about investing in it, because it would be a shame to miss out.
Before I even get going here, I want you to know that if you are invested in an S&P 500 Tracking Index, ETF, or Mutual Fund anywhere in your portfolio, you are already participating in crypto. You are participating because there are companies represented within this index that hold and invest in crypto themselves. They may have direct treasury investments in digital assets, partner with crypto firms, or participate in the underlying blockchain technology.
During my last stay at my home in Saratoga Springs, early darkness curtailed my ability to walk for hours at a time in the nearby state park. The Hubs was on a job in another state, leaving me without a spotter at the gym. And I was feeling a little lonely and sorry for myself. Usually, I’m pretty good about going to the gym solo and doing a free-weight workout followed by walking it out on a treadmill. (Hooray for audiobooks!) Or I can stay home and do snatches with my trusty kettlebells. But on this particular day, I felt out of sorts and decided I needed a new “thing.”
Scouring the local YMCA schedule, nothing appealed to me. I can do fast-paced, high-intensity aerobics and weight classes, but there’s always a risk that I could hurt something. That’s a real concession to aging: We don’t know how well we will recover or how long the recovery from an injury will take. Besides, I like workouts that are intentional rather than fast.
As we work our way through life with its many tangles and turns, we inevitably encounter grief and loss, and not just sporadically, but more often than we might even care to admit. Loss is woven into the very fabric of living.
I discovered this harsh reality as a young mother of four daughters, ages 3 to 9, when my 40-year-old husband, Steve, died while out of town on a business trip. That sudden, unexpected heart attack turned my world upside down and set me off on an unsolicited journey to make some sense of this loss. I was determined not to simply deal with the grief, but to find a way to learn from it.
I needed to write this now because the end of the year is a critical deadline for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs). What’s more, there have been so many changes to the tax code over the past five years that there isn’t a financial planner who can keep things straight without a cheat sheet. To top it off, there’s a best practice you should know about, especially if you manage your own IRA/401(k)/403(b) investment accounts.
Apologies to those who would prefer a story. This week I only have cold, hard, financial facts. Let’s start with the basics:
Finfluencers and Financial Advisors alike tell you that you should have an Emergency Fund equal to three to six months of your fixed expenses. Thus, if your fixed expenses are $6,000/month, your emergency fund should be between $18,000 and $36,000. Further, this money should reside in a High-Yield Savings Account (HYSA) or a Money Market Mutual Fund (MMMF) where it will earn better interest than checking or local bank savings.
So far, so good. But if this is best practice, why do so few people get it right? Why am I regularly hearing horror stories about people depleting their emergency funds for things other than an emergency, only to be in deep “doo-doo” when an emergency hits? Why am I hearing about people who regularly dip into their emergency fund for run-rate expenses? This is not a challenge exclusive to cash-strapped people. Plenty of high cash flow households dip into a single pot of money until it becomes dangerously low.
Today’s guest blog is from Rachel Bland, Woman of a Certain Age(ncy) and Fractional Executive for Products and Technology through her company, AgentsE Solutions. She told me she’s excited to share the journey that led her to her #StepAwayCareer.
Once upon a time, I was a young girl growing up in a rural part of Canada, desperately trying to understand how I fit into the world. Back then, I felt like the only person who understood me was Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She “wanted so much more than this provincial life,” and people thought she was strange with her bookishness.
It felt to me like I would need some magical, Disney-style intervention to change the trajectory of my life. I couldn’t imagine what would need to happen to build a life that I had only seen on TV, where I had a career, wonderful adventures and eventually, a family. I mean, where do you even start when you come from a world that is mainly farming and fishing, with other essential roles like teacher, nurse, doctor and firefighter?
As you know, I applied for Medicare at the beginning of this month. This week, I was going to write on freeing up cash for Required Minimum Distributions for the new year. But we have time on that. This is important. So, here’s an update:
Families are full of lies, small and large, consequential and insignificant. In my family, we have an insignificant running joke about the cost of anything we purchase:
Q: How much was the dress? Me: $100.
Q: How much was the designer handbag? Me: $100.
Q: How much was the trip to Morocco? Me: $100.
I’ve been having my hair cut by the same woman for three years or so. She’s been in business for over 30 years. She owns her own salon and rents seats to other stylists. I asked her how much more she charges than her other hairdressers, since she’s the most experienced and the owner. She said she hadn’t raised her rates in years. Her answer stunned me. Kids just out of school in the shopping mall are charging more than she is.
I recommended she raise her rates.
I’ve been going to the same aesthetician who has been performing lots of magic on my face for 10 years or so. It was time to purchase another package of sessions. When she told me the price, I reminded her that this was the same price as the last three packages.
I recommended she raise her rates.
I had a conversation about materials and labor with a small builder/contractor. Same story. He says he fights for every dollar of margin. He claimed there’s a limit to what people will pay.
I still recommended he raise his rates.
Over the last few months, I’ve shared important individual concepts about financial and longevity planning:
Why, if you approach aging thanatologically vs. chronologically, you have #MoreRunwayThanYouThink to put your financial plan in order;
Why you are going to live longer than you think and really need to #InvestInYourHealth—especially your metabolic health;
Why you should stop worrying about your children’s paths—they will get where they need to go, and it will look different than the path you traveled;
Why the housing challenge is a multi-generational challenge, and we need to get creative with multi-generational solutions; and
Why your next 50-year financial and longevity plan should include all generations, including your parents. This is not only because #FamilyIsAFixedExpense. It’s also because family will be part of how you allocate your 168 hours a week.
Rarely do Fred and I eat out anymore. And very rarely do we indulge in takeout food. We decided it’s almost always disappointing and never really what we want. Besides, we’re low-carbing it these days. So why add stress when we can make perfectly good food at home? As a result, I don’t really care about the price of my fancy organic groceries because, in the end, it’s still less expensive for our household than eating out.
A few weeks ago, I was engrossed in work and Fred was heading back from a client meeting. He offered to pick up lettuce wrapped Five Guys burgers, and I said yes. (Sigh. No french fries for us, alas.)
Medicare, as you know, is the national health program for seniors created in 1966 by the Lyndon Johnson administration. But did you also know that, in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt’s platform included creating national healthcare insurance? Did you know that Harry Truman tried to put together a national health program in 1945?
The conversation around health care for all Americans is not a new conversation. And I am delighted that I get to receive the benefits of this great program that my and my employers’ 2.9% payroll taxes have funded all these years. That’s right, this isn’t an entitlement. I’ve been paying for this, and now I’m going to collect my benefit. Yay, me! Free Medicare Part A! Whoohoo!
I remember the stunning blue sky. How there could not have been a more gorgeous day. I heard there was a fire at the Chambers Street Station. So, I left the gym and went to the office at Madison and 55th St. instead, not wanting to be part of the problem.
By the time I arrived there, all hell had broken loose. Before we lost our communications, I was able to reach my husband and HJ and tell them I was not at the Trade Center that morning, although my first meeting had been scheduled at Bank of New York, across the street.
By mid-morning, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We could not decide if we were safer at ground level or on the 35th floor.
By mid-day, I stood on a blocks-long line to give blood. They turned us away. Nobody needed extra blood donations.
I wandered the east side. Went back to the office. Waited for information.
I’m delighted to report that we had a successful launch last week. Our mission to democratize and demystify financial information for Women of a Certain Age(ncy) and their Allies and Friends has begun!
Only 16% of BoomX Women Say They Have Received Financial Education
That’s not acceptable. For years, women have been reaching out to me for financial advice and planning assistance. By and large you are:
Stressed and ashamed that you somehow missed the memo on how to manage money.
Ready to make yourselves wrong when you seek advice. (Seriously, the women I meet are quick to begin the conversation with, “I’m sure you’re going to tell me my financial management is terrible.”)
Scared that you won’t be able to continue working long enough to fund your retirement.
Worried that you’ll need to work forever to fund your retirement.
Ping-ponging from children to work to parents without time for yourself.
Angry that media, marketers, and institutions think you’re invisible.
A Madrina Molly™ subscription gives you a place to go to ask your questions, confirm you are on the right track, solve problems, and achieve a lovely "second half" of life. All of this comes with the confidence of knowing that I’m not a finfluencer; I’m a former working financial planner and a current (and forever) CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Professional.
You have 168 hours in a week. So do I. So does everyone on the planet. That’s no mystery. It’s simple math. And how we spend those 168 hours is up to us.
You may already be rolling your eyes thinking I’m dead wrong, that our time isn’t really ours, not all of it anyway. Some of it belongs to jobs, bosses or employees, some to our kids, our spouses or aging parents.
Each week, we devote hours to running errands, doing chores, and trying to carve out some time for ourselves, to preserve our health, our happiness or maybe our sanity. Then there’s time for sleep … often, there just aren’t enough hours left for that, or at least that’s what it seems.
“Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.” Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption
Pull up an easy chair, and sit yourself down and lean back while I tell you ‘bout the folks who live in the town of Greenback….
So goes the old song, The Money Tree, which I learned as a young girl. Sometimes I find myself humming it to this day.
There are actually many plants that are called money plants and money trees. When I pulled the plug on my marriage in 2010 and moved into a lovely apartment overlooking the ocean to heal, I purchased a tiny money plant, a jade (Crassula Ovata) and sat it on the windowsill. Now, 14 years later, it continues to grow and branch, and I offer my cuttings to family and friends so they can enjoy luck and prosperity too.
The path hasn’t always been perfect; especially the immediate two years post-separation. My unpartnered friends and clients know this from their own experiences. Somehow, that’s how long it takes all of us to feel like ourselves again.
What would it look like if you went to a permanent four-day work week? Would you have better life balance? Reduced fatigue? More time for your family? What if you worked for more years but with greater flexibility?
What would it look like if you worked among people aged 20 to 70? Would you finally realize that age diversity is good for economic growth and your bottom line?
What would it look like if you did the math to take a month-long sabbatical (planned a year in advance) and embarked on a “vocation vacation” in which you took intensive credentialing to plan your next career? What if you learned and credentialed throughout your entire life?
I have a webinar with this title because down days in the market make me laugh. (Seriously!) On 8/5/24, the stock market had its worst day in two years, part of a three-day losing streak. On 8/6/24, the market closed substantially higher, showing a broad rally.
For 24 hours, market watchers wailed and beat their breasts, published articles about recession, and caused retail investors to sell $1 billion. Big mistake. In contrast, the institutional folks bought $14 trillion on the dip, and that was one of the reasons for the rally.
So, what can you do when the market goes south?
Behind the scenes at Madrina Molly™, we’ve been working our little tails off to create a digital home for Financial and Longevity Planning Education. In fairness, my explorations on the Internet have yielded a few good teachers out there in social media land. But it’s hard to find them.
Currently, the “finfluencers” want to teach you how to trade options, buy tax liens, and purchase their “secret sauce” training.
Newsflash: If you haven’t spent any time learning how to trade up until now, what makes you think you’d be interested in it moving forward? Plus, you don’t have to “trade” to invest successfully.
A few weeks ago, I met with Tamiko Toland, fellow Woman of a Certain Age(ncy), Principal of Toland Consulting, and Co-Founder and CEO of IncomePath, a new way to visualize retirement income intended to provide “freedom to spend” by enabling advisors and their clients to see how the use of guaranteed income can benefit their retirements.
That’s a mouthful, I know. And it’s complicated if you don’t operate in this space. But Tamiko’s nickname isn’t “The Annuity Yoda” for nothing. And she’s both a 20+ year veteran of TIAA and a sought-after expert in retirement risk mitigation. She is committed to doing a better job of educating the public and helping advisors educate their clients in how to build the lifestyles we all want in later life.
I’m not sure I even know where to begin with this post. There are so many things to be angry about. And so many areas of frustration. And so many opportunities to be fearful. But I’m not going to start there. I’m going to start with my blessings and some #LoudFinancialPlanning:
Have you heard the expression “thanatological age”? It refers to the average number of years you are expected, actuarially, to live. While insurance people are familiar with the term (although I can never pronounce it) the public at large is not. If you subtract your chronological age from your average life expectancy, what you have is your thanatological age. And 50% of us will live longer than this age.
That’s how averages work.
What if we celebrated our friends and daughters’ first grey hairs with the same enthusiasm and chutzpah with which we celebrate their first steps, first job, or first drink? Whatever we need to feel beautiful, we should do. There’s no shame in that.
I’m not against self-care, but …
… our wrinkles mean we smiled.
… our mom-bellies mean we loved.
… our sunspots mean we enjoyed the outdoors.
… our muffin tops mean like good food.
… our grey hairs mean we made it.
These days, we can’t escape those pushing all sorts of anti-aging products at us: serums for youthful skin, injections for plump lips, dyes for grey hairs, push-up bras for sagging breasts, and modern-day corsets to fit in that dress we used to wear.
I started writing a serious post, but it just wasn’t happening. I took a break to find something amusing on TV and settled on Zombie House Flippers. I have thoughts.
For starters, their math doesn’t “math” for me, and I’ll explain that in a minute. But it made me think about how our DIY economy has grown beyond all measure, courtesy of these types of programs, customer workshops at Home Depot/Lowe’s, and social media. I applaud the industriousness, talent, and personal ambition of these creators.
But ….
Recently, I went a couple of rounds (respectfully) with some readers on Facebook about my statement that I don’t think it’s productive for parents to tell their children that buying real estate is the “correct” path to wealth. I get that the real estate market sucks right now in lack of inventory, inflated prices, and that mortgage interest rates have adjusted upward. (My first mortgage was 11.85%. Either you can afford a mortgage, or you can’t. Rock bottom interest rates were never guaranteed. A decade of people got lucky, and that’s no longer the case. Get over it.)
As stock pickers, professionals and amateurs alike are terrible. Seriously, terrible. Like so many wise people before me, I would want you all to know that nobody knows anything about what’s going to happen. And it’s completely possible that a major player in the S&P 500 will be disrupted (think GE, now reinvented and back in the index) or a minor player on the NASDAQ (think any number of de-listed tech or bio companies) will cease to exist. There are no guarantees.
Let me cut to the chase: I’m giving you permission to plan a sabbatical. Do I have your attention?
Traditionally, we have divided our lifespans into three unequal stages: growing up, working, and retiring. Of the three, a 30- or 40-year working career usually dwarfs the other two stages. In less than a generation, however, we have seen our retirement stage catching up to our working stage. For some of us, we may live (hopefully in good health and security) another 35+ years beyond age 65. That’s a retirement as long as our working careers.
I’m having a delightful time reading Dr. Andrew Scott’s new release, The Longevity Imperative. Maybe it’s delightful because he’s saying many of the things I’ve been saying (and living!) as I transit my second half. I mean, who can resist someone who agrees with you? In this book, Scott discusses how we have two ways to view an aging society: as a problem or an opportunity. I strongly favor the latter, because I’m far from being ready to be put out to pasture. #NotYoungNotDone
I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I am that we’ve done a full year of weekly posts for Madrina Molly™! Have you laughed? Have you learned? I know I have. Welcome to our final post of the year before we take a holiday hiatus, and I celebrate my early January #Peak65 birthday with the Hubs, Col. Mustard. We’re headed to Quebec City and Montreal for a fancy, foodie few days. It’s his birthday celebration too. Just not #Peak65. He has to wait his turn.
Hurricane Jackie (Mom) and I have a running joke that, “If you live long enough, anything becomes possible.” If you ask her, she was not a thin, athletic, or a particularly pretty younger woman. Sure enough, as she has aged and I have aged along with her, we find that things once completely alien to us are reflected by the regard of those around us. For having outlasted her peers, she’s thin, athletic (mobile and independent), smart, and pretty!