Save as Much as You Can Because Whatever You Manage to Save Will Never Be Enough – Random Thoughts on Retirement

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As a gentle reminder to readers who may be visiting this blog for the first time my Random Thoughts About Retirement are written by an Old Guy who is old enough to be retired but isn’t retired and is still working. To be clear, saving as much as you can is different than saving more. I come across way too much “financial advice” that emphasizes saving more for retirement as the hands down absolute solution for a secure retirement. Saving more is typically followed by advice to spend less. Well life keeps getting more expensive so it’s getting harder to save more AND spend less.

So save as much as you can. That’s it. That’s the post.

Where Gen Z is Buying Homes

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At 22.59%, Salt Lake City has the largest share of mortgage requests from Gen Zers. Though the average mortgage amount in Salt Lake City is higher than in many of the nation’s other large metros, it’s a hot spot for younger homebuyers, likely owing to — among other factors — its strong jobs market and a good blend of urban and rural amenities.

After Salt Lake City, relatively inexpensive Oklahoma City and Birmingham, Ala., are the next most popular metros among Gen Z buyers. Respectively, 22.36% and 20.79% of mortgage requests in these two metros come from Gen Zers.

Most Popular Metros for Gen Z Homebuyers — https://www.lendingtree.com/home/mortgage/the-most-popular-us-cities-for-gen-z-homebuyers-ranked/

Where Are These People Coming From?

Is it the food? We have Chef Andrew Black of Grey Sweater, James Beard Best Chef Southwest – Andrew Black brings Best Chef: Southwest James Beard Award home to Oklahoma City – https://www.oklahoman.com/story/lifestyle/food/2023/06/05/james-beard-award-2023-winners-andrew-black-best-chef-southwest/70289770007/

Could it be the lower cost of living or because Oklahoma is producing 64 times more marijuana than licensed users consume – The Oklahoman

Nah, probably the catfish.

Oklahoma producing 64 times more marijuana than licensed users consume – The Oklahoman

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“The supply-to-demand ratio of regulated medical marijuana supply to regulated medical cannabis demand is 64:1,” the report states. “Using a general assumption that units of supply should not exceed two times the units of demand, the medical marijuana program has no less than 32 times more regulated marijuana necessary than licensed patient demand.”

The significant oversupply is likely funneling large amounts of marijuana out of state and adding to the illegal market, according to authority officials.

Oklahoma producing 64 times more marijuana than licensed users consume, report shows — https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/state/2023/06/21/marijuana-oklahoma-overproducing-64-times-omma-report/70343452007/

The Truth behind the medical marijuana industry.

At least we know there may be a positive longevity effect to all of this excess supply.

What the Scientists Who Pioneered Weight-Loss Drugs Want You to Know – Wired Magazine

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What happens is that you lose your appetite and also the pleasure of eating, and so I think there’s a price to be paid when you do that. If you like food, then that pleasure is gone. The craving for food for some people is taken away when they take GLP-1 drugs.

So you don’t eat through GLP-1 therapy because you’ve lost interest in food. That may eventually be a problem, that once you’ve been on this for a year or two, life is so miserably boring that you can’t stand it any longer and you have to go back to your old life.

What the Scientists Who Pioneered Weight-Loss Drugs Want You to Know – https://www.wired.com/story/obesity-drugs-researcher-interview-ozempic-wegovy/

Just another GLP-1 receptor agonist post. See Tirzepatide (another GLP-1 receptor agonist post) for more on the new miracle weight loss drugs that were originally developed to treat duodenal ulcer disease (bet you thought it was diabetes).

The entire article is worth reading.

Random Thoughts on Retirement – aka The Dot Project

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Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Steve Jobs

While writing random retirement thoughts the other day I noticed the similarities between A Plan is Not a Strategy – Update 08.03.22 and my Dot Project. Harvard Prof Robert Martin discusses how planning and strategy are different and that “integrative choices” collectively become strategy. These integrative choices are significant decisions you have made or choose to make that have life altering consequences. I come from a humble background and tend to shy away from BIG FANCY WORDS used by intellectuals and others who want to appear smarter than they truly are. So for me these choices or life decisions are Dots.

Dots. Big Dots. Little Dots. Even Do Nothing Dots where you decide not to do something are Dots. The decision not to do something can be as important to life outcomes as a decision to do something. The problem as Jobs tells it is true. You can only connect your Dots when looking backwards.

I started my Dot Project writing six years ago and got as far as jotting down Dots in my journal as writing prompts. So far I’ve documented about a dozen Dots but never got around to actually writing anything about them. Until today. I’ve reached the point in life where I am able to look backwards and Connect My Dots. My hope is the reader will find these insights to be useful in your own journey. My second hope is that my children and their children find my Dot Project and learn a tad bit more about where they came from.

The Dot Project and Random Thoughts on Retirement are one and the same. Next up – Save as Much as You Can Because Whatever You Manage to Save Will Never Be Enough – Random Thoughts on Retirement.

Scary Charts – 06.12.23

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Source: 3 in 4 managers find it difficult to work with GenZ — https://www.resumebuilder.com/3-in-4-managers-find-it-difficult-to-work-with-genz/

Source: Millennials or Gen Z: who’s doing the most job-hopping — https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/blog/how-long-should-you-stay-in-a-job

There’s no malicious intent here. I’m not playing generational war games. Any relationship you see between these two survey results could simply be spurious.

Or not.

More Random Thoughts on Retirement – June 2023

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Another quiet Sunday and I’m thinking about retirement (again). Writers read a lot. I’ll typically have quite a number of books started in various stages of completion. Recently I started reading the first in a series of books titled The Write Quotes: The Writing Life. The quotes paint similarities of thoughts and experiences and are amazing. You realize you are never alone in any of life’s adventures.

Since 2021, more than 1.5 million seniors have reentered the workforce. There were about 10.6 million people ages 65 to 74 employed in 2020, according to 2021 data from the U.S. Labor Department.

That number is expected to increase.

Retiring from retirement: Whether for financial reasons or boredom, a growing number of older adults are rejoining the workforce — https://triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/back-to-work-whether-for-financial-reasons-or-boredom-a-growing-number-of-older-adults-are-rejoining-the-workforce/

Just last month I came to the realization that (I am) Flunking Retirement. When 65 rolled around I started collecting a small corporate defined benefit pension. Years ago the monthly amount had a lot more purchasing power than it does now. Still, I feel fortunate to have this income stream.

In yesteryear, the pension was a staple of the American working class experience—reach retirement age and you could expect to live out your years modestly, yet comfortably, off of monthly payments from your former employer. However, since the 1980s, companies offering pensions are a dwindling breed. Instead, most employers offer defined contribution programs such as 401(k) plans. Only a handful of industries (such as the military, public works and education) still offer pension plans to their retirees.

Why Pensions Are Dying And How You Can Create Your Own —https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2023/06/05/why-pensions-are-dying-and-how-you-can-create-your-own/?sh=4970c87ec9d4

When I reached my US Social Security FRA (full retirement age) I didn’t retire nor start collecting benefits. Delaying social security payments until age 70 translates into about an 8% increase in benefits annually. If you’re healthy and you don’t need the income for necessities, it’s worth the wait.

Working longer is a powerful lever. Social Security benefits claimed at 70 instead of at 62 are at least 76 percent higher, and the additional years of work allow 401(k) assets to increase and reduce the period of time that the assets need to cover. In fact, my research shows that the vast majority of millennials will be fine if they work to age 70. And although that might sound old, it’s historically normal in another sense: Retiring at 70 leaves the ratio of retirement to working years the same as when Social Security was originally introduced.

Millennials and retirement: How bad is it? — https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/06/07/millennials-preparing-for-retirement-000670/

Millennials are not the only generation ill-prepared for retirement.

America’s 65 million Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) are confronted with a new set of financial challenges that are redefining their plans for retirement, just as they enter their final working years, according to Prudential Financial, Inc.’s latest Pulse research survey, “Gen X: Retirement Revised.”

Generation X confronts harsh new reality of retirement: unreadiness — https://news.prudential.com/generation-x-confronts-harsh-new-reality-retirement-unreadiness.htm

Remember A Plan is Not a Strategy – Update 08.03.22? Having a plan for retirement is great but not all plans turn out as planned. My last executive position ended up being my last executive position and trust me, that was not what I planned. It’s a good thing that my strategy worked a lot better than my plans.

Stay tuned for the next installment of my random thoughts on retirement where I will document (finally) the integrative choices I’ve made that comprise my retirement strategy.