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Beyond Platitudes, What Retirees Really Want & Need
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Money makes the world go around…well at least for today’s retiree according to a recent study. The National Council on Aging or NCOA’s survey “The United States of Aging” shows 53% are more concerned about outliving their money than their health. Last week we discussed the long term care crisis and the reverse mortgage’s role. Unfortunately money and a retiree’s health and long term care go hand in hand. A popular quote reads..
2 Comments
One of your most well thought out presentations yet. The older we become as individuals the more valuable each of our lives becomes- yet most don’t see it that way.
While the survey from NCOA is on point, generally surveys are little more than manipulative tools in the hands of their creators. Retirement finances are not about the results of surveys but rather an analysis of what the real financial picture of retirement is about.
Ms. Elizabeth Ecker capsulizes it well in presenting the following from a recent Wall Street Journal article: “’Retirement is really about cash flow,’ Martin James, a certified public accountant in Mooresville, Ind., told the WSJ. ‘Even for a person who’s got their mortgage paid off, it’s nice to have a line of credit sitting there.’” (http://reversemortgagedaily.com/2013/08/18/wall-street-journal-reverse-mortgages-can-help-a-wide-array-of-retirees/#more-19428)
As in most everything else dealing in finance, ultimately cash is king. There is no exception when it comes to retirement.
I have met miserable retirees who got their dreams but ran out of cash in the process. Why are they miserable? Because they believed their fulfilling their dreams would sustain them in later years. However, they found out the hard way that fulfilling today’s dreams may turn out to be tomorrow’s nightmares.
Proper retirement financial planning is neither about aging in place nor not aging in place. It is about helping seniors plan so that they do not run out of (or run low on) cash in retirement. That is what HECMs are all about.