Posted by Tim Stobbs on September 9, 2010
A while back I mentioned I picked up an Ipod Touch and was hoping to use it to help organize myself . I thought a fellow up post on how that is going would be in order. So far I have to admit that the Touch has been very useful, even in a few ways that I wasn’t expecting.
First off I managed to sync all three of my email addresses to the Touch so it’s massively improved my responsiveness with email (at least for short replies – I still use a keyboard for longer emails). Then the ability to type notes as I go and avoid little pieces of paper has also been huge help on me recording blog post ideas or reminders of things I need to do. I’m also using the calender a lot for reminders which has helped me to avoid forgetting a few events. Perhaps my only real disappointment with it was finding I can’t sync my work calender with my Touch. Even with that the Touch did what I was hoping for in helping me organize.
What I didn’t expect was how much I use it to find something on the web. I will now often use it for short check of hours at a store, traffic updates, or a location on a map. So it’s saved me turning on my computer a lot more than I would have ever guessed.
Yet where life got really interesting was when I started finding all the apps I could use on the Touch. If you follow me on Twitter you could almost tell when I found the Twitter App since my posts frequency picked up at once. Facebook was very handy for keeping up with family and friends. While WordPress app let me manage comments on this blog from just about anywhere.
Perhaps my favorite app to date has been textPlus which allows me to text to my wife’s cell phone for free. This has been great for last minute shopping reminders or checking up when one of use will be getting home. My second favorite app has to be MobileRSS which syncs my Google reading account to my ipod. So when I have five minute breaks between events I can read a blog post or two. This is the reason why I’ve been managing to post link posts every second Friday now.
That is just a small sample of what I’ve been using it for. The reality is I’m still happy with my purchase as it managed to do more than I was expecting with it. I still haven’t bought a single app for it yet. Perhaps it’s my frugal habits or I haven’t found one that I thought would be worth buying.
So how did your last tech purchase turn out? Was it what you hoped for or not?
Posted by Tim Stobbs on September 8, 2010
At some point in their lives I think everyone has meet someone who was bad at planning. You know the type, they don’t save much if anything for their retirement because they will get to the ‘later’, but later never seems to come until they have managed to get themselves into a tight spot. Now normally this isn’t a big problem since they only mess up their own lives with perhaps some limited spill over to immediate family. Yet what happens when governments are the ones who are poor at planning?
That essentially is what we are facing in the next decade as the boomer retire and both federal and provincial governments start dealing with some fundamentally unpleasant and unpopular decisions (which is obviously why they have manage to avoid making those choices for so long). In even the US the situation is somewhat similar with a few variations, but in general we are facing some fairly bleak issues such as:
- Lower Income Tax Revenues – It doesn’t take much research on Google to realize that the ratio of worker to retirees is about to take a nose dive from approximately a 5:1 ratio down to 2.5:1 in the next couple of decades. With that in mind you can expect a fairly significant drop in income tax revenue for governments as those high paying boomer drop down to retirement incomes.
- Higher Health Care Costs - Along with all those retirees will come higher health care costs in the next few decades. For example in my home province of Saskatchewan, health care is 40% of the provincial budget right now. Add in the boomers and it isn’t hard to see we have a huge cost issue.
- Unsustainable Retirement Benefits – Both the US and Canada have this issue in one program each. In the US its Social Security and in Canada it is Old Age Security. Given the other two cost pressures these programs can not continue as they are, but no one has been willing to bring up that issue yet. I wonder if we will have massive protests like France is having right now.
So what can be done to fix it? Well in general you should prepare for a combination of less service or benefits and more taxes. How exactly that axe will fall will depend heavily on the particular political slant of the government. How rapid these changes will occur will depend if our governments are willing to deal with the issue now or wait until they are in a similar situation to Greece and have to make massive changes rather quickly.
But what about you? From a personal point of view what can you do about this? Well that’s a little hard to say, but some general ideas include:
- Avoid Debt - With governments in a less than ideal spot, bond markets are going to demand a higher rate of return for government debt which will affect you if you have a fixed rate mortgage. The solution: get rid of the mortgage.
- Avoid Government Dependence – Make sure your retirement plan includes a drop in your government retirement benefits for the programs mentioned above. In general a 50% drop isn’t out the range of possibility.
- Get Healthy and Stay There – Prevention goes a long way with your health and since that is going to likely cost you more as you get older you should try to take care of it now. Get in the habit of eating better and getting some exercise. It will make your retirement more enjoyable and possibility save you a lot of money.
What do you think of the government’s poor planning? Who should pay for the screw up that is now facing us?
Posted by Dave on September 7, 2010
I have never factored in any expenses to my retirement plan that may occur for family members needing my monetary assistance once they retire. My wife and I have assumed that our parents will have reasonable savings to retire on. Right now they are all about 5-10 years from retirement age (we have three sets – my parents are divorced). My wife and I have tried to explained our plans to them, that we may be at a point to stop working at approximately the same time that they do. So far this plan seems to have been met with a level of either: a) indifference or b) skepticism – they think it’s impossible, no matter how we try to explain our plan to them.
Our concern is that we might have assist our parents financially or otherwise as they get older. This would obviously not be their plan A, but perhaps a plan C where they would move in with us or depend on us to support them financially. Although this outcome wouldn’t be ideal, I can see the mindset – it’s the same one I had until I was 23 (when I graduated from University) which was that I could “always go home”.
It’s obvious that at some point my wife and I will have to have a frank discussion with our parents regarding their finances and expectation of us as they age and might require more significant amounts of care. As with most things money-related this is probably a good idea to discuss, but never a comfortable discussion. This is similar to the discussion I had with my wife, when I learned she was carrying $20,000 in credit card debt. It was not a comfortable thing to talk about for either of us, but led to a galvanized effort of getting rid of the debt and a more “team-oriented” goal of early retirement when the debt was gone. In a similar fashion an uncomfortable talk with our parents will hopefully lead to a better understanding about what they expect from us over the next 30 to 40 years as they age, especially when health problems become more of an issue.
If we find out that our parents are expecting us to support them financially, that would mean we would probably have to work longer for us. If, for example we find out that one of the sets of our parents have minimal (or no) retirement savings I’m not sure what impact there will be on our own retirement goals. I would like to say none, but the alternative is to watch our parents live in potential poverty? I’m not sure I could do that, no matter what my personal retirement goals are.
This sort of planning would be less of an issue if I were planning to retire more conventionally, with for example, a full pension at work and some investments in an RRSP. That extra money would provide more than enough money to support our household and cover some unplanned expenses. Retiring at 45 means having more stringent spending plan that requires more discussion around these kind of “other” expenses.
I’m wondering if you have had a discussion with your parents about money, such as this, or alternatively have to dealt with parents who had saved inadequately for retirement? Do you include some kind of support payments for your parents in your retirement plan?
