Posted on February 20, 2013 under Storytelling with 4 comments

The Canadian penny has been on the endangered species list for some time and now has been rendered extinct.  As we move faster towards a cashless society, the humble copper coin will no longer clutter up our pockets and sit haplessly in tins and jars for years on end.  Despite the fact that it had become more trouble than it was worth, the penny stored value far above its face amount.  Are we in the midst of a common cents revolution?

There was a day that a penny was worth, well, a penny.  And it was a status symbol.  I know that I am dating myself but back in the sixties, the coolest kids at school wore penny loafers. Strutting down the halls of the school, with a carefully placed penny wedged into the front top of your loafers, attracted attention.  It never translated into any dates for me. Apparently, the shoes weren’t cool enough.  The only cure for nerdiness as a teenager is adulthood.

And of course, who can forget penny candy.  Back then the confectionery store was the beating heart of Main Street in small town Canada.  Ten pennies could buy you enough candies to make your glycemic index roar through the stratosphere.  On a good day, you could get five candies for a single penny.  Now that’s value.  Imagine heading off to school with raging hormones… and fifty pieces of candy.  And you think there are discipline problems in schools today!

Young teenage boys and girls have different tastes and, surprisingly, this carries on into adulthood.  Ask any boy back then what he spent his money on in the candy store and the list would probably start with black licorice pipes.  This was a bad thing to consume during Lent when we were forbidden to eat candy.  It was a dead giveaway when you showed up at home with the evidence smeared across your lips.  Next on the list were candy cigarettes.  You can see that boys already had a predilection for vices.

The girls preferred candy necklaces and rolls of Sweethearts that contained love messages.  Young women could find romance just about anywhere, including the candy store.  In later years their taste in necklaces would become far more expensive.  Most love messages no longer arrive in person or by mail; Facebook and Twitter are the new matchmakers.

There was one enterprising businessman who was well ahead of the curve.  He operated a bottle exchange and a candy store under the same roof.  After scouring through ditches, you would accumulate enough bottles for a trip to Pete’s.  Once you received your three cents for the bottles, you would immediately reinvest the proceeds in candy.  Pete had you coming and going.

Of course, as time wore on, inflation kicked in and candy became expensive.  But you could still get a lot of nourishment for a quarter… like a Joe Louis and a coke.  Talk about a balanced diet!

No longer can we ask you for a “penny for your thoughts”.  And when I go to the convenience store these days, what will I put in the little plastic cup that once housed “give a penny/take a penny”, a measure of Canadian gentility and civility?  Maybe I’ll leave a note to say farewell to the one cent piece.

Posted on February 17, 2013 under Storytelling with 3 comments

I am in the retirement planning business so I have a front row seat in the drama that is playing itself out daily. For some strange reason, the baby boomers (I’m one of them!), seem to think that nobody ever retired before. Agreed, there have never been so many people retiring at once as this self-indulged, “me” generation, Prozac-fuelled group of post WW11 babies. A favorite expression from the early 70’s was; “you’ve come a long way, baby”. And, I would add from my perch, that you still have a long way to go. Somewhere along the line we were led to believe that this special group of high achieving, materialistic and driven folk was entitled to an early and prosperous retirement. The most damaging ad campaign of our generation was “Freedom 55”. We expected to retire young, rich and healthy and live forever. We have lived the good life. By and large we are a generation who have over-consumed. We have eaten too much and spent beyond our means. And the day of reckoning is upon us.
Retirement at sixty five is a notion that has survived for more than fifty years. Back when our grandparents performed serious physical labor, the average life expectancy was not much beyond 65. You basically worked until you dropped. Retirement coincided with interment more often than not! (Rearrange the letters of retirement and it looks at lot like interment). When the boomers arrived on the scene and began their work careers, the notion of “early retirement” gained a foothold and was embraced by one and all. Work hard, invest your money in the stock market and “presto”; we’re sailing off into the sunset in our mid 50’s. Those in the financial planning and investment world did their best to nurture this idea with slick marketing campaigns, catchy slogans, and promises of untold riches if we would just put money away and leave it to the experts.
So that’s what a lot of people did but other forces were at play. Some other marketing whizzes told us that we shouldn’t deny ourselves pleasures now… somewhat along the lines of having your cake and eating it too. You could have pleasure now and retire early. So the spending orgy began. The boomers spent and spent and spent some more and at the same time we insisted that our governments do the same. Household debt soared, especially when interest rates plummeted at the turn of this millennium. And somewhere in the last fifteen years, the stock market party ended with a thud. Pension plans are underfunded, government debt is massive, personal wealth has been eroded by successive stock market melt downs and now the boomers are staring at a very different retirement than the one that was advertised and heavily promoted.
Going for a pre-retirement planning session with a reputable financial planner can be a sobering exercise. A lot of people simply don’t know where they stand and are surprised and disheartened to find out that retirement might become a word that’s obsolete for them and many of their friends. First of all, a word about those who have already retired. Those who have been retired for a long time came from a different era and a different set of expectations. They didn’t expect a lot and as a result, by and large, are content with their lot in life. They were more “do it yourselfers” and have plenty of hobbies to keep them busy. And, of course, in that era of large families, they are surrounded by large extended families of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
The recently retired and soon to be retired find themselves in a very different situation. They are supporting adult children and helping ageing parents while still carrying debt. They hadn’t really thought about what they would do in retirement. In a lot of cases, it entails doing the same things they did while working… with a lot less money. Many have been forced to go back to work to make ends meet and this, I would argue, is not necessarily a bad thing.
So here’s my advice to the Boomers. Get a grip. Take the reality test. Get out a ledger, a few sharp pencils and an eraser. Instead of buying stocks, how about taking stock? Chart all of your expenses… and no cheating. Everything. The double doubles, the lottery tickets, fast food purchases and all of your other regular expenses. Do it once a week. Do it with your spouse or significant other. Do it when you are both well rested. What you discover about your spending habits may shock you.
Once you’ve done this over a reasonable amount of time, you will probably be forced to make some choices around needs and wants. And you may also come to the realization that you may have to work longer and retire with less. But you will still be better off than 95% of the world.
My advice; don’t buy the hype. Become “master of your own destiny”. We are no longer entitled to our entitlements.

Posted on February 17, 2013 under Storytelling with no comments yet

    From time to time, I am going to post pieces of a more serious nature… more along the line of rants from a senior citizen. Very shortly, I will be posting my views on the many myths surrounding retirement. I am sure that some of you won’t necessarily agree with my point of view but that’s quite OK. I am always open to comments and differing perspectives. And of course, I am always interested in getting ideas for new stories. Please weigh in.