Posted on 04/16/2018 5:37:36 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Many of us are between 65 and death, i.e. old. My friend sent me this excellent list for aging . . . and I have to agree it's good advice to follow.
1. It’s time to use the money you saved up. Use it and enjoy it. Don’t just keep it for those who may have no notion of the sacrifices you made to get it. Remember there is nothing more dangerous than a son or daughter-in-law with big ideas for your hard-earned capital. Warning: This is also a bad time for investments, even if it seems wonderful or fool-proof. They only bring problems and worries. This is a time for you to enjoy some peace and quiet.
2. Stop worrying about the financial situation of your children and grandchildren, and don’t feel bad spending your money on yourself. You’ve taken care of them for many years, and you’ve taught them what you could. You gave them an education, food, shelter and support. The responsibility is now theirs to earn their own money.
3. Keep a healthy life, without great physical effort. Do moderate exercise (like walking every day), eat well and get your sleep. It’s easy to become sick, and it gets harder to remain healthy. That is why you need to keep yourself in good shape and be aware of your medical and physical needs. Keep in touch with your doctor, do tests even when you’re feeling well. Stay informed.
4. Always buy the best, most beautiful items for your significant other. The key goal is to enjoy your money with your partner. One day one of you will miss the other, and the money will not provide any comfort then, enjoy it together.
5. Don’t stress over the little things. You’ve already overcome so much in your life. You have good memories and bad ones, but the important thing is the present. Don’t let the past drag you down and don’t let the future frighten you. Feel good in the now. Small issues will soon be forgotten.
6. Regardless of age, always keep love alive. Love your partner, love life, love your family, love your neighbor and remember: “A man is not old as long as he has intelligence and affection.”
7. Be proud, both inside and out Don’t stop going to your hair salon or barber, do your nails, go to the dermatologist and the dentist, keep your perfumes and creams well stocked. When you are well-maintained on the outside, it seeps in, making you feel proud and strong.
8. Don’t lose sight of fashion trends for your age, but keep your own sense of style. There’s nothing worse than an older person trying to wear the current fashion among youngsters. You’ve developed your own sense of what looks good on you – keep it and be proud of it. It’s part of who you are.
9. ALWAYS stay up-to-date. Read newspapers, watch the news. Go online and read what people are saying. Make sure you have an active email account and try to use some of those social networks. You’ll be surprised what old friends you’ll meet. Keeping in touch with what is going on and with the people you know is important at any age.
10. Respect the younger generation and their opinions. They may not have the same ideals as you, but they are the future, and will take the world in their direction. Give advice, not criticism, and try to remind them that yesterday’s wisdom still applies today.
11. Never use the phrase: “In my time.” Your time is now. As long as you’re alive, you are part of this time. You may have been younger, but you are still you now, having fun and enjoying life.
12. Some people embrace their golden years, while others become bitter and surly. Life is too short to waste your days on the latter. Spend your time with positive, cheerful people, it’ll rub off on you and your days will seem that much better. Spending your time with bitter people will make you older and harder to be around.
13. Do not surrender to the temptation of living with your children or grandchildren (if you have a financial choice, that is). Sure, being surrounded by family sounds great, but we all need our privacy. They need theirs and you need yours. If you’ve lost your partner (our deepest condolences), then find a person to move in with you and help out. Even then, do so only if you feel you really need the help or do not want to live alone.
14. Don’t abandon your hobbies. If you don’t have any, make new ones. You can travel, hike, cook, read, dance. You can adopt a cat or a dog, grow a garden, play cards, checkers, chess, dominoes, golf. You can paint, volunteer or just collect certain items. Find something you like and spend some real time having fun with it.
15. Even if you don’t feel like it, try to accept invitations. Baptisms, graduations, birthdays, weddings, conferences. Try to go. Get out of the house, meet people you haven’t seen in a while, experience something new (or something old). But don’t get upset when you’re not invited. Some events are limited by resources, and not everyone can be hosted. The important thing is to leave the house from time to time. Go to museums, go walk through a field. Get out there.
16. Be a conversationalist. Talk less and listen more. Some people go on and on about the past, not caring if their listeners are really interested. That’s a great way of reducing their desire to speak with you. Listen first and answer questions, but don’t go off into long stories unless asked to. Speak in courteous tones and try not to complain or criticize too much unless you really need to. Try to accept situations as they are. Everyone is going through the same things, and people have a low tolerance for hearing complaints. Always find some good things to say as well.
17. Pain and discomfort go hand in hand with getting older. Try not to dwell on them but accept them as a part of the cycle of life we’re all going through. Try to minimize them in your mind. They are not who you are, they are something that life added to you. If they become your entire focus, you lose sight of the person you used to be.
18. If you’ve been offended by someone – forgive them. If you’ve offended someone - apologize. Don’t drag around resentment with you. It only serves to make you sad and bitter. It doesn’t matter who was right. Someone once said: “Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.” Don’t take that poison. Forgive, forget and move on with your life.
19. If you have a strong belief, savor it. But don’t waste your time trying to convince others. They will make their own choices no matter what you tell them, and it will only bring you frustration. Live your faith and set an example. Live true to your beliefs and let that memory sway them.
20. Laugh. Laugh A LOT. Laugh at everything. Remember, you are one of the lucky ones. You managed to have a life, a long one. Many never get to this age, never get to experience a full life. But you did. So what’s not to laugh about? Find the humor in your situation.
21. Take no notice of what others say about you and even less notice of what they might be thinking. They’ll do it anyway, and you should have pride in yourself and what you’ve achieved. Let them talk and don’t worry. They have no idea about your history, your memories and the life you’ve lived so far. There’s still much to be written, so get busy writing and don’t waste time thinking about what others might think. Now is the time to be at rest, at peace and as happy as you can be!
some of their opinions are evil or crazy
Some good advice, but not for everyone.
For some seniors being able to save for their children and grandchildren has been a long-term goal that gives them joy.
And does everyone need to buy what is “the best” and “most beautiful” even if it is for one’s partner? I think not. I don’t think that is necessarily ever what life is all about and most seniors have a recognition of stuff as less important as they grow in wisdom.
And to live or not to live with their family? Again, an individual choice. Many grandparents add immeasurably to a family with a wonderful, two-way dynamic.
I could say much about the medical industry. Some good. A lot bad. But I won’t.
Excellent.
What happened to ‘LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO BE A PROBLEM TO YOUR CHILDREN’?
Tell me about it, Government controlled ins doesn’t cover things like Lasix for fixing badly done cataract implants, dental, hearing, or vision like glasses. And NONE of it is cheap. Those medicines they put you on destroy your vision, and teeth. Thousands of $$ for dental work, cheaper to buy dentures than treat receding gums and 2 molar implants. 9 lower teeth left. With autoimmune diseases no guarantee grafts of implants will take. Besides I’m a Tightwad Scot and want value for what I buy.
Exactly. Spend your money now? At 65 you may be living 40 more years with no salary coming in.
If the kid’s don’t screw it up they’ll be in pretty good shape. With the ranch and the oil and gas revenues they’re not going to want for much. My biggest fear is what happens after I pass, what will happen to a ranch that’s been in the family and provided for the family for many generations. I have 3 daughters and none live within 600 miles of the place and neither show much interest in the place. I’m 68 and my health’s good but many things can change, I’ve lost allot of friends over the years and realize it can happen in the blink of an eye. My daughter in Wyoming is the only one that seems to carry the country girl gene, but with two others involved who knows. The wife and I live the life we want and have fun doing it.
Your better half wants to enjoy life with you more than without you.
Balance, mon vieux.
Seems to be generally good advice. I’ve got a while till I’m there.
My dad once sent me and my brothers a letter. It names my younger brother as his executor but said he probably wouldn’t have much to do. His goal was to die broke.
He failed. He lived comfortably and left his widow enough to live out her life with no problems.
We each also got a nice inheritance which in my case enabled me to held each of our kids with their college costs.
We didn’t expect anything so we didn’t live that way. My parents are divorced. My mom’s husband is very comfortable financially. His kids told him not to remarry because then my brothers and I would want some of his inheritance. I was actually offended when I heard that and told my mom that we do not want nor deserve a penny of his. One of his ungrateful spawn actually cheated him out of his business as he was getting ready to retire.
They’ve been married about 20 years and I’ve never even met some of his kids. Nor do I care to.
A good friend is about 80. His wife just died after a 25 year cancer battle. (she won in my book)
He seems to be doing well.
Probably good advice with the exception of spending everything you’ve saved...How many of us aren’t concerned about the $$$$ that will be needed for our healthcare which could include assisted living? The person who put this list together obviously thinks it won’t happen to him/her...It usually does and who is going to pay the $5,000 - $10,000 per month for that care if everything one has saved was spent according to this list? If you want a shock, check out the costs in your area. You won’t want to spend a penny unnecessarily after looking at those figures..
I can see with friends/family it doesn’t really matter how well one has prepared for that eventuality. No - my advice is to NIX the first idea on the list...
I am also a scot tightwad but I have figured out that they will get it all before I go. Anyone who thought they would get a big inheritance are going to be very disappointed! One word of advice to all of the people that think they are rich because of that idiotic 401K Statement - you not only have to pay taxes on it, if it is in stock, you have to pay capital gains on it. So if your statment say you have $1 million, you don’t. You share it with the government and are lucky to get half of it. your medical expenses go up. Our out of pocket expenses are about $25K per year now since my wife is not on Medicare, and even if you are, the part the government does not pay has an incredible deductible on it. I would budget differently now - I would assume that I would likely be able to keep a third of it and not cash any of the 401K unless I absolutely had to.
WAIT!! I have another one. Naps! Take those naps without guilt or remorse. I’ll be 66 next week and one of the best things about aging is that the 2 pm nap I was craving when I was 40 is perfectly acceptable at ‘my age’. I love it. Don’t bother calling between 1-3, I won’t answer the phone.
Yep. Assisted living in our area is well over $300/DAY, closer to $400.
“What were they thinking?”
Indeed. Whatever it was, how can we find it? We need toughness of mind and gentleness of spirit for the coming days. That only comes from the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here on FR we spend a lot of time angry at politicians and their latest machinations. The Founders seemed stable to me and not as disrespectful of authority. Anger will not sustain us.
“Folks, the reality is the liberals are going to destroy our wealth.”
I try to prepare my mind for that. My “safety net” may be disappeared. Post WWII optimism about life, if ever warranted, makes sense for those who went through it. They suffered and could rightly enjoy relief. They then proceeded to ruin their children through indulgence—”I don’t want my kids to go through what we did”—and then those children REALLY ruined theirs and so on until today.
“Ruined” seems extreme, but they made them weak and decadent. They’re “nice people” maybe, but they have NO concept of willingness to suffer for a future generation. At least you’d never know it from how they talk about life and the future. It’s all up, up, up! No taste for the “negativity” of reality, which is hot on our heels and will not be ignored forever.
NOT with my money.
After 30 years in high tech, missing holidays to hit target deadlines, postponing vacations, stress which endangered my health....
I have given enough for King and Country.
We’ve pinched pennies so hard for so long that it’s hard to stop.
LOL!
I’ve become even more conservative (and surly) and believe I MUST do whatever I can to insure a free Constitutional Republic for my 2 daughters & granddaughters.
#20. I laugh at people all the time. I get the feeling I am the only one laughing. THAT makes me laugh harder!! These poor saps I laughing at can only give confused looks at best. Some get mad and that brings out my evil laugh which usually infuriates them.
HA HA !!
Don’t wear sweat pants to the store.
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