SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Retirement Navigator, the podcast for adults 55 plus who are ready to make their next chapter their best one. I am your host, Kwame Kwadi, co-founder of Next Chapter Media and adjunct professor of finance at Johns Hopkins University Kerry Business School. Joining me today is Richard Eisenberg. Richard is an unretired journalist and podcaster. He writes the View from Unretirement column for Market Watch, co-hosts the Friends Talk Money, Personal Finance Podcast and Freelances for Kiplinger and the Stanford Center on Longevity Magazine. Before unretiring in 2022, he was managing editor of Next Avenue, the PBS site for People50 Plus, and editor of its money and work channels. Previously, he was executive editor of Money Magazine, front page finance editor at Yahoo, and Special Projects Director and Money Editor at Good Housekeeping. He has also run the NYU Summer Publishing Institute's Digital Media Strategies Program and has taught a master class in retirement for NYU. He is also the author of How to Avoid a Midlife Financial Crisis and the Money Book of Personal Finance.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Thank you, Carmen. I'm happy to be here. Glad to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

So, right away, I want to start with the word and retirement because as I was doing research for this podcast, I just kept seeing the word associated with you a lot. And I have seen podcast episodes and writing that you have really delved into why this word is particularly appropriate for this stage of your life. So, can you tell us what unretirement is and why you feel that that describes, you know, where retirement in general is heading and how that is different from traditional retirement?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Absolutely. Um, so I I call myself unretired. Um, and to me, what that means is I'm working sometimes in my retirement, but not all the time. I'm making sure that I have time to do other things like volunteering and spending time with family and traveling and relaxing and reading. Um, but I like to challenge myself. I like to keep busy, I like to earn some income. Um, and so for all those reasons, I felt like own retirement was the way I wanted to retire. Now, I will say that these days I think retirement means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For some people, their idea of retirement is leisure time all the time, and that's great for them, uh, especially if they can afford to do it. Uh, for some people, they feel like they can never retire because for them it means um stopping work or stopping full-time work. Uh, I feel like for more and more people, uh, and I'll mention a new Fidelity study that plays into this, uh, people are starting to say, you know what? Um, I don't want to keep working full-time. I do want to work sometime, but I want to have a new chapter. Um and Fidelity just came out with this brand new study about retirement where they surveyed the American public, and seven in ten said that they would consider an alternative to traditional retirement. And some of those are boomers and Gen Xers, but a lot of them are Gen Z and millennials. So I think uh everybody's thinking differently about it now.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Right. And and you know, our company has evolved from where we were, you know, initially just you know serving our audience, talking about retirement benefits, and then we realize that that is not enough for our audience because um retirement is now longer, people are living longer and living well longer, and so you know the average person could be looking at a 25 to 40 year retirement after you turn 62 or 65 and you start collecting social security. So we even rebranded ourselves to next chapter media because we feel like it is a beginning of a new chapter. So, how do you imagine that chapter? So, I say all that to say, how should people be looking at you know the retirement that we've traditionally been preparing for? And the reality is that now it's it's longer, and so your money has to last longer. So, what kind of frame of reference would you tell somebody that's hitting 62 right now to be thinking through when they're applying for that longer retirement?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Uh well, that's such an important point. You're right, there are a lot of people who are living longer lives than in the past, of course, not everybody. Um, but it's also happening at a time where employers have either gotten rid of the pensions that they were offering or they froze them. And so, for more and more people, it's up to them to do the retirement savings in a way that it wasn't true in the past. And that's a little scary, and that's why so many people are nervous about whether they'll be able to make their money last their lifetimes. And and I understand that uh it is a challenge. Uh, I would say the sooner people can get started on saving and the more they can do it regularly, uh, the better off they're gonna be. Um, you know, thank thank goodness social security is still there as the backstop, and a lot of people do rely on it, though I think some people maybe are taking it a little earlier than maybe they should be, and we can talk about that too.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yep, yep. And and and yes, I want to talk about social security at a whole different topic. But I want to um hone in on something you said about savings. Yeah, you know, for a lot of people, they have gotten to a point where they're in their early 60s and they realize okay, I haven't saved enough for retirement, and then they feel that it's too late. Is it too late, even in your early 60s, to save for retirement?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

It is not too late, and in fact, it's important to keep saving even when you're in retirement. Uh, but I would also say that for people who feel like they're short on savings, the idea of working in retirement is probably something they should be thinking about seriously and figuring out well, where where can I work? Who can I work for? How can I do it? How many hours, that sort of thing. And it's challenging because there's still a lot of ageism by employers. So not everybody who wants to work can easily find that work, but it is possible, and you may have to become an entrepreneur and be something of a hustler to to find the work that you're looking for, but it's but I think it's something more people need to be working on.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yes, and uh, I was looking at, you know, I know uh next avenue, and I want to talk about that. Your your your work there. I was you know looking on the next avenue website, there's a whole section on work. Yes, and I was really, really excited to see that because it talked about you know um, you know, working, new career, um entrepreneurship, volunteering. And so I think that you mentioned ageism, and that is that is true, and that is reality for a lot of people. When I when I talk about you know, even putting ideas out there for people about what they can do, the a lot of the comments I get is nobody will hire me. So I want to spend a lot of a little bit of time on you know, we we have the constraints that we have. How can people begin to think about what they can do to earn extra money, given that you know, one, you may not have a lot to retire on, but number two, you need the money to be able to survive. How can they begin to think about that? You talk about entrepreneurship. What mindset shift do they need to make?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Uh well it's interesting. I I was at uh something called the Century Summit recently that the Stanford Center on Longevity has, and it was all about uh you know working in our longer lives and lifelong learning. And then I've been doing some articles for Market Watch where I write the view from unretirement column. And what I'm finding is that most employers are not really thinking about or dealing with this new longevity and the fact that there are so many people who want to keep working and are able to keep working, and they tend to ignore them and they won't hire them in many cases. What I would say is you may want to, if you're still working full-time, think about whether where you're working and the work you're doing is a place that you might be able to work part-time, maybe phase into retirement, take what they call a gradual exit. And um, if you can have a conversation with your employer about it and say, you know what, I'm I'm thinking about leaving full-time work, but I don't want to stop working and I'd love to keep working. How can we do this where it can be helpful for you, the employer, and me as well? Some of them will be very interested in it, some will not. If they're not, then I think you want to think about well, who might want to hire me to do part-time work? Um, and maybe that's uh, you know, in-person retail or at an office, something like that, but it could also be virtual as a consultant or a freelancer or a gig worker. Uh, it could be doing the same kind of work you've done before, but it might not be. It could be doing something very different, but using some of your skills. So you may want to think about well, what am I good at and how can I get paid to do that? Maybe in a way that I haven't done that before. I think some people may need to sort of think a little differently about work.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

And you mentioned entrepreneurship. Yeah. Which is a viable option for some. How and and and people who are thinking, okay, I'm too old for entrepreneurship, you know, or started a business. What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

I don't think you're too old. Uh, in fact, the the fastest growing uh number of people who are starting their own businesses are older people, people over 50. Uh, now you don't have to be doing it full-time. You could if you want to, but you could be doing a business part-time, and you can get advice from experts who do this. There's a group called SCORE, uh, which is a uh group of uh free entrepreneurship mentors. They're affiliated with the Small Business Administration, and they're very helpful for people who've never started a business, maybe they've only worked in corporate life or nonprofit work, and and this is all new to them. Um, and you can you know talk to other people who've done it. So I would say don't don't think you can't if you haven't tried it. Now, it may not work that well on the first time, or you may find that it's uh it takes a little longer to get off the ground, but you know, you've got plenty of time.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

No, I totally agree with you. As a lifelong entrepreneur, I definitely definitely agree with you. And score is such a great resource that is often very underutilized because there are senior retired executives who are volunteering their time. So that that is great. So I want to shift topics a little bit to uh social security. Um so social security has been, you know, the way it was designed, you know, a lot of people say it wasn't designed to be the full picture or the full financial backbone for, you know, but it is for a lot of people. And there is worry about social securities, you know, long-term viability, um, the the depletion of the trust fund and what needs to be done to fix that. What are your thoughts? What what what do you think is happening to Social Security?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Uh well, clearly something has to happen to fix Social Security to deal with the solvency issues. Now, at the moment, the trustees of Social Security say it's gonna be another eight years or so before things get into a place where we really need to deal with it. I wish that Congress and the president would deal with it right now because I feel like the sooner they get to it, uh the more comfortable people are gonna be. But typically Congress and presidents don't tend to make those kinds of changes until they absolutely have to. So I'm not expecting anything to happen too soon. I would say if you're either retired now and on Social Security or getting close to it, I don't think you need to be worried about uh losing benefits at the moment. What I do think will happen is that at some point uh in the next eight years, things will change, primarily affecting, I would say, Gen Xers, Gen Z, and millennials. And how they'll do that, we don't know. It could be that they will, you know, raise the amount of taxes that people have to pay. It could be that they change the retirement age. I think that's less likely, but it's possible. They've already done that once. Um, so I would say, you know, expect changes. I would say um, you know, if if you need to claim Social Security at age 62, you should do it. But there are a lot of people who claim it's 62 because they feel like, well, I paid into it, I should get it. And what they're missing out on is if they can afford to delay, their social security check will be bigger by about 8% a year until age 70. So the longer you can put it off, the more money you'll get when you start claiming it. Some people can't afford to do that. Some people probably can and just don't.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Right, right. And and what is there of all the solutions that has been proposed to fix the social security solvency issue, do you have a preferred option?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Well, I think the one place they could start is what's called the payroll tax cap. And that is that you know, as when you work, taxes are taken out of your paycheck for social security, but that stops at a certain point based on income. And I think probably they could start by either raising that or possibly repealing it, but certainly raising it so that more higher income people are paying tax social security taxes than are today. That won't solve everything, but I think we'll start helping the problem.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Right. Yeah, right. Now, you know, related to that is one of the things I read that you you you talked about in one of your videos is about women and how, you know, one women live longer in retirement, and so their money has to stretch longer. Yeah so if you're talking to women currently considering retirement, how would you what would you tell them about managing their money to last longer? What are some of the factors they need to be considering when they make that decision?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah, well, not only are they living longer than men typically, uh often they've taken time out of the workforce for caregiving, uh, either for their children or maybe for a parent or a spouse. And so they're they may not have as as much earnings that are going into Social Security. So I would say everything that's true for men is maybe doubly true for women. So I would say for women, it's really important to save as much as you can when you can work with a financial advisor, uh, maybe take social security on the early side if you need to. Um, and certainly think about working in retirement because I think for a lot of women that's something that's going to be very important.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Right. And and one thing uh I have been in my own research have come across is that obviously some of the things you mentioned about why you know women get lower social security checks than men for you know, you know, caregiving, um caregiving, the fact that women make less than men generally, so they are paying less wages into that. And so um and women tend to take social security earlier than men do. I just did a podcast yesterday, like there's a two-year gap with that. So you put all that together, and a lot of women are getting to deep into retirement and realize that the money is not adding up, and then there's concerns for survival benefits and and and spouse all benefit. So if there is one money tip, you know, that you could give somebody earlier, considering retirement right now, that's a woman that is like looking at okay, this could be a 30-year, you know, but I want to retire early. What is one advice you would give them?

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I think I would say learn more about investing, saving and investing in personal finances. And I say that because this new fidelity study that I mentioned found that men are significantly more likely to say that they're confident about retirement than women. 81% of men are confident, 63% of women are confident. Now, some of that I think men are probably, some men are overconfident. So maybe, you know, maybe that's higher than it ought to be. But I do think a lot of women are not as confident as men because many women, not all certainly, but some, um, you know, have not paid a lot of attention to learning how to invest. And I'm not saying that you know you have to be Warren Buffett, but I think it it's helpful to understand how the stock and bond market works, the differences between mutual funds and ETFs and and annuities and all the various choices you could make. Um, and if you don't have a financial advisor, get a financial advisor who can help guide you. I would say those kinds of things would be really the most useful.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Awesome. And um now I want to shift into purpose, you know, purpose in retirement. I think that for a lot of our audience, they are already in retirement. Um, and 67% of people who watch this channel are you know already in retirement, and so they are dipping it and they're realizing that oh, okay, you know, maybe leaving the workforce was not such a good idea, but that's long gone. Um, and I don't know what to do. I feel like as more I can contribute. What would you say to them about rediscovering that purpose in this next chapter?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

Well, I think finding meaning and purpose in retirement is so important. Um, because for people who don't, uh it can often be a depressing and lonely and maybe boring part of life. But if you can find some meaning and purpose, it'll give you another reason to want to get up in the morning. Now, some people do it through volunteering. I do a bunch of volunteering, um, but some people get meaning and purpose out of work. So people find it in different ways. Sometimes they get it through uh spending time with friends and family. Um, there's a Japanese word that I've written about called ikigai. Maybe you've talked about it on your podcast and the audience knows it, but for those that don't, it it's a it loosely means the reason to get up in the morning. And I feel like when you're getting into retirement or in retirement, you want to find that ikigai for you. And it could be a few different things, and it may take a while to figure it out, and it may change over time. But once you find some meaning and purpose, I think you're gonna enjoy your retirement more.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, no, absolutely. Um I have a morning series called The Morning Step, where I give like you know, wisdom and purpose in retirement, and I did a session on Ikigai, and you're absolutely right. Having that thing that you wake up for, and and a lot of people for them, it was the career structure, you know what I mean? When all that structure is gone, the the access to people when you're working, so you have people, friends, and all that, and then you leave that scene and then it's all gone.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah, yeah, very lonely, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

So, on that same topic, I want to talk about um aging and and the paying for you know long-term care, um, and how one of the things I have found is that there's such a misunderstanding of how to pay for long-term care and the various stages of long-term care. And so a lot of people think that Medicare is going to pay for it and then they have a rude awakening. So, as somebody that has been in personal finance space for such a long time, yeah. I want you to address two things. If somebody is still working and they are thinking about long-term care and they have an opportunity to figure out a plan for that, what should they do? And then if somebody is already in retirement, yeah, what would be your advice for them in dealing with long-term care?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Uh well, you're absolutely right. Most people think that Medicare will cover long-term care, and sadly, typically it does not. There are some few exceptions, but usually it doesn't. Medicaid does, but Medicaid is for uh only the lowest income Americans, and so many people don't qualify for it, and those who do are able to get the care that way. Um, so if you're in the middle, and the very wealthy people, they usually have enough savings that they'll find a way to pay for long-term care. But it's the bad the vast majority of the people in the middle who really need to be thinking about this. And um I would say um when you're in your 50s or 60s, that's the time to look into the possibility about buying a long-term care insurance policy. Um, because as you get older than that, it can get very hard to qualify to get one. The insurance companies may turn you down because they say you're too old, you're not healthy enough, uh, they think it's not a good bet for them. But in your 50s and 60s, it's easier. It's not a guarantee, but it's easier to get it. Um, and there's one type of long term care insurance policy that some people buy these days called a hybrid policy. That combines long-term care insurance for long-term care costs and life insurance. And some people like that partly because they feel like, well, what if I pay my premiums every year and then I never need long-term care, I'm throwing money away. Well, this way at least you'll know that some money will be going towards your beneficiaries for retirement or for their lives. Now, not everybody will want to buy a long-term care policy. Most people don't buy one. I think more people probably should consider it. But if if that if you're not going to do that, then you need to think about a plan. And maybe the plan is, you know, just saving more to be able to pay for it. And good luck with that because the the cost of a nursing home or assisted living can be somewhere around$100,000 a year. It's very expensive. So I think most people can't afford to do it on their own. They'll need some help. And that could be through long-term care policy, could be through savings and investments, uh buying an annuity. That's something that, again, you may want to talk with an advisor about. But people really need to be thinking about this because there's a pretty good chance that at some point in your life, especially as you get into your 80s, uh you or your spouse or partner will need some kind of long-term care.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Right, right. And for couples also, that's like something that it's even more expensive together, you know, especially if both of you, you know, one of the things that um has been mentioned a lot is about aging in place. And a lot of people, from my experience, you know, think that that is a real option until the cost gets factored in, you know. So even for aging in place, you still have to have a financial plan because you may need help. You may need to hire people to come and help you. And so that is part of that.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And also a lot of houses are not built to let people age in place because they were built at a time where uh they didn't have things like uh ramps and guardwells, uh, and and they have narrow uh doorways and steps. So you you may want to think, well, can I can I age in place? And or what do I need to do to retrofit my house so that I can? And if you feel like you want to try to age in place, but the place you're living in won't make it work, then think about possibly relocating to someplace that will, maybe a a condo or a rental apartment where there are no steps and it's one floor and it's a little easier for you.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Okay. And um the next segment is about mistakes, about retirement and personal finance mistakes. You know, what when you based on your experience of writing about this and talking and speaking on it, what do you see maybe top five, you know, retirement mistakes that people make or are making in retirement, and how do you think they can go about correcting it?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Well, I'm not sure if I can do five, but I'll start with a few and then maybe maybe they'll come up with some others after that.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

All right.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So one is most people think about what they want to retire from. They want to leave their job, they want to leave working all time, they want to leave their boss, but they don't think a lot about what they want to retire to. So, what's this next chapter going to be? How are you gonna spend your days? You don't have to know exactly, but think about a little bit about how busy do you want to be, where's the income gonna come from, where are you gonna live. So I think more people before they retire should think about that. Uh, you mentioned Medicare, and I just wrote an article recently about this for Kiplinger, about the Medicare mistakes so many people make. So many people don't think about Medicare until they have to enroll at age 65. And even then, they don't spend a whole lot of time trying to understand how it works and what it covers and what it doesn't cover, and understanding the difference between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. It's very complicated, but it's not impossible to understand. And there is a lot of material out there that can help you. Uh, Medicare.gov website has some good information. They publish a book, Medicare publishes a book called Medicare and You. So you can learn it if you take the time. Most people just don't want to take the time. You you could also work with a Medicare agent or broker, um, and they can be very helpful. But I will just say that keep in mind that they will not be selling every company's policy that's out there, so you may be limited to the ones that they're selling you. Um, but I would say brush up on Medicare. Also do the same thing with Social Security, another very complicated system. Uh, you don't need to know all the ins and outs, that's impossible. But you do want to know kind of, well, what happens if I start taking my benefits at this age? What about my spouse? What if I'm divorced? What if I get divorced? So you just want to learn these things before you before you need to know them, you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, no, absolutely. I am glad you brought up Medicare because um I wrote a piece recently, and I I think that people think that Medicare is um a medical access um decision when I also think that people forget the strategy part of it because if you go for traditional Medicare or you start with Medicare Advantage, Medicare Advantage sometimes locks you in, where if you want to come back to traditional Medicare, you know, now you have underwriting issues with Medigap. And so a lot of people don't know that it's presented to them like, oh, you can get Medicare Advantage, or you can get Traditional Medicare. And it's the same thing, we can flip back and forth between them. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah, uh it's not impossible, but it can be very hard to switch from Medicare Advantage, which which is offered by private insurers and has limited doctors but often cost less, to switch back from there to traditional Medicare where you can see pretty much any doctor and hospital. Um but um traditional Medicare doesn't offer a lot of the benefits that Medicare Advantage does, like uh vision and dental and hearing. Um, but the problem is exactly as you said, which is you if you leave Medicare Advantage, you want to go to traditional Medicare, you'll probably want to buy a Medicare supplement policy to help you pay for some of these costs, and you could be turned down. There are only four states in the country where you're guaranteed to be accepted at that point. Most states they can turn you down and they often will.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Right, right, right. So, um, no, I'm glad we had that discussion because that's one of the frustrations that I have with the way Medicare is presented to older adults, is it's a choice between two things and you can flip back and forth. And I found that for a lot of people it isn't, you know. And uh and you may be locked into something based on your own conditions, and then now you may not be able to fix it. And it's a lifelong commitment at some point if if you cannot go back uh based on your health condition.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

So yeah, the other thing is people sometimes think Medicare is free. They think, oh great, well, I'm 65, I don't have to worry about health care costs anymore because it's all covered. Well, it isn't all covered, and there are premiums and deductibles, and your prescription drugs can still be expensive, maybe not as expensive as before, but your plan uh may not cover every prescription you take. So, you know, just bear in mind that your healthcare costs will still exist in Medicare. They may be a little lower, but uh expect to have some money saved for those costs too.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Absolutely. Is there any topic that you want to talk about that we haven't mentioned yet? Something you think our viewers will find useful that uh I haven't asked you?

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Well, gee, we've covered so many topics. Um I I guess I would just tell people to um be open to the idea of what retirement could look like for you. And don't be afraid to try things, and even if you fail, but you know, you find that you're they don't they're not working the way you want to. You you try to learn something new, a new skill, you want to uh learn how to paint or voice over work, whatever it might be, and you find that you're not enjoying it, or you don't like the people, or you're not good at it, or whatever, that's okay. This is a time of life where you can experiment, and you should give yourself the freedom to do that and say to yourself, you know what, I tried it, I'm fine, I'm gonna move on and find something else. You may just find that you try something and you love it. I was just having coffee yesterday with a friend of mine who's retired, um, who had been a journalist his whole life, and now he's doing a lot in art. He's taking, he's making watercolor uh paintings and he's going to classes, and he never did this before, and he's just loving it. And so I would say, you know, think about something that you've never done before. Maybe something you did when you were a child, you haven't done it in a long time. I've got another friend who's uh semi-retired, he played the trumpet when he was a kid, he hadn't picked it up in 50 years. He's playing it again, he's in a jazz band, and he's loving it. So, you know, give yourself the the chance to have fun.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

No, absolutely, totally agree with that. And now let's turn to you and your work. I know that you're unretired, you're still writing, you're still publishing. How can people follow your work? Where would where should they go to um see what you're up to?

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Well, thank you. Um, so I write for a few different places. I write a column called The View from Unretirement on Market Watch. Uh that's owned by Dow Jones, and they have a retirement channel. Um, I write for Kiplinger, both Kiplinger magazine and Kiplinger.com website, which is a really great website and magazine for personal finance. Um, I write for the Stanford Center on Longevity Magazine for people who are interested in learning about longevity. Uh, and then I do a podcast called Friends Talk Money, uh, which I do with two other co-hosts, and we bring in guests every week or two and talk about personal finances for people over 50.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Awesome, awesome guys. Um, I mean, Richard is one of the premier personal finance. I mean, his experience at the beginning of the podcast, you heard is my introduction of him. He has extensive experience, so do follow him on all these channels and check out his work. Richard, it's been nice talking to you. Uh, this was very insightful. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Thank you, Carmi. I've had a great time. I have to do it again.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Thank you. That was an exciting and insightful conversation with Richard, and I hope it was for you too. My one big takeaway was around the whole concept of being unretired. It is about reimagining retirement, and that is what our company, Next Chapter Media, essentially exists to promote, which is that retirement is now a 25 to 40 year um chapter, and so you have to think about it differently from the traditional retirement that we've all you know been preparing for, and so that for me was validation of the path that we are on, try to bring you content, tools, resources to help you on your next chapter. So, if this was helpful to you, consider subscribing to the Retirement Navigator podcast so that you don't miss a future episode. And if you want to continue this conversation and get more retirement resources and tools, then scan the QR code at the end of this video that will point you to additional resources. So, until the next episode, thank you for joining me today.