Did you ever skip school?

I did once or twice when I was in high school and more than a few times at University. When I was teaching I had students who took the day off as I did. The issue was that when I took my time off and when my students took their time off, we did not accomplish anything. Maybe that was the idea. 

Back in 1986, the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came out and it was a big hit with the kids. In it, Ferris and two friends skip school they “obtain” a Ferrari and they meander around Chicago, catching a baseball game, dining at a fancy restaurant, and joining a parade. They had an ideal day, they used the idea of “carpe diem” — to seize the day and have the time of their life. My question to you is are you having the time of your life — or are you wasting the time of your life? Are you seizing the day — or waiting for someday to come?

If you decide to take the day, your first question should not be, “What am I going to do with this day that I am taking for myself?” The question to ask is, "What aren’t I going to do?”

When considering how to spend your day perhaps it can be easier to start with what you aren’t going to do. You get to do exactly as you please, so use your imagination. Are you thinking, “I’ve got so much going on, there’s no way I can take a day off.” If that’s the case with you, take an hour break. What would give you a well-deserved break from all the things you have to do?

It’s not selfish to carve out an hour to do something you enjoy; it can compensate for parts of your life you can’t control.

Spending can decrease in retirement but only if...

Spending can decrease in retirement

First, the good news: Spending in retirement decreases substantially, with spending falling across every category in retirement, according to the J.P. Morgan study.

For a couple whose ages are between 45 and 54, average spending per year was near $84,000, but for a couple in their mid-70s, their average annual spending was around $53,000. This is about a 34% decrease in spending. The experts tell us that we should save and try to replace 70% of our working income as a family. However, the research shows that we may only need to replace 66% of our working income as a couple.

Housing costs are a big chunk of this spending in all age groups, but they peak during your 40s and then start declining after. Transportation, entertainment, food, beverage, and travel expenses also decline from age 40 to age 70. Naturally, healthcare costs increase as you age, and charitable donations pick up later in life as well. The biggest takeaway is that on average, you won't spend as much in retirement as you do in your working years unless you are supporting your children.

We, as parents, have long tried to set up our children for success, but today that assistance is costing ever more, and lasting far longer. About 15% of 25- to 35-year-olds were living at home in 2016, based on a Pew Research report. That’s five percentage points higher than the share of Generation Xers living at home when they were the same age, and almost double the share of today’s older retirees who were in the same situation years ago.

How Parents Support Adult Children

Our help often starts small, covering expenses such as cellphone bills, car payments, groceries, or health insurance. But this temporary assistance can quickly turn permanent and pricey, financing rent and down payments, grandchildren’s college educations, and support for offspring going through a divorce or battling drug addiction.

Nearly 80% of parents give some financial support to their adult children—to the tune of $500 billion a year, according to estimates by consulting firm Age Wave. That’s twice what parents put into retirement accounts, according to a 2018 survey from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Age Wave. Almost three-quarters of respondents acknowledged putting their children’s interests ahead of their own retirement needs.

Ten years of a bull market and growing comfort with debt have made this largess easier to rationalize. But incurring additional costs just before or just into retirement can be problematic. While most people are well aware of the threat posed by a sharp market downturn just as they begin to tap their savings, they’re less attuned to how helping their children can pose a similar danger and imperil decades of savings.

Cost of Parental Love

Here’s what parents will sacrifice to help adult children

50% Pull money from savings

43% Live less comfortably

26% Take on debt

25% Tap nest egg

19% Retire later

14% Refinance home

8% Come out of retirement

Source: Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Financial support isn’t just bad for retirees; it can hurt children as well. Paying for vacations, Uber rides, car loans, and rent can prevent adult children from becoming financially independent, ultimately compromising their financial well-being. Some parents, wanting to be near their grandchildren, swoop in with a down payment for a home in their affluent neighbourhood.

When an adult child is battling addiction, mental illness, or a medical condition, tough love is harder to follow. But sometimes footing the bill can create more damage, cutting off the adult child from the community- or state-based services and—in instances of addiction—adding to the problem.

So, now what?

For those who are intent on helping their adult offspring, run the numbers and bring the children into the conversation so they can see what their parents can afford, reducing the guilt some parents feel for saying no.

In sum, giving to children requires good communication and firm boundaries. But striking the right balance can help parents find the feeling that’s so elusive: peace of mind, for their children and themselves so the parents can spend less in retirement while still enjoying a good lifestyle.

Do you believe in Magic?

According to Adherents, there are over 4,000 faiths and spiritual movements in the world today. So, what is religion? Some would say it is a type of magic. While religion is hard to define, one standard model of religion, defines it as a "[…] system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in people by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and giving these conceptions an aura of factuality that seem uniquely realistic."

Religions have stories, figures, legends and divine tales that are intended to give purpose to life or to reveal the origin of life or the world or our existence. Religions tend to assume virtue, values, spiritual laws, or a chosen lifestyle created from their ideas about the cosmos and individual nature. 

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system", but religion differs from private belief because it has a public aspect. Most religions teach their faithful organized practices and teach a belief in the value of their particular hierarchies. The religion defines who and what constitutes membership. The leaders set up a routine for the followers including regular meetings or services for the purposes of worship of a deity or for prayer. The leadership also identify holy places (either natural or architectural) or religious texts for the followers. 

All religions have language that is sacred. Religious practice may also include sermons, the commemoration of the activities of a god or gods, sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trance, rituals, rites, ceremonies, worship, initiations, funerals, marriages, meditation, invocation, mediumship, music, art, dance, public service or other aspects of human culture. Spiritual beliefs have also been used to explain out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences and reincarnation, along with many other paranormal and otherworldly experiences.

One theory of religion, social constructionism, says that religion is a modern concept that suggests all spiritual practice and worship follows a similar model. Social constructivism is a theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated and all knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. 

All social constructs impact us in ways they affect our behaviour: money causes us to move material goods all around the world, war causes us to kill and destroy, justice can create peaceful communities (or violent ones, when absent), etc. Religion clearly also has an impact: we construct temples, write books, come together for prayer, contemplation, and we persecute those who believe differently than we believe.

Some have theorized that it doesn’t matter what faith you believe in as long as you believe in something that gives you meaning, guidance and peace. But others believe that believing in something that isn’t true is a definition of insanity.


Believing in religion is the same as believing in magic. It can be fun and harmless, but it can also be counterproductive if for no other reason than it’s a waste of time. It keeps you busy while ignoring real-world issues that have consequences. Your life and everyone else’s would be improved by focusing on and solving real problems.

Do you see?

You can choose to go, do, and be and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the "clicks" and "coincidences," and the many happy "accidents," your bounty and good fortune must have been your destiny.

Or, you might choose to wait for a miracle, a saviour, or divine intervention, and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the missed chances and disappointments, and the many unhappy accidents, your lack and misfortune must have been your destiny. 

Do you see what the difference is?