Still Clickin

Finding new friends can be a challenge if you are totally new to a community. It is one thing to wave goodbye to the movers, and quite another to find a new network of friends. The old friends don’t go away, but the relationship isn’t as immediate. Finding that zone of trust called friendship is never easy, but unfamiliar surroundings make it even harder.

Fundamentally, you have to be proactive. We are following a few basic guidelines to help with the transition, i.e.

1. Pursue your “how to spend your time” interest. If that activity has a social component, be alert to people that you meet that share your interest.
2. Look for local meetings, classes, or organizations that pertain to activities that do not have a social component, e.g. model boat building, and participate in them. You may be more advanced than the level of a particular event on the topic, but finding others who share your interest is a worthwhile objective.
3. Make the effort to be outgoing with neighbors or shopkeepers that you meet in the course of your day. They can be especially helpful with tips about happenings in the area.
4. Get out into the community and become active.
5. Volunteer for something, even if it only happens once a year.

Moving isn’t for whimps. Neither is getting old. But with a little determination, we can not only carry it off, but do it with style.

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We’re moving. We’re downsizing. We’re not going far, but just far enough that we may need to revise our Support Group, i.e. doctors, dentists, hair stylists, etc. Unfortunately, as seniors we tend to see our doctors and other professionals often enough to be on a first name basis. Sometimes, these professionals can identify good practitioners in your new area that they can comfortably recommend and offer a referral. That referral can be especially helpful with providers of excellence whose docket of Medicare patients is at or near completion.

Often, however, they simply may not know of anyone in the area you have chosen. In that instance, you are left to your own devices, and the challenge can be intimidating. You are left with very little helpful guidance, e.g. -

• Local professional organizations of the major affiliates, e.g. AMA or ADA, or
• An area publication that periodically selects the “Best” physicians, dentists, etc., or
• An Internet search.

If you find yourself in that situation, you might find the approach that we have used somewhat helpful. The steps to this approach follow.

1. Do your research, and find the “best” professional that practices in your area.
2. Search the faculties of the local medical or dental schools as a start.
3. Do not be deterred if you learn that these practitioners are not accepting any new Medicare or other patients.
4. Call and request an appointment within a 1-2 month time-frame.
5. When you are told that an appointment is “not possible”, request the name of an alternative provider that they would recommend.
6. Make an appointment with that professional. Typically, that provider will have comparable skills, but will not be as market savvy. As of this writing, the talent of market savvy has never been known to have any impact on the level of professional care.

The professionals we have found using this approach have been quite competent. However, it obviously doesn’t work for hair stylists. To find that person, you still have to observe the coifs of others in the shops and offices you visit and simply ask, “Who does your hair?”

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I have to move next week. Moving is a job no one can love. No one likes change, and changing your home can do personal, self-inflicted, violence to your sense of place. To add insult to injury, moving as a senior citizen brings with it a number of added burdens. Typically, you are -

• learning of a whole raft of tasks that must be completed by a firm deadline,
• forced to part with some treasures that are either too heavy or fragile to move sensibly,
• required to dispose of some items, e.g. plants and paints, that movers don’t handle,
• faced with the need to find a “new home” for furniture and accumulated “stuff” that simply will not fit into your new surroundings,
• picking out a responsible mover from a fairly large group of suppliers,
• packing cartons yourself, possibly with the assistance of friends, or paying the professional movers to do the job, and
• paying out of your own pocket.

Some suggestions I have learned from past moves -

1. Structure your housing deal to permit 60 days of time for preparations. The more planning you devote to the moving process the less stressful it will be.
2. Talk to friends and neighbors to learn the name of 3 - 5 movers in your area. Local movers operate differently than interstate movers, who have to abide by federal rules.
3. Develop a plan of where your furniture will be placed in your new home. The process will help you decide whether to keep certain pieces and also provide the movers with a guide once they arrive at your new home.
4. Select three movers and get quotes from each. If some offer a “not to exceed” price, it is worth serious consideration, especially if gas prices are escalating.
5. If you choose to do the packing, create a packing station in the dining room or garage to which things can be moved and collected before the actual packing process. You must have a high enough surface to spare the strain on your back.
6. Purchase your cartons, tape, magic markers, and packing materials from your mover or a U-Haul store. If you enjoy being creative, the cartons discarded by liquor stores are usually stronger than others, and their dividers can be used for glassware.
7. Take the time to learn about the packing process, e.g. use 2 - 3 sheets per plate. The external links below contain some resources for your review.
8. Review the quotes from the movers and select the one whose approach makes you the most comfortable.
9. It is very smart to write down what you place into each carton. A good carton inventory can help your sanity at the other end when you are looking for a special item one month later - especially if some cartons are going into storage.
10. Pace yourself carefully. Ideally, you should plan to complete a week early because you will need that time to address the surprises you encounter along the way.
11. The night before the move, pack the “last in, first out” cartons of basic kitchen supplies, tools, blankets etc.
12. Meet the movers the next morning and be prepared to answer a number of questions throughout the day.
13. Once the movers leave, pick up the final pieces, lock the door, and start traveling to your new home.
14. When you meet the movers at the new home, have your copy of the furniture plan in hand and guide its final placement to suit your taste.

One site with more helpful information on packing is How to Pack by Atlas.

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Yesterday, after a cross country move and two years of renting, we finally bought our West Coast house. I strongly suspect it will be the house I get carried out of, toes up, because I don’t think I have another move left in me. But the selection took awhile, both because of Northeast and Northwest differences and because we were “downsizing”. This is our third downsizing move.

There is absolutely no valid rule about how much space anyone needs. However, once you retire, it can often make sense to reduce the amount of “stuff” you have to care for and maintain. Although “downsizing” typically refers to moving into a smaller home, you can also downsize at the home you’ve been in for years. The key words are “simplifying” and “reducing”.

Let me present the approach we used for downsizing.

1. First, pretend you are moving across the county. (Our first move just went from CT to RI; the next was RI to WA) With that thought in mind, attack the basement, attic, closets and storage lockers. That “treasure” may have been useful once, but if it would not be worth moving it across the country, you probably don’t need it.

• Create a staging area space where you can collect such items. You can do this in phases. If you’re not actually moving, you don’t have to do it all at once.
• Offer these treasures first to the children or relatives. For items of value, you may want to use the silent auction approach with real or monopoly money.
• Consider eBay. Items of special interest may fetch a surprising amount. Get out your digital camera or use a service.
• Run a springtime garage/yard sale to remove more. If you can entice neighbors to join you on a specific weekend, it will draw more traffic.
• Call a local charity that might accept some items for donation. Some have pickup services and can handle heavy items.

2. Look at your living needs through “new eyes” and make an assessment of how much space you actually use. A home that housed a growing family might have a fair amount of excess space that you no longer need.

• If you decide to stay at your current home and it has two floors, try to think of a way to move the master bedroom into a room on the main floor. Removing the need to climb stairs from your daily routine can become more important over time.
• Evaluate if there are any barriers or obstacles that a carpenter could remove. It is smarter to make such changes sooner, while you have time to adapt, rather than later.

3. Talk to friends who have gone through the experience and discover what they have learned through the experience.
4. If you do decide to sell the homestead and move across town or across country, consider renting a smaller place for a year to find out how a smaller space feels to you.

We move in 17 days . . .from a rental and two storage lockers into our toes up house. Not much time for blogs, but I’ll try.

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Yesterday, an article in the NY Times described the problems that a senior encountered with a reverse mortgage. What was bothered me was that the entire article referred to a reverse mortgage as a loan. Nothing could be farther from the reality.

Reverse mortgages must follow a set of rules established by the federal government. These rules are not entirely comprehensive, but they do have a broad scope, e.g.

• Not every financial institution offers these deals. There are government approved lenders for the different areas of the country.
• The different lenders will charge different fees, offer different valuations for your home, as well as the amount of your payments.
• The maximum amount for which you can “sell” your house is limited by a government scale that varies by location. It tops out at about $350,000 no matter what your house is actually worth. Typically, you should be offered about 75% of your home’s value up to that maximum.
• The bet the financial institution is making is that you will die before their payments to you exceed the amount that they can realize by selling your house after you die.

A reverse mortgage has its place, but that place is defined by a narrow set of circumstances. Specifically -

• You are effectively selling your house in exchange for the right to live in it until you die.
• Once the deal is done, you have ceded control over your house. Theoretically, you could regain the home by paying back everything you have received plus interest, but that is unrealistic. Effectively, you have sold your house.
• The bet you are making is that you will live much longer than the norm, and the total payments that the financial institution must make to you exceed the amount you could realize by selling your house today. In a very real sense, you are betting your house.

What’s a senior to do?

1. Depending upon your relationship with your children, it may be wise to let them know that you are thinking of selling your home. Since the home may form the core of any inheritance they might envision, they might choose to help you financially rather than lose the asset of your home.
2. Evaluate any total dollar offer as if you are selling your house . . . because you are!
3. If your house is worth more than the maximum permitted for your area, this deal is not for you. It may be time to sell the house, as beloved as it may be, and move into a rental.
4. If you have modest income, you may qualify for Section 8 housing, a government program that limits rents to a certain percentage of your income.
5. If the total offer sounds like a fair selling price for your house and your forbearers have a history of extended longevity, you may be among the small percentage of people for whom a reverse mortgage is a good deal.
6. If you do decide to apply for a reverse mortgage, plan to get three different quotes. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help. The AARP can offer some independent help.

Some other sources of information include - Reverse Mortgage Summary, Reverse Mortgage Calculator and Comparison Tool, HUD Vouchers, and HUD on Reverse Mortgages.

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Life insurance used to be fairly straightforward. It came in two flavors -

• Term Life, which provided insurance for a set period of years and was often renewable, and
• Whole Life, which worked as a combination insurance and savings account.
  

While you were young and working, you often could carry both, a larger term policy to protect the family and a smaller whole life policy as enforced savings. Upon retirement, or at age 70, most term policies lapse. The whole life policy, however, usually lasts until age 100. It is often used to pay for the burial and help a spouse whose other income may be reduced. In most cases, life insurance benefits paid to the spouse are free from probate or additional taxes.

Today, some new wrinkles have appeared that can be potentially beneficial to seniors. Like an update of the old game show, You Bet Your Life, some investors are stepping forward to do just that, i.e. bet on your life. If you are sufficiently old, e.g. 74, and sufficiently healthy to be insured, they will provide the funds and pay the premiums for you to purchase a hefty life insurance policy. After the policy is in effect for a year, they will buy the policy from you for as much as a third of its value.

Called “Spin Life”, these policies are a part of the Life Settlement sub-industry, were investors buy current policies from people that need to cash out. The difference is that the investors are paying all of the premiums.

A senior in New York adds, “the policies that investors are purchasing on seniors, which I was not for at first, actually became a dream came true. I did not believe a word until someone from the company of spin life insurance explained to me how this works, and there is no risk. I first signed up for this no cost life insurance at Spin Life Insurance.”

What to do?

1. Since insurance is regulated by state, investigate what type of policies are available where you live.
2. Be wary of any sales pressure tactics or small payments. Check for policies with at least two or three firms.
3. Don’t be afraid to ask a friend you trust for further advice.

Some other places to look for information include -
Maximizing Life Insurance Benefits, Wikipedia article, Life Settlement Association, and New York Times article on Spin Life.

BUT WAIT. BE WARY. Now, there is risk, Big Time Risk! In this current economic climate, the insurance companies have become more demanding and the investors have fled. This leaves the seniors in the middle with big time policies and loans they cannot afford. As recently noted in the Chicago Times, it is estimated that as many as 10,000 seniors are in serious trouble. So goes another “too good to be true” scheme.

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