Mild Cognitive Impairment and computer use

Don't complain if your spouse or grandpa or auntie is using the computer too much. Watch for it when they lose interest. It's a study worth looking at. . .

"In a study of 100 older people with mean age of 84 years, there was a significant decline in computer use among the eight participants who developed MCI over 43 months of follow-up, compared with the 92 people whose cognitive skills remained stable (P=0.019), Jeffrey Kaye, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University, and colleagues reported at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Boston."

http://www.medpagetoday.com/TheGuptaGuide/Neurology/40586

Almost, not quite, a blizzard

Central Ohio was under a severe storm warning yesterday, the day after Christmas.  We had about 4" but other counties had more.  In any case, it made me appreciate again moving to a condo in 2002.  I love hearing the trucks show up to clean the street and our driveways, or the snow shovels scraping, knowing my husband won't be bundling up to go out in the cold. But also, we have terrific neighbors, always ready to help in an emergency.

What you probably don't know about Social Security

"Taking Social Security benefits – the right ones at the right time – is one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll ever make, so you need to get it right. Getting it right on your own, however, is neigh impossible." And even checking with the specialists at the local SS office, you can get misinformation. . . the manual has over 2700 separate rules. Add to this what you don't know about Obamacare. . .

Link

College grads, start saving now!

When I graduated from college I was 21 years old and 5 months pregnant. I had other things on my mind than saving for retirement.  .  . like rent, food, graduate school, paying off the hospital and doctor bills (it was a pay as you go baby).  I put it off until I was about 48 and the children were launched.  Then I opened a tax deferred account through TIAA-CREF and started setting aside the maximum allowed.  Since I didn’t go back to work full time until about that same time, I was really behind.  If you’re starting out, don’t do what I did.

Here's how interest compounds over time: If you save $10 a day at age 25, you'll have more than $1 million by age 65, assuming an 8% annual rate of return. If you start at age 35, you'll have $445,000. At age 45, you'll only have $180,000.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304432704577348052844503384.html

Retiree confidence very low compared to 10 years ago

Some people forget that G W Bush also inherited a recession. The percent of retirees in 2001 who felt very confident or somewhat confident that they had saved and invested sufficiently for retirement ranged from 74% in 2001 to 79% in 2007. In 2008, that dropped to 64% and then to 60% in 2011 as the recession ground on despite a massive influx of federal funding. Link to Research. The gloom and doom in the business community is palpable as they are hit by more and more taxes and uncertainty about health care. Expansion is mostly out of the question, unless you're a petroleum driller in North Dakota. This affects those of us who live on retirement incomes whether Social Security, or defined benefit plans or our own savings/investments. Obviously, two things jump out about those years--the current recession that started in 2007 changed the investing mix and caused retirees to reevaluate their retirement plans and spending, and the baby boomers began entering the retirement demographic.

Those of us who were born before or during WWII whose fathers fought in that war and whose parents were teen-agers or young adults during the Great Depression have a different attitude than baby boomers about saving and sufficiency. We also have benefited from stronger family safety nets and we know the difference between “wants vs. needs." The value gap will expand for Gen-Xers who were accustomed to even more “stuff” replacing spiritual and familial values. In the 1940s and 1950s even children whose parents never took them to church heard Biblical admonitions on values and thrift in school before the Supreme Court ended it in the 1960s. "Don't store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” Matt 6:19-20

Laughing with Mary all the way to the beach

Candidates are visiting The Villages in Florida

It seems the celebrities and political candidates love The Villages, a retirement community of 85,000 residents located 20 miles south of Ocala, Florida on route 441 with a total of 504 holes of golf. Murray recently sent his e-mail list this item about their visitors. "In the past 2 years we've had Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck (twice), Bill O'Rielly, and Sean Hannity visiting us. This week we had Rick Santorum and John McCain with Newt Gingrich tomorrow and Mitt Romney Monday. Also the Tea Party Express bus will be here tomorrow." In fact, he adds, they've even had Occupiers show up to protest.

"One thing you can be sure of and that would be Obama will NOT be coming to The Villages. He already knows that The Villages special interest group is not potential supporters. They consist of the old and wise. He avoids these people plus most of the middle class that he's trying to screw and doing a dam good job of it!"

Is There a Retirement Crisis?

The idea of working until the end—or closer to it—isn’t new. Many of today’s retirees have enjoyed decades of relaxation financed by company pensions and Social Security, but for most of history, voluntary retirement was the exception, not the rule. “Up to the end of the nineteenth century, people generally worked as long as they could,” Munnell writes. “At the end of their lives, they had only about two years of ‘retirement,’ often due to ill health.”

Is There a Retirement Crisis? by Nicole Gelinas, City Journal Autumn 2011

Beginning a new year when you're old

Taken from “Can I Begin Again?” by J. Oswald Sanders:

“When we were younger, most of us who are Christians earnestly sought to discover God’s plan for our lives, especially when we came to the crossroads of career and marriage. Are we equally diligent in seeking his plan for our old age, or are we just drifting along with no definite aim or goal? With more time to review the past, it is not difficult to become discouraged as we recall opportunities missed; a lessening of zeal in God’s service; a mediocre prayer life; or perhaps actual sins of which we have reason to be ashamed. It is at moments of introspection that we need to turn our eyes outward and upward to our loving and understanding Father. What balm a verse like Romans 5:20 can bring! “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” The wonderful thing about God’s abundant grace and favor is that it is never too late to discover and follow God’s plan for the remainder of our lives, never too late to make a new start, even if we have missed his plan till the present time. To his disillusioned compatriots, the prophet Joel brought an inspiring message of hope - the hope of a New Beginning. God delights in giving his failing children a chance to begin again...”I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25).

Shared from cousin Gayle's weekly newsletter

Generations and the Great Recession

The generations are taking care of each other, according to the Pew Research Center.

Section 5: Generations and the Great Recession | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

It may not be glamorous, but the retirement pay is good

The base pay for a California state prison guard is $73,728, and with overtime many guards earn up to $100,000 annually. Five years ago Los Angeles Times reported that 6,000 guards were earning more than $100,000. One lieutenant raked in $252,570. Besides generous salaries and benefits, prison guards in California can retire as early as age 50. In retirement they are eligible to receive as much as 90 percent of their income: According to the state retirement formula, guards over 50 receive a percentage of their last year’s salary equal to three times the number of years worked. The prison population is growing 3 times faster than the state population--more jobs for union guards?

The price of prison guard unions

Too Much Debt to Retire

Although you can blame the economy, this part of the article makes more sense--what was going on for the now 60 year olds in the mid-decade.

"The combination of easy credit, low interest rates and a consumption-oriented culture helped fuel a spending binge for Americans until the financial crisis. People with problems aren't just those who took subprime loans or spent foolishly on lavish lifestyles. They are people from all backgrounds, including some with six-figure incomes."

Too Much Debt to Retire - SmartMoney.com

Valuing Seniors' Lives - Investors.com

"A commercial showing granny being pushed over a cliff by a person resembling Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., was recently put out by the Agenda Project, implying that the Ryan budget will kill old people by changing Medicare.

For the sake of accuracy, granny should have been dispatched by a character resembling Cass Sunstein, President Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

The Ryan budget attempts to curb the explosive growth of entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security so they are there for granny without burdening the grandchildren with unconscionable debt. Sunstein, as was pointed out during congressional testimony last Friday, literally believes granny should be sacrificed in favor of the kids.

In testimony before the House energy and commerce subcommittees on oversight and investigations, the 56-year-old Sunstein tried to walk back comments he made in a 2003 paper, "Lives, Life-years, and Willingness to Pay," written while he was a professor at Obama's one-time home, the University of Chicago."

Valuing Seniors' Lives - Investors.com

How to travel a lot without being a millionaire | Lifecruiser

You'll find some good tips from a blogger I've followed for many years. She lives cheap at home so they can afford to travel.

How to travel a lot without being a millionaire | Lifecruiser

Your Retirement Checklist for Your 70s and Beyond

Take a look at this check-list, you might need to reevaluate. Includes a link to long term care.

Ischemic bowel disease

Just one more thing for older people to know about--I'd never heard of this condition, but apparently it does affect older people, one article I read said over 60, another over 70.
Ischemia, the noun for ischemic, means a low oxygen state due to inadequate blood flow. Bowel refers to the small and large intestine.

Ischemic bowel disease results from inadequate flow of oxygenated blood to the intestines. The extent of ischemic bowel disease can range from mild to severe based on the amount of damage from lack of oxygenated blood. This is a potentially serious condition and requires care from your doctor.

I received word that a friend was in the hospital, and when I called, I found out she has been in for two weeks, first in ICU, then step down, and she may be transferred to yet another hospital. She became ill at home with vomiting and diarrhea, called a friend to come, but had passed out by the time the friend got there. Another 2 hours delay and she would have been dead.

Read the article. Be informed.

Your Health -

Inspiring

Although I won't be doing this, it's a good idea! So go after your dream.



HT My thoughts Exactly

Public pension crisis has some bracing for worst

"A recent study of some 126 state-sponsored pension plans by the Center for Retirement Research revealed that assuming investment returns of 6%, the plans will run out of money by 2023 or 2025, depending on their framework.

Assuming an even more generous 8% investment return, the plans will run out of money in 2033 or 2041."

Should you take out your public pension funds and reinvest on your own?
Investment News
"The Ohio House of Representatives is weighing a slate of changes to the state's five public pension plans, including tying the cost-of-living-adjustment to the Consumer Price Index and capping it at 3%, instead of an automatic 3% increase.

Another part of the law would raise contributions by police officers and firefighters to 12%, from 10%, and raise the age at which employees could take their full pension to 52, from 48."

Although I retired at 60, it looks like today you should plan to work to 65 or 70, unless you've put aside other funds, as we had done. I don't regret a minute that I've had those 10 good years of activities and travel I enjoy--on the other hand, retirement is much more expensive than I imagined. I'm thankful I was able to sock away 15% in tax deferred plans, and for many years learned not to use my income which would have resulted in a more materialistic lifestyle.

Reed Krakoff set to hit fashion big-time after Michelle Obama carries $1,000 tote (and despite the price it's already sold out)

If a story looks really ridiculous, I run it through Snopes. I know. I know. Conservatives don't like this fact checking website because they say it's just a mom and pop outfit, but hey, I was a librarian for 25 years, and when I was checking facts, most of the time it was just me, by myself. Anyway, when I saw the story about Michelle Obama and the $1,000 handbag with a photo, I thought it was fake or photoshopped. First of all, it's an ugly, ugly bag,and second,it's teal and her shoes are blue. And this woman is giving "sacrifice" a bad name when she tells us to eat our carrots and she goes out for ribs. Could she really follow up that story with something this tacky? Don't know. I've always said her husband wasn't one of us, but I had hopes for her (by not one of us, I don't mean I'm a birther, because if his mother is an American, that's good enough for me).

Reed Krakoff set to hit fashion big-time after Michelle Obama carries $1,000 tote (and despite the price it's already sold out) | Mail Online

If you think this isn't a retirement story, look in your closet at all the funny looking bags you have. Or in the mirror--ha, ha.

In this case, sweating is a good sign

Recent work led by University of Iowa neuroscientist Natalie Denburg, Ph.D., suggests that for a significant number of older adults, measurable neuropsychological deficits do seem to lead to poor decision-making and an increased vulnerability to fraud. The findings also suggest that these individuals may experience disproportionate aging of a brain region critical for decision-making.

"Our research suggests that elders who fall prey to fraudulent advertising are not simply gullible, depressed, lonely or less intelligent. Rather, it is truly more of a medical or neurological problem," said Denburg, who is an assistant professor of neurology in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. "Our work sheds new light on this problem and perhaps may lead to a way to identify people at risk of being deceived."

What I found interesting was that they can measure poor decision making and sweating--apparently, it's good to sweat the small stuff! "Good decision-makers display different anticipatory responses (amount of sweating) prior to a good or a bad choice, which appears to help them discriminate between the two options. In contrast, the older adults with poor decision-making abilities did not sweat more or less when deciding between a good or bad choice."

Link