Live for today or save for tomorrow?

My ‘lessons learned in retirement’ post got a mention earlier this week in a piece by Rob Carrick, the Globe & Mail’s personal finance columnist. Rob’s columns provide basic financial advice for the average DIY investor. I’ve been reading his stuff for years. If you’re curious, this is what happens to your page views when your little ‘friends & family’ blog gets a shout-out in the national newspaper:

What really surprised me was how international the Globe & Mail’s readership is.  My post was viewed by people in 76 countries this week, with a rather high proportion of those countries being tropical islands. Presumably, those were retired Canadians reading the paper on the beach while sipping margaritas and thinking, “oh sweetie, you’re doing retirement ALL wrong”. Fair enough. It is -30 with the windchill right now.

My favourite response, not surprisingly, came from Nick. Always fun when you can impress your kid.

Some of the comments I got were quite poignant. One woman retired at 55, full of hopes and dreams for the future. Six months later her husband passed away unexpectedly. Her new mantra is, “build memories, not RRSPs”. Another spent 10 years caring for her husband who was suffering from dementia and is now trying to rebuild a life without him. In both cases, the women now have more money than they need, but their retirement dreams have been shattered and they’re struggling to put the pieces back together in a way that makes sense.

In the past few months, two friends of mine – both around my age – have been diagnosed with cancer. We just don’t know what the future holds, and the older we get, the more curve balls we’re likely to be thrown.

My sister sent me an article called What If You Live Like You’re Dying Then Don’t? about a woman who was diagnosed with stage IV cancer that had metastasized to her liver. The prognosis was very grim. She quit her job, sold or donated all her stuff and travelled to all her dream destinations. And then a scan showed that the treatments had worked and there was no evidence of disease…which was awesome, of course, but by then she was unemployed and broke. Oops. She doesn’t regret doing it though.

In university I worked at a canning factory for a couple of summers. The money was good but it wasn’t a very rewarding job, as you can imagine. The full-timers spent their days waiting for their smoke breaks and counting the minutes until the end-of-shift buzzer sounded. They lived for the weekends and I remember one particular guy saying to me, “only 17 years until I can retire”. There was a whiteboard in the break room where they’d post notices about former employees who passed away, often shortly after retiring (it wasn’t the healthiest work environment). That experience had a strong impact on me and made me conscious of not wanting to “wait my life away”.

So what’s the lesson here? Should we scrimp and save for retirement or enjoy life while we can? Who knows. Everyone’s financial circumstances are different and priorities vary, but one thing that stuck with me from the retirement course I took was that people spend a lot of time and energy planning for the financial side of retirement, but once your health goes, you’d give any amount of money to get it back. A lot of health issues are beyond our control, but a study that is often quoted found that five factors – smoking, alcohol consumption, body weight, exercise and diet – affect longevity to the tune of 12-14 extra years.

I don’t smoke and I drink very little…the other three are works in progress, but high on my priority list this year. Putting time and energy into stacking the deck in our favour on health issues is probably just as important as financial savings when it comes to investing for retirement.

Hmm. That post turned into more of a downer than I’d planned.

In family news, Ray just turned 62 (!). He’d ace the longevity test and is in better shape than most people half his age. I have a lot of work to do so I can keep up with him (ha ha, just kidding, I’ll never be able to keep up with him, but I can get closer than I am now).

Nick cleaned his room this week – vacuumed, tidied, did laundry, washed the floor. What prompted this sudden spurt of domesticity? A mouse had apparently set up residence in his closet, chewed through some of his clothes and made a little home out of garbage. Probably a notice went around the “mice underground” saying, “Hey, we got a house here with four university guys living in it. Plenty of pizza for everyone and they’ll never be able to find us! Move on in!”

Traps have been set and the room has been mostly emptied. For the time being, the mice have the room to themselves and once they’ve ‘vacated’ the premises, Nick will move back in. I’m sure he’s relieved to be coming home tomorrow for reading week where he can sleep rodent-free.