How Do I Get There from Here?: Planning for Retirement When the Old Rules No Longer Apply

By George Schofield

No matter how far or close you think you are to retirement, this book is your one-stop guide to help you plot your direction for the coming decades.

Not long ago everyone knew what the word retirement meant--retire at age 65 after 40 years at the same job and coast through your golden years courtesy of a comfortable nest egg. But now, age expectancy is higher, savings are slimmer, and people change jobs more frequently. Clinging to this outdated concept of retirement only gets you a room in your kids’ house. Your retirement is going to require an incremental approach to planning--and you must begin now. This requires conscious engagement, diverse interests, and the ability to adapt.

In How Do I Get There from Here?, readers will first be directed how to review all their assets--both tangible and intangible--so they can get an honest assessment of where they are right now. Then a journey through self-reflective questions and exercises will:

• walk you through imagining your future,
• identifying skills you’ll need,
• and learning how to prepare for inevitable twists and turns along the way.

Stop clinging to an ancient and stereotypical idea of retirement. Decades of nonstop leisure is not only unreachable for most, it’s not even truly desirable. Begin now charting the path for a unique, dynamic future you can look forward to!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Aug 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9780814438695

George Schofield

George H. Schofield, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, and developmental/organizational psychologist who advises clients on retirement and career planning plus life crafting after age 50.

Book preview

Chapter 1

What You See Ahead of You Depends on What You’re Looking for and How Far Away You Are

Choose something to admire. It could be a flower, a football game, a friend, a plate of French toast, or anything else on which you would like to focus for the moment. Made your choice? Great!

Now, in your mind’s eye, put it as close to your nose as possible. What do you see?

Again imagine the same thing but place it as far from your nose as possible while still retaining the ability to see the object and distinguish its major parts. What do you see?

Finally, in your mind’s eye, move it to that spot in the middle ground where it’s clearest to you at that distance. What do you see?

You have just experienced perspective. Did you stand close enough? Did you stand too far away? Did you pay attention to the middle distance in your field of vision? Where you are standing in relationship to what you are looking at can make a huge difference. Of the three perspectives you tried, which was the most informative in this case?

There isn’t one right perspective. In life, in order to really see and understand what we’re looking at, we’re often called upon to see and hold multiple perspectives simultaneously.

Try the same three perspectives with your own aging. What do you see and what do you infer or understand from that?

Now try the same three perspectives with your potential retirement. What do you see and what do you infer or understand from that?

Now try the same three perspectives through the lens of your life planning. What do you see and what do you infer or understand from that?

Henry David Thoreau is quoted as saying, The question is not what you look at but what you see. I would argue that the question is not only what you see but also what you infer or understand from what you saw. That inference and insight is essential to effective adulthood because it can drive both belief and behavior consciously and unconsciously for a long time.

Let’s set aging and retirement aside and use those three perspectives to examine ourselves as an After 50 demographic.

A LOOK AT OURSELVES FROM A SIGNIFICANT DISTANCE

According to the U.S. Census Bureau and AARP, we are a population of 108.7 million people age 50 plus, of which 53.5 million of us are women and 55.2 million of us are men.¹

The Baby Boomer group of people born between 1946 and 1964 totals 76.4 million. There are 32.3 million Traditionalists born before 1946.²

Our 50-plus population will continue to grow by 19 million people in comparison to an expected 6 million increase for the 18–49 population. This has significant implications for our so-called entitlement programs such as Social Security.³

Our average 50-plus household population is 2.35 people, suggesting the kids have mostly moved on, at least for now.⁴

Seventy-five percent of us are white/non-Hispanic, 10 percent are African American, and 9 percent are Hispanic. Shortly, the 50-plus Hispanic population will equal the African American population at 12 million.⁵

According to the 2016 Employee Benefit Research Council Retirement Confidence Survey, 27 percent of us are working in retirement.⁶

A December 2014 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) study explored the reasons employees age 55 plus retired from one employer and then went to work for another one. Their reasons for working were: money (72 percent), enjoyment/occupying time (58 percent), health-care benefits (45 percent), and social interaction (42 percent).⁷

In a 2014 Merrill Lynch Work In Retirement study, in partnership with Age Wave, 52 percent of working retirees said they took a break of an average of 29 months after retirement to relax and recharge before going back to work for an average of nine years.⁸

According to research from JP Morgan, men age 65 today have a 78 percent chance of living another 10 years. Women age 65 have an 85 percent chance.⁹

A 2014 survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute suggests that only 44 percent of U.S. households have tried to calculate how much they will need to save for retirement. The Employee Benefits Security Administration predicts that you will need to have 70 percent of your pre-retirement income available each year after retirement to maintain your standard of living when you stop working. If your pre-retirement income was $80,000, this would mean you would need $56,000 per year from all sources of funds for the rest of your life. If your pre-retirement income was in the lower spectrum, you will need 90 percent. This means that if your income was $27,000 before retirement you will need $24,300 per year from all sources for the rest of your life.¹⁰

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) 2015 study shows that about half of the households with people age 55 and older have no retirement savings. Retirement savings are an indicator of other financial resources as well, whereas absence of retirement savings suggests few if any other financial resources. Social Security provides most of the income for about half of households with people age 65 and older.¹¹

Reader Exercise

Stop for a Few Minutes to Look More Closely At:

1.Where you fit into the statistics above.

2.Where you don’t fit in at all.

3.What’s a surprise to you about what you’ve seen?

4.Where you would like to fit in the future.

A LOOK AT OURSELVES FROM A MID-RANGE VIEW

Generation-based labels and constructs are clearly popular and in common usage: Silent Generation/Traditionalists (born 1900–1945), Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964), Generation X (born 1965–1980), Millennials (born 1981–2000), and Generation Z (no consensus on beginning or ending birth year).

There are approximately 55 million Traditionalists living in the U.S. today, allowing for deaths and immigration.

Frequently used characterizations of the Silent Generation/Traditionalists are respecting authority, duty bound and rule oriented, dedicated to giving back, loyalty, emphasizing law and order, desire for power/status/achievement, and believing in personal responsibility.

There are approximately 76 million Baby Boomers living in the U.S. today, allowing for deaths and immigration. They represent close to one-quarter of the estimated 2012 U.S. population of 314 million people.¹²

Raise your hand if you believe that your birth year is the primary determiner of who you are.

Raise your hand if you believe that there is a low level of diversity among people born between 1900 and 1945 so that they can be easily and readily captured as a homogenous group.

Raise your hand if you believe that there is a low level of diversity among people born between 1946 and 1964 so that they can be easily and readily captured as a homogenous group.

Why is this important? Because subscribing to groupthink about birth-year labels can automatically limit your options and creativity as you move into your own aging and retirement. Who we are and who we have become depends on three