The Money Conference 2009

Massachusetts State Treasurer, Timothy Cahill, in conjunction with the YWCA will be presenting a free all-day conference on money management, retirement and investment strategies on Saturday, November 14, 2009 at the Sheraton Boston Hotel. 

This year’s topic will be ” Rebounding from a Recession”.  Registration opens on October 1st.  To register and for more information, visit http://www.themoneyconference.com/index.htm

 

Photo of money (cc) by RichSeattle and republished here under a Creative Commons license.   Some rights reserved.

August meeting: Retirement Decision Making

At our August meeting, member Olympia Valentine led a discussion on retirement decision-making:  how do we envision our retirement, how have we planned, and what are our goals?   What do we do to plan for a secure retirement, and how do we adjust once we’re there?  What do we look forward to, and what is hardest about retirement?  Olympia also discussed the idea of “mini-retirements” throughout one’s lifetime.

The group had a lively discussion and shared a lot of good ideas and experiences about how they have planned for, or experienced, retirement.

For some ideas, Olympia mentioned a few books to look at (all are in the Library’s collection):

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, by Thomas J. Stanley

Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, by Timothy Ferriss 

You can see Olympia’s PowerPoint presentation here.

Multi-generational living

For another retirement lifestyle idea, what about multigenerational living?  Forbes magazine recently explored the issues involved in this arragement in their article, How to Set Up a Multi-Generation Household.  They called it “a side effect of the economic contraction,” since the number of mutigenerational households usually rises in a recession.

While the article focuses on families living together, cohousing is another type of multigenerational living, although with families in separate quarters.  At our Retirement Planning Club meeting in November (November 18th, 2009) we’ll discuss this topic with our speaker Diane Margolis, Board Member of the Cohousing Association of the U.S.

Photo of  family (cc) from the Wisconsin Historical Society and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Aging in place

In case you missed it, the Globe’s West section had an interesting and lengthy article recently on organizations that help people age in place, mentioning the group being developed in Newton, Newton at Home.  These membership groups combine paid and volunteer services to help older people stay in their own homes by providing needed services and social activities.  Tamara Bliss, the President of Newton at Home, will be speaking at our Retirement Planning Club meeting next January.

The same Globe West section also had an article on the growing interest in volunteerism, particularly among those who have been laid off.

Photo of porch and garden (cc) by Maia C and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Rethinking Retirement

NPR’s All Things Considered is running a series all this week called Rethinking Retirement: The New Future of Life After Work. Now that so many workers rely on 401(k)s, what will be the future of retirement now that the stock market’s fall has eroded our nest eggs?  Monday’s segment focused on the issue of 401(k)s.

If you miss any of the segments, podcasts, transcripts, and other information are available on the NPR website.

Discovering What’s Next

What’s next for your retirement?  Don’t forget to investigate the activities and information available from Discovering What’s Next® in the third floor HUB of the Library.  Discovering What’s Next® is a network of people and community organizations that connects individuals 50+ with information, inspires them and supports development of their ideas, and fosters involvement leading to action that benefits both individuals and the community.  Most activities take place at the Newton Free Library.  Click here for contact information and get started on discovering what’s next for YOU!

Solving the Caregiving Puzzle

The Wall Street Journal’s Retirement section, mentioned in the previous post, currently has a special report, Solving the Caregiving Puzzle, including audio and video reports. 

And be sure to check out their list of Five Books to Retire By–the Newton Free Library owns all of them!

Retirement in Crisis

With guaranteed pensions few, 401(k) values falling, and the possibility of working longer looming, this was the title of WBUR’s On Point show yesterday, “a sobering new view of retirement” after the crash.  Audio and (many) comments can be found here.

Guests were Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research and author of When I’m Sixty-four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them (you can read a sample chapter here), and Glenn Ruffenach, co-author of The Wall Street Journal Complete Retirement Guidebook: How to Plan It, Live It, and Enjoy It.  Ruffenach also edits Encore, the Wall Street Journal’s very useful Retirement section.

Welcome to Leisureville!

For a different take on retirement, check out the new book Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias, which chronicles the author’s experiences and impressions after he moves to the Villages in Florida, the world’s largest gated retirement community.  You can check the availability of the book in our network here (there’s currently a waiting list for it).

The Boston Globe recently interviewed the author, Andrew Blechman, about his bookand the implications of age-segregated living.  You can read the interview here.