One of my brothers sent me a link to a Kiplinger Magazine article titled "The Rule of Retirement Inversion". The article was about flipping "How to have a GREAT Retirement?" on its head and asking "What would destroy or suck the joy out of your retirement?" Sometimes, there are inexpensive and simple steps that can be implemented to mitigate against those risks.
Everybody's analysis will be different because we are different people. For instance, I have no intention of leaving my house for sunnier climates but many people do leave.
With no further ado:
Preliminary Inversion Analysis Retirement (ERJ's second draft)
Social
- Spouse “leaves"
- Death
- Divorce
- Disease (stroke, dementia, mental health, addiction)
Health (personal)
- Dementia
- Blindness
- Loss of mobility (arthritis, loss of limb(s), stroke)
Economy
- Inflation destroys purchasing power of savings and pension
- Aging destroys ability to work (obsolete skills, lack of stamina, unwillingness to relocate)
- Savings are stolen
- Accounts hacked
- Stolen by trusted people
- House gets broken into
- Mugged
Losing the ability to drive
- Losing ability to connect to internet
- Credit card fraud makes remote transactions too risky
Losing house
- Fire
- Eminent Domain or is Condemned
- Key systems fail and I will not be able to afford fixing them
- Lawsuit (dog bite, trespassers have accident, hunting accident)
- Squatters
- Medical costs
- Chemical/nuclear spill
Bad neighbors
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Using this analysis as a planning tool might involve asking "Which systems in my house are most likely to fail in the next 25 years?"
If "bathing" is likely, then installing a walk-in shower might be warranted.
If "laundry" is likely, then maybe having a plan to move it to the ground-floor is a good idea.
If health-issues are at the top of the list, then having a plan with Who-What-How-Where-Why-When details inked out is important.
If inflation is a hot-button for you, then what critical needs can you produce on-property with minimal, outside inputs? Can you add those skills to your tool-box?
Many of the circumstances listed in my Inversion Analysis are beyond my control. The point of the plan is to "mitigate, dilute or delay" if events are inevitable.
For example, one of the couple we see at the walking track where we exercise is a man pushing his wife in a wheelchair. She has a degenerative neuromuscular disorder and they are fighting it by doing what they can.
ERJ, that seems to be a pretty complete list.
ReplyDeleteOne thing my parents' planned for was a decline in their health by building things like a large shower (that a wheelchair could get into) and large doors and hallways to accommodate the same. One thing that did not go as expected was the fact that they were far enough out of town that it became difficult in the case of medical emergencies; also, the size of their property became difficult to manage. In retrospect, they might have moved to the local town (my hometown) where medical care and a right sized property would have been more readily available.
It has certainly impacted my own retirement thinking.
An interesting idea, a different type of prepping.
ReplyDeleteI've read elsewhere about people having trouble with large properties as they age, especially with steep terrain.
While I want a property with privacy, I know others who want one close to town so they can more easily restock. I can understand both views.
Thanks for the food for thought.
Jonathan
Good list, I would add that for single people failing health and economy is a bigger concern due to a lack of support, though spousal loss or disability is not an issue.
ReplyDeleteAs for property and finances, I rank government confiscations a much bigger risk than private sector crime, though when it comes to property, public private partnerships can be an issue. Once a person has been recognized a soft target (old age, poverty, mental and/or cognitive decline), local corrupt networks will move to kill. While lawfare, like declaring property condemned or eminent domain may be used as an excuse, in more brazen jurisdictions laws do not matter against local elite interests.
One prep to do would be to take a good hard look at what is happening to the rule of law. not the shoplifting, muggings, burglaries and such bit player activities but the whole law enforcement, courts and county level bureaucratic institutions and then act accordingly. if necessary, move and sell before someone takes it from you.
If there is time and strength, taking new hobbies and learning new skills is a good insurance against cognitive decline. And who knows, maybe those skills and hobbies will grow to a secondary or even primary income stream.
Losing ability to drive and economy are in my books listed together with energy/water infrastructure under acts of government. There is a push to hem people into 15 minute cities, which paradoxically are more vulnerable to infrastructure failures, which will proliferate due to complexity collapse and deferred maintenance. But while the push continues, owning or driving a vehicle may become functionally impossible for a regular citizen.
Relocation as a health prep: when I visited Finland about a month ago, a friend pointed at new apartment buildings where an apartment would cost hundreds of thousands of euros - an outrageous price, except for the location, a couple of blocks from one of the country's leading cardiology and neurophysiology hospitals. I presume the apartments were directed at elderly rich worried about their health.
Finally, I would add to the risk list a loss of friends and other social and psychological support network. Loneliness can be devastating for motivation to survive. While nothing can replace old friends and family, it is always good to make new friends and expand one's social circles.
"Finally, I would add to the risk list a loss of friends and other social and psychological support network. Loneliness can be devastating for motivation to survive. While nothing can replace old friends and family, it is always good to make new friends and expand one's social circles."
DeleteThe loss of my parents' ability to connect with friends during The Plague, in my opinion, definitely contributed to a rapid decline in their last year living on their own.
If you want to know the worst horror stories of people who didn't do Inversion Analysis, talk to the people who do estate auctions. They've seen it all.
ReplyDeleteA typical story starts with a sudden death or debilitating stroke of a spouse. The surviving spouse sells the house for a reasonable price, but then comes a sale of their $400k worth of "stuff" that brings only $28k at auction, of which the auction house gets 20%. Suddenly the new digs are downgraded to a "nice one bedroom townhouse". Within a couple of years the surviving spouse is buying their groceries at ALDI and putting the vehicle transmission repair bill on a credit card. Etc.
This post should strike like a THUNDER-CLAP to the beans, bullets, and band aids in buckets crowd!
ReplyDelete25 guns, 40,O00 rounds of ammo, 5,000 gallons of water, 3 years of food, and all on a safe rural homestead. But they didn't consider that they might become incontinent and in a wheelchair and nobody would care enough to change their diaper.
I was told repestedly multiple times by many cohorts. I was young and dumb and full of... I find I am most surprised with the rapidity of my physical deterioration. Something hit a wall at 35, and its been an accelerating decline ever since.
ReplyDeleteNone of these issues-threats are new. A look at the Christmas Story shows it in a kinder fashion than the real deal of that era.
ReplyDeleteMost of this is mostly from the social isolation of Me, Me, Me.
A strong multigenerational family has all of this covered as it did over many generations previous.
COVID did us a favor in a backhanded manner. You got to SEE how folks respond to tyrants demands and who abandoned-condemned who over a TV "Science".
Look to those that were helpful under stress and get busy building even a tiny support tribe. I don't agree with all the politics-viewpoints of my rabbit lady down the road (she's anti-gun) but she knows when not if she has a predator problem I'll come over and quietly destroy the rabbit threat.
I also don't mind helping her with her rabbits when she needs help with hospital visits and trips to see her kids. I have an excellent Hassenpfeffer recipe.
I have a nice younger couple that raises milk sheep and I let them use my property for their efforts. They cannot afford to buy land right now. I'm getting used to Sheep milk products. Talking to them about going shares on a milk cow.
Family is not blood but who treats you with loving respect.
We never thought about impacts of old age, and loss of mobility. We’re doing what we can, but we’ve been slapped by ‘just can’t do it anymore’ and it breaks my heart. I know we should move, but the logistics are overwhelming. Housing prices locally are astronomical.
ReplyDeleteSouthern NH
Southern NH - This is the same sort of thing that confronted my parents - and having moved last year, the logistics are indeed overwhelming.
DeleteIt has made me start to ask some very hard questions.