Boomer Songs = Retirement Advice?
Music has defined our generation - still does, in fact.
Like the hidden messages we tried to find by playing old 45’s backwards, buried within the top hits of the 60’s and 70’s is a clear message for us, from the past, into our future.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine that’s there a Bad Moon Rising on our future. Apparently all of us Pinball Wizards have been on a Magic Carpet Ride for too long. We haven’t saved enough Mony, Mony for retirement so now we have to get off Cloud Nine and face the music.
If we continue our Evil Ways, our visions of Nights In White Satin and Strawberry Fields Forever will quickly become time in a padded White Room where we’ll be rocking back and forth repeating It’s All Right.
No one knows where the Chain Of Fools begins or ends, but here's hoping You Ain’t Too Proud To Beg. Your life savings are at the Dark End Of The Street sporting a ghastly Winter Shade of Pale. Quite frankly, you could end up Like A Rolling Stone, with No Particular Place To Go.
I know we’re not feeling a Whole Lotta Love for the stock market and that You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling for real estate, especially since your home turned out to be the Devil With A Blue Dress On. But Hang On Sloopy, We Can Work It Out.
Here’s The Twist - it’s not too late to take control of your financial destiny but beware of Suspicious Minds who think the only way out is to work Eight Days A Week, All Day And All Of The Night, and well past The Midnight Hour.
For What It’s Worth, I’m A Believer. From time to time I Say A Little Prayer, and I Want To Hold Your Hand through all of this but people, you’re going to have to Come Together on this one. The Times They Are A Changing and it’s time for a retirement Revolution.
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place because future generations can’t afford for us to linger in a Purple Haze or feel Dazed And Confused about our future any longer. After all, Crying and Running Scared are not effective planning strategies. Stop your life savings from Blowin' In The Wind before your golden years just Walk On By.
You need a Double Shot of savings and know-how. It’s Your Thing so find a way to push your savings up Higher And Higher. Shop Around for educational books, classes, and financial professionals who can Help. Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane, The Duke Of Earl and his Crazy brother Louie, Louie are all counting on you to retire with them.
The Weight of all this can be lifted, and you can Get Back to where you need to be. Mark my words, soon enough you’ll be saying, Please Mr. Postman, bring me my investment statements because I’m no longer a retirement Runaway. Hush! Do you hear that? It’s not the Sounds Of Silence, its personal and financial Respect!
So say goodbye to Yesterday and Remember - One Fine Day, your retirement will be here! Now’s the time to turn your Unchained Melody into Good Vibrations. Wouldn’t It Be Nice?
Long before this election season, lots of conflicting ideas about Social Security have been floating around - it's going bankrupt...wait...no it's not; it adds to the deficit!...or does it?!
Well my fellow Boomers, take the quiz to see if you know the facts of the matter; not just for the upcoming election, but for the upcoming decades - after all, facts might be pesky things, but they're just what we need right now.
For the real scoop, we turned to The Motley Fool - go there now to learn the not so sordid, in fact downright hopeful, details.
Ah...from the pens of babes... As Art Linkletter put it so well, "children say the darndest things..."
"Drink eight glasses of water a day!" "Eat nine servings of fruits and veggies!" "Stay away from red meat!" From the FDA to our mothers with finger a-wagging, for decades we've heard these "rules for healthy eating".
Well...as it turns out, taking care of yourself isn't quite so black-and-white according to Harvard Medical School psychologist Dr. Alice Domar, coauthor of Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won't Break Your Health.
"Research is revealing that whoever wrote the old guidelines didn't have the whole picture, and that there are more paths to optimal health than we previously thought," says the doc.
Old Rule: Drink eight glasses of water a day.
New Rule: Eat your water.
Old Rule: Eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables.
New Rule: Fill half your plate with produce.
"It's not surprising that people get confused over what, exactly, a serving is," says Washington, D.C., dietitian Rebecca Scritchfield with so much variation and difficult to remember amounts: a serving of broccoli is about five florets; a serving of raw spinach, one cup; a serving of mango, roughly the size of a fist...etc. Her advice: Stop counting and instead make half of every meal produce. "You don't need a big mound on your plate. Six asparagus spears at dinner, a spinach salad at lunch, and a sliced banana and some berries at breakfast should do it."
Old Rule: Avoid red meat.
New Rule: Beef in moderation can be healthy.
Red meat was long considered a heart attack on a plate because it's high in saturated fat. But a 2010 study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that the cardiovascular risk comes from processed varieties, such as sausage, hot dogs, and cold cuts, not from steak, hamburgers, and other nonprocessed cuts. (The real culprits may be salt and preservatives). Red meat is a good source of iron and immunity-boosting zinc-two nutrients some women don't get enough of.
Old Rule: Keep your BMI between 18.5 and 24.9.
New Rule: Eat healthy, exercise, and let your weight settle naturally.
Physicians use BMI (body mass index), a ratio of your weight to your height, as a tool to diagnose obesity. But critics say BMI ignores muscle mass, and a 2011 Obesity study notes that it also ignores a person's hip circumference. "People come in different sizes and shapes," says Joanne Ikeda, nutritionist emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. "The idea that everyone should fall under 25 is ludicrous." A person can have a high BMI and still be healthy, and research supports the theory: A Journal of the American Medical Association study found that fit women--even if they were overweight according to their BMI--were less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who were out of shape.