Archives for March 2022

Stop and think for a moment how many of your fellow baby boomers own their own businesses. They are designers, bakers, realtors, restauranteurs, farmers, nursery operators, landscapers, pet groomers, childcare operators, vintners, photographers, B&B owners, interior designers, and an almost endless list of various retail store operators.

Now stop and think for a moment about what happens to these businesses when the baby boomer retires. Is there a succession plan? Is there a family member in the wings ready to take over? Is there enough potential to offer the business for sale?

Starting to get the picture? Baby boomers account for about 40 percent of all small businesses. Now factor in the 10,000 boomers who are retiring EVERY DAY. There is about to be a seismic shift in the future of small business in this country.

Millennials and Gen Zers are skewing more to the tech sector when it comes to career choices, so what happens to these boomer businesses, which incidentally are profitable for the most part? We’re talking about 2.3 million businesses that employ around 25 million people. The supply of potential businesses is about to outstrip the demand for ownership.

There’s an unparalleled transfer of wealth happening now, as the boomer generation leaves its wealth in the form of inheritance. But what happens to the actual businesses that built that wealth? Boomers may wish to hand off the business to a family member, but if no one wants it, it either can be sold if there’s a buyer or it withers on the vine.

So what? So there may be fewer professionals, trades people and crafts people to cater to our needs. Fewer plumbers to fix your water heater, fewer one-off restaurants that feature unique local entrepreneurs, and overall fewer options other than national chain stores and services. This may be one of those “you won’t know how much you miss us until we’re gone” situations. And there’s nothing on the horizon that would have the potential to change the trajectory of this trend.

The movement to support your local small business is more important than ever in our current economic climate. We just need to realize that many baby boomers will be the last small business owners, because operating a small business has gone out of style. RIP.

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon here. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon.

A New Dream “Surgery? Are you kidding?”

Not exactly what you’re meant to say to a doctor, and this guy who’d been affable until that moment looked dubious, squinting and his whole body shifting away from me as if I were mildly toxic. The neon lights in his office seemed to glow a lot brighter and I felt exposed and scared. I though the X-ray I’d asked for to explore the chronic pain in my right hand would only reveal arthritis, but there were bone chips and bone spurs and pretty serious deterioration.

I went blank for a while as he explained the options, but I was fully alert when he said, “It’ll hurt like hell afterwards, you’ll need physical therapy, recovery takes about a year. Oh, and your pinch strength won’t really come back like it was.”

Well, damn. I’d been talking to cello-playing friends about starting to take lessons and I realized that my long-held dream was shot.

My mother forced me to take piano lessons for years and while I had “feeling,” according to my teacher, she and I both knew I didn’t have the technique or the passion for playing. But over the years, I fell in love with the cello hearing different movie scores and through CDs of composers like Brahms and thought that in my sixties it would be a good time to take up the instrument—for fun, for a hobby, for something new.

Well, I did go ahead with the surgery and it did relieve my pain but left me adrift. I felt the urge to do something musical but what instrument could I play with a bum hand? Then a pianist friend suggested voice lessons and I felt like a kid discovering a mountain of Christmas presents just for him under the tree.

My local university had a community music school, lessons with faculty were inexpensive, and the school was a five-minute drive from my house. I knew I was in the right place when my cherubic teacher, Natalie, tested my range, had me try some exercises, and kept smiling. Real smiles. “You can sing,” she said. “You’re a baritone and there’s lots of repertoire available. What would you like to start with? ”

And the lights in the little studio seemed warm and comforting.

Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books in many genres and mentors, coaches, and edits writers at writewithoutborders.com.

 

Gather the team: your kids—perhaps home from college for the holidays—are young and strong, and they owe their grandparents big-time.

Bring the van, if you have one, because you’re definitely coming home with some stuff.

Eat a good breakfast; you will need the strength and energy of a pack mule in the hours ahead.

Dress comfortably: your parents will have the heat up and you will feel like you are hacking your way through the Amazon as you dig things from the back of the closet on your hands and knees.

Do not say yes to taking Grandpa’s huge desk, or Grandma’s sewing table with the broken leg, to your small house.

Do say yes to the non-working hundred-year-old mantel clock; your parents will be happy, even if you keep it in a box in the garage for 20 years until you downsize, yourself.

Remind yourself again: they changed my diapers, educated me, fed me, guided me. I owe them everything. Including this.

Tell them how proud you are of them for their courage in taking on a move of such magnitude.

Express your gratitude: their downsizing will make your eventual task of settling their affairs a little easier.

To that end, encourage them (gently!) to let it go, let it go.

Introduce them to the ease of donating to Goodwill or Salvation Army; freely giving items they are not using and no longer need blesses others.

Drink your water, and remind them to drink theirs—you don’t have time today to drive someone to Urgent Care when they faint from dehydration.

Allow some trips down memory lane; meander together through the past as you pack. Your parents’ lives are being turned upside down; they need grounding.

When you lose patience with the slow pace of packing, bite your lip; remind them they can linger over these precious things anytime in their new place.

Inform them that, “No, when the grandkids are grown, they are not going to want the fifty sculpey figurines they made at your house when they were four.” Then let them pack them all carefully and keep them anyway.

As they sort through dusty boxes they sealed in the ’80s, before their last move, vow that your own belongings will flow in and out of your life, not stagnate in dark corners of the garage and basement until they disintegrate or have to be moved again.

Don’t agree too heartily to their expressions of remorse for the mountain of stuff they’ve somehow accumulated—this is not the time to gloat.

Take a moment to savor this house and all its memories amid the hurry of meeting the deadline. The truck is coming in the morning —ready or not.

Feed the troops! Takeout tacos taste incredible and bestow fresh courage after hours of hard labor.

Reminisce about the games of Hearts played at this table, the family art projects in the garage, the cookies you made together at Christmastime, the Broadway songs sung at the piano, the 4:00 am wakeups because the kids were so excited to be at Grammy and Gramps’s house they could not wait for the sun.

Plan to gather in the new place and christen it as home very soon: decide to make new, beautiful memories there.

See how swiftly life has brought your parents to this point? They are stunned. You may be, too. Sit with that reality. Let it sink in.

Note their example, how they are setting up an actual art studio in their new home, the dream of many years. Believe that you can prioritize your purpose, too.

Resolve: whatever it is I think I’m led by my Creator to do, whatever my gifts and purpose here, now is the time.

Come home and look around. See, afresh, your own belongings stuffed under this roof. Start with the hallway closet. Sing to yourself: “Let it go. . . .”

Michelle Goering has been writing forever, and for an audience for about a year. She is a musician with a background in publishing, married and the mother of twin college-age sons. A San Diegan who grew up on a Kansas farm, she’s recently published in Sasee and Christian Science Monitor: Home Forum. She can be found on facebook at michelle goering.

 

Everyone laughs when the conversation turns to money and someone says, “Well you can’t take it with you.”

Yeah, no kidding. There are no ATM’s in heaven or hell (if you believe in either).

But boomers have been encouraged for years now to SAVE, SAVE, SAVE. According to recent surveys, many boomers are not drawing down their assets. Quite the contrary, they continue to accumulate and grow their wealth.

What’s holding them back? High on the list is the fact that they can live off social security and other incomes sources without touching their savings. Don’t need to tap it so leave it alone. OK, so you don’t want to be extravagant but you “could live it up a little,” eh?

Why else would you hold back? Maybe you want to leave it behind for offspring. So that they can put it in the bank and not spend it either? Mmm? Better to give some of it away NOW to some of the charities and causes that you know can really use it.

Then there is the notion that you need to keep the nest egg for those “unforeseen costs.” Such as getting old and wearing out. That’s right, we’re all going to wind down and check out. You could just as easily therefore make the argument that you ought to enjoy your money while you can.

Probably the biggest worry of all for boomers is that they will run out of money. I get it. We’re living longer. Most of our parents enjoyed 10 or 15 years of retirement leisure and then it was lights out (sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, but that was life expectancy for their generation). We’re exercising and eating well so that we can enjoy 25 or 30 years of retirement. I’m not quite sure what we will do with all those extra years, but damn it, we’re going for it.

I’m not advocating profligacy necessarily but I hate to think we’re going to hold ourselves captive to the other “P” word – parsimony. Pinching pennies down to the finish line isn’t really living. It’s more like barely eking it out.

I’m not sure I really know what it means, but my mother (one of the all-time, unparalleled penny pinchers) once said what I think she meant as advice, “Ladies and gentlemen take my advice. Pull down your pants and slide on the ice.”

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

For the first time since December 2020 (786 days), Dale and I ate in a restaurant! We’ve talked about it but could never quite summon the strength. Dale tends to be non-committal, so after two-plus years of yeah, maybe, I finally said, “I’m going to have lunch out on Tuesday. Would you like to join me?”

It actually went uphill from there. He asked me to cut his hair beforehand. I got dolled up and wore real clothes. It’s an upscale restaurant, but I didn’t think Taco Bell would be a good dry run.

We had planned to eat outside, but it was cold and windy, so we reluctantly went inside. The atmosphere was lovely, and we had the dining area practically to ourselves. We each had a Bloody Mary, extra spicy, please, and we shared two appetizers – Kung Pao Calamari and Tuna Wonton Nachos.

With tip, it was $67.77. Not cheap, and you know I’m not good at math, but I counted 786 days of not eating out. Is that about 8 cents a day?

It was a nice outing, and now we are trying to develop a long-term strategy for living with this thing. We don’t want to get stupid just because Omicron is fading, but we need to be less risk-averse than we’ve been. How are you assessing risk?

Here’s some important retirement information. Understand your partner’s strengths and weaknesses and work with them. It would seem dropping ideas on Dale doesn’t work. I need to make specific plans and invite him to join me – I think Dale preferred it that way, at least I got a yes out of him, although he did suggest I was easy for coming home with him after the first date.

Donna Pekar is an aging badass (for real) who lives in California and writes Retirement Confidential.