Going through my dad’s death, I have seen even more clearly the role that money should play in your life. It’s not that it is unimportant, it’s that it is just a marker for how you play the game. It’s like Monopoly. You try to win the game, you have fun playing it, it is nice to have the dough, but in the end, you put the game away and the Monopoly money is not worth anything.
My dad played craps only three days before he died. He had fun. He had lots of friends around. And he won lots of money. But I think he knew he was about to die. And as he looked at the money he had won, he said, “I might as well just rip this up.” He realized in that moment that money would no longer be required where he was going. It was about the moment, not the money. It was about all the people who came out to play with him. It was about life, not money.
We read a poem at his memorial. It is called The Dash by Linda Ellis. I think it is so true. What matters in our life is how we choose to live it. How we choose to write that that space between our birth and our death.
I remember a Simpsons show a while back where Ned Flanders did not have insurance for his house I think and a horrible natural disaster occurred, wiping it out. When everyone else was relieved that they had insurance, Ned explained that he did not because it was gambling. Of course, everyone thinks Ned is a little strange, but if you think about it, insurance IS gambling. It’s just a reverse gamble.
With regular gambling, you are putting money toward something in the hopes that some random event (a flip of a coin, the toss of dice, the turn of cards) will bring good fortune to you. With insurance gambling, you are putting money toward something in the hopes that some random event (a natural disaster, fire, car accident) will not spell utter misfortune. Basically, it comes down to fear and greed , or rather greed and fear, once again.
So why is it that gambing is considered so financially imprudent, but insurance seems to be a requirement? Probably because fear is considered an appropriate emotion and greed is not -in most cases. (There are some cultures such as the Amish and Muslims who do not believe in insurance because it is considered gambling.) People are much more frightened to lose money than they are willing to risk it for a much larger prize. Even if the bet is irrational, people still fear losing more than they are hopeful of winning.
Most insurance companies know this bit of behavioral economics and want to take advantage of this by overcharging and underinsuring- because they can. And they are big business! They are the casinos that slide through as “good neighbors” that plaster our TVs with ads and who routinely turn people down for true claims. They want to scare you into insuring anything and everything, even if it may already be insured elsewhere under another policy. Double insurance is a huge drain on people’s finances because most people do not even know what their policies cover! We have selective attention when it comes to insurance.
Insurance takes advantage of so many people, but we are not looking at this gorilla in the room…we are looking elsewhere. We’ve been told to pay attention to what could go wrong -to be fearful- instead of seeing the guaranteed loss when you pay too much for insurance.
I’m not necessarily saying that you should go out and cancel all of your insurance policies, but I am saying that more than likely you have fluff in there that you really don’t need, but that they charge you a lot more for.
For instance, I found in our home’s insurance policy that they had a calculated figure of over $100,000 for just our “stuff” our things inside the house like furniture, jewelry, etc. Well, we try to live pretty minimally and avoid collecting too many things so we have nowhere near this amount. But by using their standard formula, we are losing out.
They also have not adjusted any of our properties for the downturn in the economy, and most people should not have comprehensive coverage on their car. To remember this, tell yourself over and over again: cars are liabilities, cars are liabilities, cars are liabilities -all these old reliables (not new shinies) need is liability insurance.
And nobody should get universal/whole life insurance -that is a waste of money. It is only for people who do not have the discipline to save their own money (which admittedly is a lot of people, but still!). And term life or disability should only be used if you would not be able to take care of your family if either of these random events (death or disability) should occur. It should not be used for people who are already retired with plenty of money -what do you have to fear? Not much will change in their lives. Why are you gambling away all that money on the premiums instead of just saving that for when you depart?
And health insurance? How much more corrupt can we get?
When I think of the insurance gamble, it is so very pessimistic. In a small way we hope something goes wrong so that we can at least get something for all the money we put in over time. At least with Las Vegas Reno, Atlantic City and Monaco there is a certain hope for the best -optimism. With insurance, really the only time you get paid out is if something bad happens. Insurance is a reverse gamble in an industry that is often corrupt and overlooked. Next time you watch TV, pay attention to the number of insurance ads. I think you will be surprised! And go do a full review of your insurance -cut out the junk. You will likely save hundreds if not thousands in premiums as long as you don’t let them scare you into spending more.
Should we retire retirement? With 43% of Americans having $10,000 or less in retirement savings, and 27% with less than $1000, it is obvious that many people do not think for the future. In fact, recent research on people’s brains shows a tendency toward the use it or lose it mentality extending to people’s money as well.
So when we understand this, what does that mean for retirement? Without Social Security or pension plans, most people would not have enough saved on their own individual merit (that is, outside of some government or corporate plan) to retire. Most people, in fact, probably would not be able pay their income taxes if it weren’t for tax withholding!
Even in “standard” retirement planning, they say you need to have 80% of your pre-retirement income. You do NOT need 80% of your pre-retirement income you actually need 80% of your pre-retirement expenses! By saying income, the conventional wisdom is saying that people generally spend (expend) ALL of their take-home income. However, if you are a prudent saver, you should not be spending anywhere near what you take in.
For me, we only spend about a quarter of what we take in. And with that 75% saving, we are actively looking for investments to help it grow. Because we would like to be able to not work a traditional job by about age 35, this is about the only way to go. But there is no way to figure that in the retirement calculators most people use.
For instance, in the aforementioned retirement calculator, they need to know your current age, your current income, when you want to retire, what percent of your income you’d need to retire, how long you think you’d live, how much you’d get in pensions, and how much you’d get from Social Security. Well if we want to “retire” at 35, how would they calculate that? Do they calculate Social Security when we turn 65? Our 401(k)s that we can’t use until then? Pensions that we couldn’t use until then? Would we be able to count our passive income streams as pension amounts? Would I put 25% of my income since that is all we use now? Or would I put less since we wouldn’t need all the work peripherals? The calculator just does not apply for people who think outside of the box. It is not for Fruitfulistas.
So if retirement is not really a possibility for most people without Social Security or corporate pension plans and it is not really considered retirement for people who are active savers and investors (like us and you reading this!), do we need to have a new paradigm as it relates to retirement?
Maybe we need to have another end goal. I’ve talked to many people about their retirement goals, and because to them it seems so far off, they say things like, “I’ll just keep working till I can’t” or “I like working, I like knowing where my next paycheck will come from”, things of this sort. And working in and of itself is not such a bad thing. If people like to work, then why force or otherwise pressure them to stop? And if people have the means to stop early and change paths, why don’t we allow for that? Even though retirement is a fairly recent concept, why is it that it has become a prescribed standard? Why is everything so standardized?
I was looking into annuities the other day, and I couldn’t even buy one because of my age! Just as you can’t use your own retirement money that is placed in a system (like 401(k)s and IRAs) until a certain age, I could not buy an annuity until a certain age. That basically leaves us with the options of direct investments with our after-tax take home money. And for everyone else, it leaves working…and all of their financial future at the hands of someone else which is never the safest route, even if it is the most comfortable. If you are working because you love it, that is one thing, if you are working because you have to, that is another.
For many people, retirement should be similar to work before, but at your own pace
I think we need to come up with another word other than retirement. And it’s not just because the standards don’t apply to everyone either. A large number of people have their whole identities are wrapped up into what they do experience a huge loss when they officially retire, and many people feel that they have been “put out to pasture” and no longer are useful to society. To many, their work is the purpose in life. Without it, they quite literally die.
So, perhaps in the future, Social Security may or may not be around and the word retirement may have to be retired. Retirement was, after all, just an experiment. Those who we say retire early are not really retiring, but doing what they would prefer to be doing, and making money at it to boot. Those who enjoy working should continue doing so until they find something else they like better, but they shouldn’t stop working because of a prescribed pattern.
This isn’t to say that we should stop saving or encouraging so-called retirement planning because it is always good to save. It will always bring more security and as you get older, you lose a little of this. But retirement should not be thought of as standard or a single event, but rather a very individual, specific plan to not only live sustainably financially but also emotionally well into the future. And to many whose life’s purpose is in their work, that may mean continuing to do so, but perhaps at a different pace or time schedule.
Who decides what is beautiful? Is the old saying that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” true? It certainly seems that at least in America, the standard of beauty is white, female, white-blonde hair, large breasts, pouty lips, and a thin, tanned body. But is that what beauty truly is or is that just what has been packaged and sold to us?
It seems to me that beauty is whatever is most difficult to achieve, and therefore most profitable to push by the beauty industry. When most lay people worked outside in the sun, having tanned skin was a sign of poverty. Nowadays with most people having office jobs, keeping a tan is a signal of wealth and luxury to either be able to travel to warm places or go to tanning salons.
Being thin is the same way. It used to be that skinny people were that way because they didn’t have much money to be able to eat. Plump was the “in” thing -just look at all the masters’ oil paintings. Now it is the opposite: the less money people have, the more they weigh in developed nations. So now there is a premium on thinness. And then to make it just a little harder for the naturally thin women to easily slide through the societal beauty contest, they need to have huge breasts -something most naturally thin women lack.
And while white women are at an advantage over other races in terms of what society has deemed beautiful, most white women don’t have large pouty lips, so this becomes the next hard-to-get beauty feature.
This Playboy Bunny has to do a lot to maintain America’s beauty standard. Even in the “before” photo she has dyed her hair from brown to blonde and only goes blonder as time goes by. In the “after” photo, she has an orange tan glow, thicker lips, thicker hair, a more refined nose, and dark eye-defining makeup.
So, in order to achieve this standard, you have to diet, dye your hair, use all sorts of lotions and potions, wear makeup, wear “slimming” and “boosting” clothing, go tanning and maybe even have plastic surgery -especially if you are going to be a model of what beauty is -like in the example of the Playboy Bunny. All of these are huge money makers.
And then, if that weren’t enough, not even the very few people who have what society deems to be the right stuff, are left alone. No one is perfect unless they have been “photoshopped”.
This video shows some of this process. I find it ironic that Dove sponsored the “Real Beauty” Campaign because they are in the very business that their ad campaign seems to condemn. However, it is still a good video of some of what goes on to make even the models “presentable” as models of American beauty.
And after all this is done and you have the perfect photoshopped image what becomes of you? Well, for women over about 30 -MAYBE 40, that’s the end of the line. You are tossed out as not even a contestant in the pagent and a new group of girls are indoctrinated into the male-dominated world of beauty.
Even in magazines for older women with good jobs and a family, there is still this unattainable beauty standard. They may put more “real world” celebrities on the cover, but they are dramatically photoshopped as well as in this example of Faith Hill.
I was thinking about this topic because I recently saw a quote by make-up magnate Helena Rubenstein that said “There’s no such thing as ugly women, only lazy ones”. Which on the surface sounds reasonable -all people are born beautiful and stay that way if they work at it, right? Well, there are so many things this quote assumes.
For instance, why is this only limited to women? Why shouldn’t men have to work to be seen as beautiful? Why are women automatically judged first based on prettiness, second on anything else (their job, their wealth, their family, their personality) whereas for men it seems to be the other way? And is this limited to external beauty or should we work to be internally beautiful as well? I don’t think compassion, kindness, generosity and other “beautiful” personality traits usually just appear, but take some time to work on too.
I do think that with both external and interal beauty there are things a person can do to be more beautiful. For external beauty, you shouldn’t stop caring completely in order to rebel from society’s mandate. Taking care of your health, having good posture, keeping hygeinic, and sprucing up extra nice every now and then all can help with confidence and keep you happier and healthier -and may even help with your internal beauty if you feel good about yourself. Attractive people are also at an advantage in society: They’re more likely to be hired, earn more money, have better grades, have more polished social skills, and even commit fewer crimes. And other people are more likely to help them.
But overall, beauty should not be purely dictated by outside forces where the standard for beauty changes based on how easy it is to achieve and dangles like a carrot on a stick, never to be truly reached. You should not feel beholden to beauty.
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