Come Retire With Me!

I’m in my 50’s now, rolling toward my Golden Years. At my age, we think about retirement. We read about it, too. Mostly, we think and read about how we can’t retire because we don’t have enough money. To that, I say “Balderdash!” (I say that because I like the word “balderdash” but rarely get the chance to use it). I read somewhere that 20-30% of Americans think winning a lottery is their best chance to pay for retirement. I don’t recommend that plan. If that many American win the lottery, the pay outs will be so low, you won’t get hardly anything.

If you have a generous pension plan or trust fund or guaranteed inheritance, you may want to stop reading at this point. Little of this will apply to you. You have a safety net in place to assure your comfortable retirement. For the rest of us, it takes some planning.

We can, in fact, retire if we know what to do. First, we must understand what retirement is not.

Retirement is not unemployment. Unemployment is the drunk brother-in-law of retirement. The only thing it has in common with retirement is the lack of gainful employment. It’s very easy to be unemployed. AARP doesn’t publish articles on how best to become unemployed. We all know many tried and true methods: incompetence, sloth, thievery, amateur pornography, insubordination, felonious behavior, economic downturns, job outsourcing, bad luck and many, many others.

Retirement is not disability. You might be disabled and thus unable to work. That sucks, unless you are really a malingerer in which case you’re okay with it. Regardless, you’re not retired. You just can’t work. There’s no retiring from disability, unless death counts.

Retirement is not wealth. Perhaps you are incredibly wealthy and haven’t really ever worked. Whether you attained this status through dumb luck or the largesse of your ancestors, you aren’t retired. You are a ne’er-do-well or man about town or socialite or some other such fortunate soul. You can’t retire from those “jobs.”

So what exactly is retirement? Retirement is where one works his or her ass off for years until the point that he or she can no longer stand it and quits. Unlike unemployment, the retiree has sufficient income or assets upon which to live some modicum of a decent existence. Pensions, savings, Social Security, inheritance and the like all qualify.

Now that we know what we’re dealing with, what can we do to be prepared? If you’re my age or older and you haven’t thought about that yet, here’s the plan: Work until you die. You’ve waited way too long. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get disabled at some point. For everyone else, there are few things you can do–or not do, as the case may be.

1. Work. This one is simple enough. You can’t retire from doing nothing. Get a job. Pay your taxes. Set up an IRA. Contribute to a 401K if you can. Every little bit helps. Better yet, get one of those jobs that pays scads of money, like movie star or hedge fund manager.

2. Live Within Your Means. We’ve all heard this but spend much of our time either totally ignoring it or looking for loopholes. Anyone can understand that you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have or incur bills you can’t pay. That’s pretty basic stuff. If you don’t understand that, there’s really no hope for you. Even if you do understand, you aren’t out of the woods. Read on.

3. Spend Your Own Money. Do you still have your parents around? If so, good for you. If they are good people, call and visit them often. Be helpful to them. Pay them back for the many years they cared for you. Don’t mooch off them. Maybe your parents are generous sorts and willingly give you money and things. Here’s the deal: If the only reason you go on vacation or have a car or a house is because your parents still provide for you, you don’t live within your means. You live within their means.

Of course, many young people depend upon family to help them get started in life. That’s fine. If you’re 40 years old, you’re not a young person. If you haven’t gotten your start yet, it ain’t happening. Learn to support yourself.

You may be counting on your parents to actually fund your retirement. That plan may well work. Unfortunately, unless you mooch off them, it requires their deaths. That’s a high price to pay to retire. But, if that kind of thing doesn’t bother you, just look forward to the reading of the will.

It is equally wrong to plan to sponge off your children. This is particularly true if you have already bled your parents dry. Your children will be counting on you to support them forever, too. A cataclysmic clash of cultures awaits sure to tear your family asunder for generations to come or, at the very least, leave you all pondering which unfortunate relatives upon which you can descend.

Another sure sign of not living within your means is borrowing money. I’m not talking about loans for houses, cars or business reasons. These are, to a great extent, unavoidable in today’s world. Have you ever borrowed money to go on vacation? Here’s a thought–STAY HOME. How about a “pay day” loan where you can cash your paycheck before you get it? Here’s word for you to learn: USURY.

It is axiomatic that drug and gambling debts are red flags. In fact, all debts are red flags. If you can’t afford your lifestyle while you’re working, what are the chances you can afford it when you don’t work?

4. Require Others to Live Within Their Means. Nothing good can be said about loaning money to people for personal reasons. Perhaps you are a business person and you do so as an investment. Assuming you’ve done your due diligence, that’s a business decision. Loaning money to people who just need money is like paying someone for doing nothing for you. Naturally, it can be difficult to refuse a close friend or family member during hard times. Here are a few responses which can gently dissuade such requests:

“BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
“What do I look like–a bank?”
“What do I look like–an idiot?”
“I’m just going to pretend that you never said anything.”

5. Save First, Spend Second. This is a basic concept. Save money, then spend–not vice versa. Why? Because we Americans tend to spend all our money. We like to own things–or at the very least make payments on things. Famed motorcycle daredevil and spendthrift Evel Knievel once said:

The country singer Garth Brooks once said that he’s made more money than he could ever spend. Write me a check Garth – I’ll show you how to spend it in 24 hours.

That’s the American way. It’s also the way to guarantee that you die at work. Don’t die at work.

It’s Retirement, Stupid. With these few guidelines, we can all retire if we have reasonable expectations. You shouldn’t need as much money when you’re retired as you did when you worked. This is especially true if you have children–that is, assuming they heed the no-mooching rule and get the hell out of your house at some point.

Do you plan to travel the world when you retire? Good for you, but that takes money–a lot of money. You can retire without living the lifestyle of a Kardashian. Excuse my language, but if you can’t afford shit like that NOW, you probably can’t when you retire. That’s okay, you can still retire.

Here’s what you do. Work and save money and you should be okay. Then again, maybe not. There’s always the lottery.

©www.thetrivialtroll.com 2014

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ATTENTION YOUNG PEOPLE: THINGS THEY WON’T TELL YOU

During this graduation season, I always have the urge to offer my unsolicited advice to young people. Why? Because that’s how I am. I’m middle-aged and think I know everything. Of course, I don’t, but I do know more than most young people. Young folks are bombarded with advice from parents, friends and even strangers. Most of that advice is ignored. That’s not necessarily bad. Take a look at who’s offering the advice. Could be that they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about it.

On the other, maybe they know a lot of stuff, but just pass on the same poor advice they received in their youth. Strictly speaking, I’m not offering advice here, as much as I’m critiquing advice. You’re going to be told things that either just aren’t true or are too simplistic. Who tells you things? They do, of course. They know a lot and are anxious to tell you about it. Watch them, though. They may not be as smart as they think they are.

Here are five of those things they’ll tell you–and what they won’t say:

1. HARD WORK PAYS OFF

Hey, I’ve got nothing against hard work. In fact, if I were giving advice, I’d advise you to work hard. It’s difficult to accomplish much unless you make some effort. Here’s what they won’t tell you: Just because you work hard doesn’t mean it will pay off. Let’s say that you really aren’t very good at something, but you work hard. Chances are that the more you work, the more mistakes you’ll make. You’ll make a bad situation worse.

Another problem is that hard work simply doesn’t always pay off. You know who works hard? Farmers. A lot of farmers barely get by. Their hard work can get ruined by weather, insects, the economy or plain old bad luck. A lot of jobs are like that. Just because you work hard doesn’t mean you’ll be the CEO or that your lazy boss will even care. Sorry, but that’s true.

So, work hard, but work smart. If your hard work gets you nowhere, then go somewhere else or do something else.

2. YOU HAVE A SOUL MATE

Well-meaning people will tell you that you have a soul mate, that person that God or fate has selected for you. This person, among all the people you meet, is The One. Find this person, and you will live happily ever after.

Think about this. There are 7 billion people on Earth–half male, half female. That’s 3.5 billion for you. I’ll concede that some of those will be too young under societal taboos. Let’s say there are a billion or two available to you. So, somewhere among those billion or so people is one for you. Only one. Assuming you can actually cross paths with this one person, you’ll have to know it. Then you’ll have to do something about it. Complicating matters is that this person must also recognize his or her good fortune. If you’re bisexual, the odds getting even greater or maybe they’re better–I can’t figure it out. Regardless, good luck with all of that.

Half of all marriages end in divorce. This means we are woefully incompetent at finding our soul mates. Our soul mates are also incompetent, because they should have found us, too. It also means that God has a twisted sense of humor. He made us a soul mate, yet made it damn near impossible to find that person.

3. MONEY ISN’T IMPORTANT

They’ll tell you that happiness is better than money. Of course, it is, but that doesn’t mean money isn’t important. I’ve had times that I lived paycheck to paycheck and times I didn’t. The times I didn’t were better.

The old saw tells us that money can’t buy happiness. This is true, but it can buy comfort. Comfort isn’t necessarily happiness but it sure helps. It can even make unhappiness a tad easier. I say everyone should be happy. But, if you can’t be happy, at least be comfortable.

All of this is much different from believing that money will actually make you unhappy. Hey, I’ve known quite a few poor people, and they haven’t cornered the market on happiness, either.

There is a limit to the need for money. Ponzi schemes, thievery and various forms of graft should be avoided, if for no other reason to avoid prison. Prison will make you unhappy.

4. THIS IS THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE

You’re a young adult. You have your whole life ahead of you. The world is your oyster. This is the best time of your life. Boy, I sure hope not.

What are you–18, 20 years old? You should have 60+ more years left. If this is the best time of your life, then you have a long slog to the grave ahead of you, assuming you even care to try.

By the way, you are an adult. If you can vote, marry, sign contracts and join the military, that’s all for adults. You also may not have a good job or be doing poorly in school or living in your parents’ basement. If these are the best times for you, life is going to be tough.

I have to qualify this. When is the best time of your life? How should I know? Actually, now should be, but now changes. Now is the best time of my life, but I’m in my 50’s. I intend for my 60’s to be the best, too. Now matters. I used to 18, but that was then. So, maybe now is the best time of your life, but later should be too–except not right now. Don’t peak at 18 years old. There’s too much ground left to cover.

Is that confusing? You bet it is. Life is confusing. When you’re my age, you’ll understand.

5. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING

This is the most dangerous advice you can receive, because it simply is not true. You can’t or, at the very least, shouldn’t. Oh, you can try. (See Item No. 1 above). You are likely to fail at certain things. Most of us do. Failure is temporary, unless you continue trying the same thing. As you continue trying, at some point you become insane and then you really can’t do anything.

Have you ever heard this? Failure is not an option. Oh, how wrong that is. Failure is always an option.

You may dream of being a professional athlete. If you can’t do it, at some point you must stop trying. The same applies to intellectual endeavors. Maybe you’re not smart enough. That’s not a sin. It’s just a fact.

Bad luck is another stumbling block. You might not get the opportunity to do whatever you want. Paying bills, eating, living indoors and the like often take priority.

Here’s something that could happen. You could end up with someone who is not your soul mate. This person could be a mill stone around your neck keeping you from doing anything you want. It happens.

You also might have really crappy judgment. The things you want to do may be terrible ideas. Mobile meth labs, amateur pornography and random death threats are examples. Yes, you may well be able to do these things, but you’ll wish you hadn’t.

CONCLUSION

So, what’s my point? I don’t really have one. That’s one luxury of getting old. You can talk and talk and make no sense, but people feel like they need to listen. Now, go out there and work hard, find your soul mate, ignore money and do anything you want to do. This is the best time of your life or so they say.

©www.thetrivialtroll.com 2014

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Eat The Rich

It’s time to be honest. We don’t like rich people, do we? Come on, you know don’t. Think about it. Don’t feel bad. It’s common. Why would Aerosmith, Krokus AND Motörhead all have songs called Eat The Rich, even though they’re all rich (okay, Krokus probably isn’t)? In fact, it’s the American Way.

Some people paint buildings with anti-rich graffitti

Who is rich? It depends. My Dad once asked–rhetorically–“Does a million dollars sound like a lot of money?” His brother responded: “It depends on what crowd you’re hanging out in.” True enough.

Some people might say I’m rich. I make a good living, pay all my bills on time and even save money. That’s rich to some folks, but not to me. To me, rich is not having to work. If you don’t have to work, you’re rich.

This angry fellow doesn’t care for the rich. Imagine the popularity of an “Eat the Poor” sign.

My definition doesn’t work all that well, though. Disabled people don’t have to work. They’d like to work, I guess, but they can’t. I suppose some poor people actually don’t have to work, either. They get by somehow. Retired people don’t have to work, but most of them don’t seem rich to me. I guess what I mean is that if I could live like I do now AND not work, I’d be rich.

Here’s my test to see if someone is rich. Go to the putative rich person’s house and use the bathroom. Rich people have rich bathrooms. Naturally, there is no stink. They have bidets. They have lotions and fancy soap. You’ll be afraid to touch the soap. The towels will be fabulous. You can just touch them, and they will absorb all the moisture from your hide. I know I’m not rich, because our towels come from Walmart. It’s like drying yourself with a raincoat. Don’t even get me started on the toilet paper of the rich. It’s like using a cashmere.

Typical rich man bathroom.

Most any American is rich compared to an impoverished person in a Third World country. Some people, however, are so stinking rich that no context is required. Bill Gates, for example. He’s worth tens of billions of dollars. Billions. That’s rich anywhere, anytime.

We don’t like that kind of rich. That’s just too damn rich. It doesn’t matter if he gives millions to charity. He damn well should. Rich bastard.

What bothers us–or at least me–is this question: Why couldn’t I think of something like a PC? You don’t even need something that complicated. Mike Nesmith of the band The Monkees is rich. Why? His mother invented Liquid Paper. I could have done that. Someone invented Velcro. Post-it Notes. Staples. Clothes pins. All these simple things, and I’m too freakin’ stupid to think of any of them. Dammit.

I’ll post this on Facebook. Mega-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook. Why didn’t I do that? Now, that punk has more money than he can ever spend.

Sometimes, we admire the rich. They are the American Dream, coming from humble beginnings. Usually, though, we’re just jealous. At least, I am.

You know what really chafes us? People who inherit piles of money. They didn’t do anything but win some kind of genetic PowerBall. That just sucks. It condemns all our prior generations as a pack of losers.

I have an ancestor who helped found Rutgers University and was the driving force behind the founding of Princeton University. The Divinity School at Harvard is named after him. It seems like a guy like that should have been rich. Apparently, he wasn’t. Loser.

My ancestors had jobs like coal miner, plumber, school teacher, carnival barker, store keeper, gas station attendant. No money in any of that. You’d think at least one of them would have invented something worthwhile.

I’ve always wanted a trust fund. I know people who have trust funds. Some of them don’t work. Some do, but not because they have to work. Some clever person in an earlier generation saw to that. Trust funds are the calling card of the rich. Man, I hate that.

You can inherit large amounts of money without having anything going for you. You just get it. No brilliant inventions or hard work. You just make it to the reading of the will. It’s no wonder we hate that.

Of course, the worst is if one of your distant relatives or, God forbid, friends becomes rich. Now, you not only face the fact that your ancestors let you down, but you have an example right in your face of your own failings. You’re left with little choice but to try your best to sponge off them whenever possible.

Some people are rich because they marry rich people. That’s especially galling. We should marry for love, but why can’t we love a rich person? Hating all of them makes that tough. Fortunately, most of us can look past that hate to at least marry someone if he or she is rich enough.

It may have been Scott Fitzgerald who said the rich are different. They are. Rich people go to rich people schools with names like The Goiter School or some other pretentious name. If your school starts with “The,” you’re probably rich, too. They go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton until they go to grad school where they end up at a state university with the rest of us. We like them until we find out they’re rich. Sometimes, we still do like them, but we’re still jealous and secretly hope they’ll give us some money or lose all theirs. Either one would be satisfying.

They have different names, too. Lots of III’s and IV’s and what have you. Names like Conroy Hollingsworth Van Dusenberger IV. You can hardly blame them, given the success of their ancestors. I’d be glad to be named after my great-uncle Stud if he’d made a fortune. You can also get nicknames like Chip and Trip and Trey. We hate names like that.

The rich belong to clubs, too. Country clubs, lunch clubs, dinner clubs, book clubs. They play croquet and badminton. Their kids play lacrosse, whatever that is. They have nannies and au pairs. They’re different. Not bad different. Just different. We hate that.

We make ourselves feel better by saying things like “money can’t buy happiness” or noting that the Bible talks about shoving camels through eyes of needles and whatnot. Of course, we fail to note that many poor and middle class people are unhappy, too. I’m sure plenty of them go to Hell, too. Unhappy, Hell-bound and not rich. Now, that’s something we’d definitely hate.

We’re a few days from the Presidential Election and being rich is an issue. Mitt Romney is rich, and people don’t like that. He’s “out of touch” or “aloof.” We should just admit the real problem: He’s rich. Oddly enough, Obama is also rich, but it’s a different kind of rich. He became rich as a politician, which should certainly be more suspicious than inheriting money. Somehow, that’s different but not really. We have two Harvard-educated multi-millionaires running for President. That’s pretty much par for the course. Don’t you hate that?

Hating the rich crosses party lines. When George W. Bush ran against John Kerry, we had the same thing–two Ivy League multi-millionaires. They both went to Yale. Both were rich. Really rich. But Kerry seemed super-duper rich. That’s because he married a rich woman, the widow of John Heinz. Heinz was rich. Why? Heinz Ketchup. That’s right–inventors of the greatest ketchup known to man. That’s just too damn much money in one house. Kerry was aloof and out of touch. Bush was down to Earth. Both are richer than most of us can ever think about being without hitting a lick, but one seemed richer than the other and, thus, more hateable.

Most of our Presidents in the past century were rich. JFK was rich. His family made a fortune in bootlegging, but money is money. FDR was so rich that he could marry his own cousin and no one cared. Try that today. Nixon was rich, although he made all his money as a politician. Good old Tricky Dick. I don’t know if Reagan was rich, but he was some kind of movie star–they’re all rich. Now, Truman wasn’t rich. In fact, he was so not rich that the federal government became concerned about him and gave him a pension. No one wanted to see a former president penniless. You don’t have to be rich to be President, but it sure doesn’t hurt. We hate that about the President.

I’m told I should dislike Romney because he’s rich. Apparently, if you’re really rich, you’re evil. I’ve never seen that correlation, but it would make me feel better if it were true. You know, something like rich people eating poor people. Supposedly, Romney doesn’t care about anyone but the rich. I guess that’s possible, but he’s given a lot of his money to charity which can’t be all bad unless it’s a charity for rich people. Folks should just cut to the chase and say: “Vote for Obama. He’s rich but not as rich as Romney.” Naturally, we’d hate anyone who said that.

Even though we hate the rich, we all want to be rich, don’t we? We play the PowerBall to get rich, even though the odds are better that you will one day live next door to someone who walked on the moon than actually winning. It’s worth a shot. When someone wins the PowerBall, don’t you hate them just a little bit?

If there’s a downside to being rich (other than all the hate), it’s that you might not always be rich. It happens. That would suck. Then you’d have to hate people who are like you used to be and are what you want to be, too. Seems like that would be tough. We’d hate that.

One good thing about the rich is that it’s okay to hate them. Other than politicians and athletes, hate isn’t socially acceptable. You can hate the rich without being a bigot or some kind of phobe. Try saying “Eat The Poor.” You’ll have no friends.

If you’re rich, take no offense. I don’t really hate you. I’m just a wee bit jealous. I’d like to be your friend. More importantly, I’d like a trust fund. Of course, if you are rich, I doubt you’d read my foolish blog, but one of your servants might read it to you. (Sorry, more rich people envy. Don’t hate me).

Oh well. Make friends with some rich people. Then, eat them.

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