Retirement Planning

A report out of Australia shows some interesting thoughts about retirement planning down under. I suspect that the results would be similar in North America or Europe.

Superannuation or “super” is saving money for when you retire, where this money is put into a super fund by either your employer or yourself if self employed. Saving money for your retirement is smart future planning to be able to live as comfortable as you do in pre-retirement.

Everybody needs savings for their retirement. It would be ideal to have financial support to be able to retire on predetermined savings that will allow you to maintain your pre-retirement lifestyle.

We often have this “she'll be right attitude” when it comes to ensuring we are financially secure in retirement. Will the Government look after me? The retirement age is about 67 years and Australia’s average life expectancy at about 80, there is 15 to 20 years [or longer] where you will need to have some money saved up to live on.

Have you stopped to take a look at what the age pension entitlements are, and that is if you are eligible.

Did you know?

Your retirement life may be longer than your working life. If you thought it was expensive to live while you were working - do you think it will be any cheaper when you are retired?

Retirement expectations

Generation Y was found to be the most optimistic towards retirement, with 22% claiming they aimed to retire before age 55.

The 2014 Federal Budget resetting the retirement age to 70 will impact the expectations of more than two-thirds of Australians, who planned to retire before then.

“Only 7% of Australians planned to retire at the age of 70 to 75,” the report said.

Despite generational differences, across the board women planned to retire at a younger age than men.

On average, retirement dreams fitted into the following order of priority:

1. Good health,
2. financial security,
3. family time,
4. travel,
5. relaxation,
6. romance,
7. dream home, and
8. time with friends.

66% of Australians said they were actively planning for retirement, with older generations more focused on this than younger people.

55% of men and 53% of women felt confident they could fund their retirement dreams.

Generations X and Y were living in the moment, claiming to not think about retirement. But the main reason Baby Boomers were not planning their retirement was a lack of understanding about superannuation.

Suncorp’s conclusion to the report was that Australians need to engage with their superannuation.

“It is concerning that super and financial advice features so low in priority for Australians given the financial upside these factors could have on lifestyle dreams.

“Australians need to start saving from a younger age, planning well ahead and thinking about their finances earlier, it is never too late to start improving your financial situation,” Suncorp said in the report.

“These results reflect a need for further education about retirement and the benefits of planning and saving for retirement from a young age,” Suncorp said in the report.

Why an Eye Exam Is So Important to Your Overall Health

My wife just went and had an eye exam and now realizes she needs glasses for distance. However, the exam was very thorough and the Dr. made the point that eye exams are important for your overall health. The following article address some of the reasons why you should get your eyes examined if not every year, every other year.

If you think that eye exams are only for people who need prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses, then you’re sorely mistaken.

A comprehensive eye exam is a good indicator for your overall health, and it can help detect certain diseases, like diabetes and high blood pressure, before anything else.

Who needs eye exams?

People of all ages will benefit from regular eye exams, in large part because 

an eye exam can detect early signs of disease and inform you of your overall health.

Children in particular need routine eye exams because good vision is crucial for their 

education. If vision problems go undetected, a child’s academic performance will likely drop. 

For one thing, they won’t be able to read instructions on a chalkboard from far away. A

n& eye doctor will be able to tell if eyeglasses or contacts are enough, or if there’s an underlying issue causing the vision problems.

What do eye exams screen for?

Although determining the proper prescription for corrective lenses is the biggest reason for getting an eye exam, your eye doctor will also screen for many other things, including:

• Medical diseases of your body: Diabetes is one disease that an eye doctor will be able to detect before a family physician. Other indicators in the eye can paint a broader picture of your overall health.

• Glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataract and other eye diseases: Many eye diseases won’t have any symptoms that you’d notice without the help of an eye doctor. Early detection is crucial to avoid permanent vision loss.
• Amblyopia: This occurs when the vision in one eye is much worse than the other, and it can lead to permanent vision loss if left untreated.
• Strabismus: When the eyes are unaligned, making them crossed. This can cause problems with depth perception.
• Problems focusing: Some children are slower at developing the ability to focus. In adults, a condition called presbyopia is the declining ability to focus.

What Our Eyes Can Tell Us about Our Health

They say that eyes are the window to the soul, but did you know that your eyes are also windows into your overall health? The eyes are the only place where you can see a person’s arteries, veins, and nerves. It is all-together transparent in that sense. Here are some things that your eyes can tell about your health.

Gray ring

Many times you will see older folks with a slight gray ring around the cornea. Doctors have found that this ring is directly correlated with high cholesterol and triglycerides. These in turn can lead to an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Cloudy

A sure sign of a cataract is when there is clouding over the lens of the eye. Cataracts can be surgically corrected and may be caused by diabetes, exposure to the sun’s harmful rays and even medication.

Basal Cell

Small indented skin lesions in areas around the eyelid and can be a sign of skin cancers. It may not be fatal but it could cause serious damage and be fatal if not corrected soon.

Droopy Eyes

While we all get these at times when we are tired, it can also be a sign of an autoimmune disease. It is something that can be diagnosed and corrected. If you find your eyes feeling droopy often, you should visit your optometrist today.

Blood vessels in retina

When a doctor sees tiny blood vessels that are twisting, turning and going around the retina, he/she can determine that there is a higher level of blood pressure or high blood pressure. These conditions if not detected early and treated can lead to a stroke or loss of vision, so it is important to start treating it soon.

Red itchy eyes

This is one that you may see often in yourself or others. It is a sure sign of an allergic reaction. The best treatment for this is to avoid the allergens completely but there is also prescription medicine that can help as well.

Our eyes are amazing and transparent windows to our health. When you notice any of these problems with your eyes, you should see your eye doctor in order to find a diagnosis and treatment that works. Don’t wait till the last second to get a diagnosis as some of these diseases can be deadly and the sooner you address them the healthier you will be.

This information was provided by:
Bob Consor OD
The Eye Doctor's Office and Eye Gallery
Dallas, TX
Phone - 214-361-1300
Email - Dr. Consor
Website - Eye Doctor's Office

Canada Needs a National Seniors’ Strategy

 Here is an interesting story that I received via email the other day.  I think not only Canada but many countries may need a National Seniors Strategy. The story was written by By Dr. Christopher Simpson, Canadian Medical Association President for the Retired Teachers of BC newsletter. 

ll levels of government are at risk of being overwhelmed by Canada’s growing senior population and the health system’s inability to meet their needs. A national plan to deal with health care for seniors should be high on the agenda for Canada's premiers. The Mental Health Commission of Canada reported that family caregivers in Canada are experiencing extreme stress. Among those aged 15 and over who provide care to an immediate family member with a chronic condition, 16.5 per cent reported very high levels of stress. 

Some 35 per cent of the workforce is providing care to a relative or friend, accounting for an annual loss in productivity of $1.3 billion. Statistics Canada reports that family caregivers contribute an estimated $5 billion of unpaid labour to the health-care system. As our country’s older population grows, the need for care will only multiply. Recent Nanos public opinion polls conducted for the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association found that an overwhelming majority of Canadians want the federal parties to improve financial support to family caregivers and to make seniors’ care part of their election platforms.

The tumbling dollar and sagging oil prices may now be getting the headlines but the real story,
however, is how our municipal, provincial and federal treasuries are at risk of being overwhelmed by Canada’s growing senior population and the health-care system’s inability to meet the demand.

The federal government has made a start with the creation of the Employer Panel for Caregivers and the Family Caregiver Tax Credit. However, it must do more to make a meaningful difference in the lives of Canadians caring for family members. For example, making the caregiver tax credit refundable would help mitigate care costs such as paying out of pocket for prescriptions, groceries and personal care items or taking time off work for medical appointments.  Until all levels of government come together to form a comprehensive plan-a Canadian seniors’ strategy, piecemeal initiatives will have a limited impact.

In a way, our generation has become a victim of our own success. Progress and innovation in
medicine mean Canadians are living longer. At the same time, more people are living with chronic diseases that complicate both their health status and the treatment they need. Treatment of chronic diseases consumes 67 per cent of all direct health-care costs. Chronic disease is the main reason seniors require health care. In 2011, between 74 and 90 per cent of Canada’s seniors suffered from at least one chronic condition, while nearly one-quarter had two or more. These conditions jeopardize a person’s ability to live independently at home. On any given day in Canada, “alternative  level of care” patients—that is, patients approved for hospital discharge who cannot access appropriate post-hospital care— occupy about 7,500 beds. 

Hospitals are routinely forced into a state of overcapacity called “code gridlock” in which patient flow grinds to a halt, elective surgeries are cancelled and transfers are put on hold. Code Gridlock is every bit as ominous as it sounds. When a hospital reaches and exceeds its capacity, these two words go out on pagers and smart phones to physicians, administrators, nurses and support staff in hospitals all over Canada. Code Gridlock means that the hospital is so full that patients can't move. Patients in emergency can't go upstairs to a bed because the beds are full. Sometimes ambulances can't offload patients into ER because it is packed—even in the hallways. 

Elective surgeries are cancelled. Transfers from the region are put on hold. Patient flow, as we call it, has ground to a halt. If you are in a car accident or have a heart attack, our health-care system can effectively mobilize world-class acute health-care services. But the system is woefully inadequate and under-resourced to properly prevent, manage or treat the long-term and chronic health problems facing most of our over 65 population. Too often, seniors who could and should be getting better are languishing in hospitals when more efficient and effective care could be delivered in their homes or in a long-term care facility. It costs $1,000 to keep a person in a hospital bed for a day. 

Long-term care costs $130 a day. Home care (excluding the economic costs of caregivers looking after relatives) costs $55. That translates to approximately $2.3 billion a year that could be better spent in the health-care system with some strategic thinking and investing. This country as we know it today was, in fact, built by our seniors—by our own mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles and grandparents. Canada’s health-care providers are determined and committed to prioritizing and improving their health. We expect the same of our country’s leaders. We ask that a comprehensive healthy ageing and seniors’ care strategy be at the top of the agenda for the premiers. 

Canada’s 5.2 million seniors represent almost 15 per cent of the population but account for almost half of all health costs. By 2036, the 65-plus group will account for a quarter of the population, and those over 85 will quadruple. If nothing changes in our health system, seniors will account for 59 per cent of our health costs in 2031. Can our universal health care system remain sustainable? It won’t unless we start rethinking seniors care and how it affects the overall system. 

The pressure is on.

Here is a fact. Funding retirement remains one of the biggest economic and social challenges facing the world in the 21st century.

The growing financial pressures on retirement systems around the world are forcing individuals and families, employers, and policymakers to change the way they think about and plan for retirement. Retirement as a concept is being rapidly redefined.

We can also expect to see people work beyond current retirement ages as the notion of retirement becomes more flexible, blending leisure with periods of employment.

While the onus is on the individual to plan, there remains a vital and essential role for governments and employers. Not only will they continue to provide significant financial support, through government retirement benefits and workplace pensions, but they will also come to provide a wide array of services to people who need to build the important life skills required to save for, and transition into, retirement

Government spending on old age pensions already takes up more than 10% of GDP in a number of our survey countries including France, Germany and Poland, and this figure continues to grow.

 As a result, the old models of paying for retirement, based on generous government retirement benefits and occupational defined benefit pensions, must eventually give way to something more sustainable. Individuals will need to play a greater role in planning for and funding their own retirement.

The long-term solution lies in individuals saving more, possibly in governments increasing taxes to fund government retirement benefits and – certainly – in society as a whole taking a more flexible view of work in later life.

It is clear that people are still not doing enough to prepare for retirement. In our fast-paced modern world, planning for an event that will not occur for maybe three or four decades seems to go against the grain.

For many faced with the demands and distractions of everyday life, the challenge to think, plan and act for the long term appears to be simply too great.

However, that is exactly what retirement planning requires of us. Though all countries in our survey are faced with a similar challenge, not all countries are following the same blueprint or achieving the same outcomes.

For example, in 2012, the Netherlands had one of the best-funded pension systems in the world with pension fund assets equal to 160% of its GDP, up from 103% in 2001. Meanwhile, in Hungary, the value of pension assets relative to GDP fell from a peak of 15% in 2010 to 3% in 2012, following a government decision to close the country’s mandatory private pension system.

To tackle the challenges, which lie ahead, all governments and employers need to work with employees to provide simple and secure channels to save and invest for the long-term, remove the obstacles to save, improve access to advice and guidance, and make retirement itself a more flexible process, which puts people in control of their own finances.

Employees in the US and Canada overall have the most positive outlook on retirement, possibly reflecting the additional security provided by access to personal pensions. Americans, for example, have amassed some $19.4 trillion in personal pension assets with three-fifths (60%) of the workforce enjoying access to a personal retirement plan (in most cases, a defined contribution plan10).

A similar picture emerges in Canada, where $2.4 trillion has been amassed in pension assets, second only to the US Less optimistic nations include Poland, Hungary, and Japan. People here were more likely to mention negative words when describing their future retirement. In each of these countries, there are concerns around the sustainability or adequacy of the retirement system.

The problem of pension reform is complicated because different countries have different attitudes towards the idea of reform. The following is from a 2014 survey of 16,000 people in 16 countries.

·        One- third of Canadians would chose a balanced approach to reform consisting of reductions in government retirement benefits and tax increases

·        30% of US employees believe that retirement age should increase in line with life expectancy

·        56% of Germans believe that people already work long enough and don’t favor any increase in retirement age

·        34% of British respondents think the government should reduce the value of benefits and increase taxes

·        25% of French people think that those in dangerous jobs and manual workers should not be expected to retire later

Counting stars

Whoohooo!! Stayed up all night counting the stars!! 

Please don't be alarmed as you walk down the path of life, should you ever find you suddenly don't have the foggiest idea of how your grandest dreams will one day come to pass. 

This is a good thing. A really good thing.  

Know why? Because the only constant in life is change, and if you are in touch with that idea, not knowing how your dreams will come true means that you will have to change. Great eh!