How to Get Yourself to Exercise – Pay Yourself First

It used to be that doctors recommended rest for all kinds of conditions.  Child birth.  Stay in bed for a week.  Major surgery.  Don’t even think of getting up and moving.  Feeling stressed?  The Victorians went to the beach and put their feet up for weeks at a time.  But no longer.  Now, medical research has found that there is hardly anything that is wrong with you that exercise won’t help.

 

Skiing in the park

It is very easy for me to put off exercise.  The carpet has cat hair that needs vacuuming.  Moldy leftovers have invaded the fridge.  Or, I admit it, I just want to finish the level  5 Sudoku.

 

My husband doesn’t have this problem.  He goes to the gym and uses the weight machines.  He has a standing date to play racquetball with friends.  He rides his bicycle for errands, to his substitute teaching jobs, or just a few miles for the heck of it.

Why can he get regular exercise and I can’t?  My natural tendency is to get a bit irritated at him for putting himself first instead of helping with the chores.  But a couple of months ago I decided to try to learn from him instead.  After all, he does help out – just after he’s exercised.

As I thought about it, I realized, that is the difference.  Just as in saving money, it helps to pay yourself first.  Bill places a top priority on exercising and because he exercises regularly he has more energy to tackle the chores after he is finished.

So last November, I decided to change the priority.  I would make my to do list and move exercise to the number one spot.  I had some motivating factors.  We’re going on a cross-country ski vacation in February and I want to be in shape.  My bone density test showed some osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis.  My doctor encouraged me to work with weights.  I want to continue to be active as I age.  Exercise seems to be the factor that I can control.

How’s it going?  Better.  I was doing a great job of using my free weights and going for brisk 3 mile walks until the Christmas season hit.  Then preparing for company seemed to push exercise down the priority list.  I picked it back up in January and the unusual (for us) snow fall meant that I had chances to get out and cross-country ski.  I haven’t completely changed but I’m doing better.  Most weeks I lift weights twice and go for at least 3 brisk walks or similar outings.

How about you?  Where does exercise come in your priority list?  Do you have some tricks to get yourself to exercise?

 

I don’t do winter camping – well maybe in a heated yurt

A few of you may have read about the cold night I spent in Queen Wilhelmena State Park last March.  I have one rule when it comes to camping.  I don’t camp in the winter.  So how did I get from that firm stance to a yurtlet in Yellowstone National Park in February?

It started with Bill getting laid off.  That wasn’t in our plan.  Bill was going to work another year or two, partly for the money but mostly because he loved what he did and felt that he contributed to society by teaching math to teens.  But tax revenues for public schools were down. The possibility of a layoff hung over us for several months.  The day Bill got the word, he sent me an email, “Book that trip to cross country ski in Yellowstone.”

Skiing in Colorado

Cross country skiing in Yellowstone is one of those things that I always thought would be really cool.  But it just never worked out.  Bill’s time off never fell during the right time for a winter trip to Yellowstone. The park roads are closed during spring break to clear the snow and we like to share Christmases with our kids.  We looked but it just didn’t happen.

Now, in the grand tradition of making lemonade from lemons, we began to plan our trip.  We did some research and found a Road Scholar program that was reasonably priced, included some education on the area’s ecology and geology and promised to take us to areas that we might not be able to get to on our own.  We signed up.  Unfortunately no one else did.  The program was cancelled.

Bill did some web searching and found a Yurt camp right in the park that is run by a small company, Yellowstone Expeditions.  Heated dining yurt, heated sleeping yurtlets, heated outhouses.  You see the problem here, don’t you?  Bill kept telling me how gorgeous the stars would be while walking to the outhouse.  I said, “No, I don’t do winter camping.” 

A naturalist friend suggested the Yellowstone Institute.  They have programs with great educational aspects, skiing, and snow shoeing and you get to stay in the lodges.  Check out the videos on their web pages!  I called to make a reservation.  This time everyone had signed up.  There were no openings!

We reviewed some other ideas.  Vermont would be fun but not the experience we had been planning.  A trip to Grand Teton National Park had a level of skiing that looked wimpy, even for us.  We thought about just getting some lodging and going on our own but knew that we wouldn’t have the same experience as with local guides.

I went back and looked at the program with the Yurts.  I looked at the pictures.  Wow.  How can you pass that up?  After some back and forth emails involving comfort minded questions and a review of how our modest skills would fit with their program, we were signed up!  Four nights in a heated yurtlet!  Five days of skiing!  Snow encrusted bison, trumpeter swans in thermal pools, stars in the pitch dark night, canyons, and sulfur springs!  We’re going in February.  So much for, “no winter camping”. 

What about you?  Has retirement freed you to do things that you dreamed of – or some you never dreamed of?   Have you let go of some limitations to try something new?

The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men

I have a plan.  My plan is to retire fully in three years so that Bill and I can enjoy more of the active travel we love while we still can.  We’ll go cross country skiing in New England and have friends over for wine and cheese after a play or movie.  We’ll paddle our kayaks on the Mississippi River and take the train across Canada.  We’ll go hiking in New Zealand.  Instead of a long weekend with the grandchildren, we’ll spend a whole week.  (If that’s ok with you, Linda.) I’ve got a little piece of paper in my wallet with the remaining months listed.  On days when workplace tensions run high, I take it out and mark off the months that have passed.  

In pursuit of my plan, I have expense and income spreadsheets with different scenarios.  We’ve got another spreadsheet, updated quarterly with our savings.  I’ve run the options through online retirement calculators.   The numbers seem to work.  Our health seems to be holding up.

How do you decide if your plan is sound?  The reality is that for most of us, once we’ve hit the retirement button there will be no “undo”.  We might be able to go back to work but we are unlikely to make what we did at the height of our earning years.   This is a decision that involves some anxiety, some fear of the unknown and unknowable. 

I was born in the early 50s in the United States of America.  For most of my life, I’ve known a stable world.  Recessions were blips in a generally positive economy. Life spans expanded and old people grew fitter.  For people of my great grandparent’s time, retirement often meant poverty or dependence on children.  Not for my grandparents or parents, even though both had modest incomes.  With a little prudence, planning, pensions, and social security, retirements could be enjoyed.   Three years ago, I felt certain that my retirement world would be similar.  Most days, I still do.  As I said, I’ve got a plan. 

So when I cross the last month off my list, will my plan hold?  Will I be ready to move ahead?  Or will I have waited too long and not be able to do the things I hoped to do?  None of us can see into the future.  We can only make the best plan possible and take the leap when the time comes.  And so like a fantastical cross between Aesop’s grasshopper and his ant, I spend some time playing in the summer sun and some time shoring up stores for the winter. 

The last two stanzas of, “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns (slightly modified with some of the Scottish dialect replaced by more modern English)

But Mousie, thou are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
oft go awry,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

Outdoors in the Midwest – Cuivre River State Park, Missouri – or having time to do what you love

There are nature people and there are people who don’t do nature.  Though I don’t understand the people who don’t do nature, I will forgive them if they want to skip this post, because it is all about my love for nature. 

One of the absolutely best parts of being semi-retired (or fully retired, though I wouldn’t know by first hand experience) is the chance to pursue interests that I wouldn’t otherwise have much time for. Nature/natural history/outdoor and active travel is one of mine.  We don’t live near the mountains or the oceans or large National Parks so we fill this interest on vacations and in less dramatic ways by volunteering with nature organizations and visiting state parks and other more modest but equally delightful outdoor locations. 

This past weekend our Master Naturalist group met for a state conference at Cuivre River State Park in Missouri.  I had never visited this state park on the Eastern side of the state.  In a state with some great state parks, this is one of the best.  Though the park is North of the Missouri River it has a landscape more like the Ozark Hills.  I took mini-classes on insect interactions with plants, invasive diseases and insects that threaten some of our most gorgeous forest trees, and big river ecosystems.  We camped in the state park, popped corn over the campfire with friends, and met lots of other nature nerds.  

October is usually one of the best months in this part of the country.  It is cool enough that mosquitoes and humidity are not a problem but usually warm enough to be comfortable.  The leaves are changing colors.  It could have been cold and rainy.  But it wasn’t.  It was perfect! 

We joined this organization four years ago and I’m amazed at how much I’ve learned.  And how much there is to learn. 

What are we encouraged to do in order to stay healthy and happy as we age?  Exercising, learning new things, and building social networks.  How lucky I am to have an avocation that fills all three.  Exercise doesn’t feel like a chore when you are trooping through the woods looking for interesting mushrooms.  Learning about birds from avid bird watchers is a hoot – especially if it involves owls.  And sharing interests is a great way to make new friends.

What else? - dancing to a blue grass band in the open air – even convincing Bill to join me, walking around camp in the moonlight, the constellation Orion in the early morning, getting to learn from experts who love sharing… 

What passions are you exploring in your retirement?  What new things have you learned?  How do you share it?

Does early retirement harm your memory?

Doesn’t everyone have an opinionated relative who says he’ll never retire because he had a friend who retired and then died the next week (month, whatever)?  As much as I look forward to retirement, I sometimes wonder if those who think it isn’t such a good idea might be right.  What will I do with my time?  Perhaps I won’t feel productive.  My brain will turn to mush.  Well thank goodness, someone has done a study to look at just this issue.  Here’s a NY Times article about a study purporting to show that early retirement reduces your memory. 

My first response was, “Wow, someone really designed a study that shows a relationship between working and mental ability!”  But the more I looked at the data in the graph, the more I doubted that this study could say anything.  Admittedly, I’m basing these comments on the graph provided with the New York Times article.  If you are interested in the full study, it is available for free at the Journal of Economic Perspecives’ web site. 

My first concern is that it is a correlation study.  Anyone who has taken statistics has heard a professor beat into them, “Correlation doesn’t prove cause and effect.”  Just because two things seem to be related doesn’t mean that one causes the other.  The sun comes up about a half hour after I get out of bed every morning, but my getting out of bed does not cause the sun to come up.  The sun coming up doesn’t cause me to get up either, though the fact that the day is beginning is related to the fact that I need to get up and head to work.

In this case the researchers looked at aggregates of two numbers for different countries, how well 60 to 64 year olds did on a simple memory test and what percentage of 60 to 64 year olds were retired in that country.  On average people in countries that had more people still working did better on the memory test.  But if you look closer you will see that this is far from conclusive. 

There are only 13 countries in the analysis and they are scattered all over the plot.  For instance, the Netherlands and Spain had about the same early retirement rate but their scores on the memory test were nearly 30% apart.  Austria and Switzerland had similar scores on the memory test but their early retirement rates are nearly as far apart as any two countries in the study.  You can look at the same plot and say that people in countries further from the equator did better than those in countries nearer to the equator.  Since the study is comparing countries, could there be other factors that might cause this sometimes tenuous relationship?  Perhaps education level, diet, income…  Could you make a similar graph using these other factors? 

What do you think?  Is this study intriguing?  Does work improve your memory?  Or do you think you’d be more intellectually stimulated in other activities?

Spend less and save more – a book review of “the hard times guide to retirement security” by Mark Miller

Real  estate shows on the Home and Garden Network drive me nuts.  You know the shows – a first time home buyer viewing a series of starter homes, or someone trying to find a buyer for the McMansion that they now need to sell.  I always want to know when the segment was filmed.  Is this person buying a house before the real estate bubble burst, during the meltdown, or just after? Of course the network wants to rerun the shows for years so they don’t identify the date.  But how can we tell if the strategy being suggested by the helpful agent makes sense now?   I sometimes feel the same way reading retirement advice books.   Are they writing for a time that is past?  Does this advice still make sense after the Great Recession?

Mark Miller’s book, the hard times guide to retirement security: practical strategies for money, work, and living was published in 2010 and uses its 209 pages to answer questions about what we should do now.  He focuses a lot on working longer, spending less, and saving more.  That part, I could have figured out on my own.  Is there anyone out there who hasn’t figured out that if your retirement savings have taken a big hit, you should adjust your spending and withdraw less than you had planned until your savings recover? 

Working longer if possible seems equally as obvious,  but Miller explains how working a couple of extra years gives a double result.  You will continue to earn and contribute to retirement accounts for those extra years and you won’t be drawing on your savings.  To his credit, he recognizes the difficulties that some older workers may have keeping their jobs and getting hired in a tight job market.  He provides some simple ideas to help improve your chances of getting an interview, and hopefully a job.  Another suggestion is to start a lifestyle business, essentially a small solo business that will bring in some income but be more flexible than most jobs.  

The chapter on income annuities was helpful.  In many ways, an income annuity is a self financed defined benefit pension.  You give the insurance company a hunk of your savings and the annuity provides a regular income that can be counted on until death.  There are all kinds of annuities, some of which are totally inappropriate for this purpose.  It can get confusing.  Miller’s chapter was a good introduction, clearly explaining the basics and how to avoid some of the risks, like a company that doesn’t survive as long as you do.  I still don’t know if it is right for me but this chapter helped me to understand the issues.

This is a breezy little book that touches on quite a few topics, some in more depth than others. It is easy to read, reflecting Miller’s many years writing about aging and retirement issues.  Some of the more timely chapters are “Coping with Post-Bubble Real Estate” and “Resuscitating the 401(k)”.  You’ll get a good introduction to any of the topics covered.  He has a section on lifestyle issues and great web links as well as lists of other publications for more in-depth information.  Miller also publishes an extensive web site on retirement issues, RetirementRevised.com .

You may not keep this book on your shelf for years but it provides a nice overview of the retirement issues of our time.  I’d definitely recommend reading a copy from the library and then buying one if you think it fills your needs.

Why I’ve decided to take fitness seriously – again

We’ve floated the Kaw River with a strong head wind.  We’ve floated the Kaw in the rain.  But a week ago we floated the Kaw with blue skies, 80 degree temperatures, lunch served on the bank and all kinds of fun and interesting people.  And while I much prefer gentle water on a blue skied September day, each time I’ve enjoyed myself immensely.  There is something in my body chemistry that feels in sync when I’m outdoors doing something physical.  

Kaw River Flotilla

 

These kinds of activities require a certain level of fitness.  Until a couple of years ago, I felt that I was actually getting stronger every year.  I was a scrawny teen ager in an era that provided few athletic opportunities for girls.  Beginning in college, I decided to be more active.  I became involved in sports (swimming and a pitiful attempt at softball) and outdoor activities.  I did gain strength and found myself able to ride further and paddle longer as time went on.  Like many people, I gained a pound every year or two but I started so underweight that at first it seemed like a good thing. Those pounds helped to increase my endurance rather than slowing me down.  

Unfortunately you can’t gain a pound a year for decades without becoming a bit chubby.  As my weight crept up and my body aged, it has become more difficult to pop into a kayak and begin paddling.  In the last couple of years, squatting – to get into a kayak, take a book off a low shelf (I’m a librarian), get into a tent, reach some cobwebs in a corner  – has become increasingly difficult.  I’m not overweight based on the charts, but I’m just a few pounds short of it.  I decided it was time to do something about it.  I want to keep kayaking for quite awhile longer.   

So the end of July, I joined weight-watchers online and began exercising regularly – again.  

One way to encourage yourself to stick with an exercise plan is to have a fun goal to reach for.  Mine is cross country skiing in Yellowstone National Park.  Years ago some friends did this for their honeymoon.  I’ve wanted to go ever since.  This February we are planning to go and I want to be fit enough to enjoy the trip.  

The result so far: 

•  Down 3 ½ pounds since mid-July.  Not much, but I’m moving in the right direction. My goal is only 10 pounds loss so this is good progress.
•   Some form of aerobic exercise at least three days a week.
•  Weights at least twice a week.  Got to keep those bones strong.
• I’ve added some flexibility exercises as well.  I want to be able to look over my shoulder.

How are you handling fitness and exercise?  What do you do to remain strong and fit?  Do you have any great stories to tell about what has motivated you to begin and stick with a fitness regime?  What programs have worked for you? 

Some web links about exercise for those middle-aged and older: 

An article from Time Magazine:   Exercise to Protect Aging Bodies — and Brains. 

Who would have thought of linking weight loss to de-cluttering?  Here’s an article on just that from AARP.  While you are there, you can read some of their other material on exercise and fitness.

The National Institute on Aging has some great resources on exercise and activity.  NIH also has stories of older adults (60’s through 90’s) who remain fit.

The author of Strong Women Stay Young – a great book for women ages 40 and older beginning a weight program – has a website, Strong Women with more exercises. 

And to motivate you, the Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) Program has many enticing active adventures.  Search on activity levels 5,6, and 7 to find hiking, biking, and other active vacations.

The Fruits of our Labor: paying off the house

a new sidewalk

Shortly after Labor Day we will retire our mortgage.  Completely.  Just 14 years after we put 20% down on a 1949 Cape Cod style home it will be 100% ours.  And a month later we will celebrate our 14^th wedding anniversary.  

We are the boring kind of homeowners.  We didn’t buy a house with granite countertops and a stainless steel sub-zero refrigerator – or even much besides mud in the back yard.  The faux beams in the family room stopped 2 inches short of the wall.  The homemade kitchen cabinets were hung at several different heights above the counter and every room in the house needed fresh paint.  

We didn’t take out big home equity loans to replace those funky cabinets.  Each year we’ve had some work done – with money that we saved for that purpose – and now as we approach retirement we know that we can lower our non-discretionary expenses by more than $800 a month.  We’ve insulated and replaced some leaky windows, reducing our utility costs and further lowering our monthly expenses.   

We made plenty of mistakes.  It would have made better sense to spend more on a house with less wrong with it.  We had some work done for more than it should have cost because we were too busy to get additional bids.  We had bathroom work done by a very nice man who charged little but put glass block into the wall crooked and laid the tile floor improperly so that it cracked.  A few years later, we had to start over.  But we dealt with our choices and kept on working on those improvements.  

This is a security thing for me.  A paid for house means that I have a modestly priced place to live should the worst happen and we lose jobs or our retirement accounts don’t do as well as hoped.  When my Father died at 51, my Mom had a paid for home to live in while she figured out what to do.  We could live in this house for very little money if we had to.  It’s a nice feeling.     

We have great neighbors, live a few blocks from shops and restaurants, and back onto a small park where we can cross-country ski when it snows.  We have family nearby and are approaching autumn, the best time of the year in our Midwestern city.   Happy Labor Day.

Has Retirement Advice Changed Because of the Economic Mess?

Let’s face it, the economy is a shambles.  Unemployment is high, retail sales are low.  We don’t know when things will get better.

I’ve got more questions than answers.  How does a very long economic downturn affect those currently retired, those about to retire, those not too far from retirement?  Should we be changing how we handle things?  Has the advice changed?  What remains the same?  What is different? 

Many of the questions are money questions.  What if my savings took a hit?  What if we come out of the recession with a galloping inflation?  Should I be more conservative?  Should I save even more?  What will happen to my pension, my savings, social security?

Others questions are more personal.  My husband planned to work a couple of more years.  He loved his job, teaching math at a high school close enough for him to ride his bicycle.  His job felt very secure.  Even a couple of years ago, high school math teachers were in very short supply.  He felt so confident that he took a retirement incentive from one school district and went to work at another with a shorter commute.  That put him on the wrong side of the seniority line when his school district found that they had to lay off teachers.  He lost his job when he wasn’t ready.  He’s now facing a totally different job market for Math teachers than he saw a few years ago.  Though a couple of additional years of income  would have been great, the money isn’t the biggest issue here.  Retirement when you aren’t ready to retire is.  He doesn’t want to retire.  He feels like he still has something to give in the workforce. 

So, I went looking for internet articles discussing how to deal with retirement in the midst of a financial mess.  Below are a few of my favorites. 

The first article is by Liz Pullman Weston and addresses people in situations like my husband’s:  “Can you be retired and not know it?” 

From MSN Money here’s an article on “How the downturn is remaking retirement”. 

Liz Pullman Weston at MSN Money has another useful article:  “How to retire in bad times.” 

My whole working life we’ve worried about inflation, what if we’re retiring during a time of deflation?  See one perspective at The Motley Fool’s  “Deflation, bring it on.” 

Smart Money also addresses deflation:  “Retirement, what to do if deflation strikes.” 

AARP has some articles on what happens to a pension if your employer goes bankrupt:

http://www.aarp.org/work/employee-benefits/info-01-2009/money_retired_employer_bankruptcy.html

http://www.aarp.org/work/retirement-planning/info-07-2010/ask_the_experts_when_a_pension_plan_goes_bust.html 

Most of this discussion is less than cheerful so I’ll finish with some more upbeat articles from the blog, “Retirement a full time job” where Syd has several posts on retiring in a recession. 

What do you think?  What should we have done differently?  What should we change at this point?

Retirement Quests

Our friend, Tom has a retirement quest.  He wants to ride his bicycle across the U.S.  Not all at once, but in installments.  And though he is riding from West to East, he isn’t riding the segments in order.  Three years ago, with us along, he rode across Minnesota and then down the Mississippi River into Iowa.  The next year he and Bill headed out to Washington and began the western leg of the trip, ending in Montana.  One year ago, surgery kept Tom off the bicycle.

This year we joined Tom, picking up in northern Iowa, continuing down the Mississippi River, grown wide and deep compared to the trickle we first cris-crossed in Minnesota, and then headed into Illinois.  We stopped for a beer at a microbrewery in Potosi Wisconsin, learned that Abe Lincoln gave a speech in Galena Illinois, once a thriving river port,  and felt the scaleless skin of a sturgeon in the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque.    We talked with a couple of past and current farmers about how farming has changed.  We ate in downtown diners and had the world’s best rootbeer floats while looking out over a river lock in Guttenburg Iowa. 

A quest like Tom’s  is certainly one way of approaching the “what will I do?” question.  It also has the potential to start your retirement in a good direction.  A high school friend of Bill’s was overweight and out of shape when he retired.  He decided to walk the Appalachian Trail – all of it.  He dealt with the logistics, bought the equipment and began carrying a backpack on walks around the neighborhood.  He did walk the trail and had a great time.  He is now leaner and healthier than he’s been in years.   

Quests take many directions.  Often they involve a passion which has been difficult to pursue during decades of full time work.  Our Missouri Master Naturalist group includes several retirees with a passion for nature.  They give many hours of work to local conservation groups and nature centers.  This past Thursday a couple of us helped teach canoeing to urban fourth graders.  Most of these kids had never been in a canoe. There was some chaos and a few tears while canoes spun in circles or girls and boys desperately paddled forward further lodging their aluminum boat into a marshy bank.  At the end of the day, we were exhausted and hoarse from yelling instructions across the water – “paddle on the left, no the other left!”.  It was incredibly gratifying.  Watching someone find delight in swooping dragonflies and croaking frogs for the first time is a hoot.   Sharing my love of the outdoors with a new generation of kids that are grateful for the experience is positive feedback that I generally don’t get from my paid job. 

Downhill is nice

Sometimes a quest just lasts a year.  I know a man who retired, thinking that he would hunt and fish every day for the rest of his life.  He did that for a year and had a great time.  But at that point he decided he wanted more structure.  He found a job with less stress than his former job and still hunts and fishes on vacations but chooses to combine that with work. 

Perhaps that is the purpose of a quest, to give structure to your life.  It is possible that Tom will not finish his bicycle ride across the country.  But he’ll sure have some good stories to tell. 

Like the one about the hill in the river bluffs that two of us walked up, pushing our bicycles.  And the woman in a big pickup truck at the top who told us that some days her truck can’t make it up that hill. 

I’d love to hear from you.  Did you have a goal or quest for your retirement?  Have you been able to pursue it?  Did you change your mind? 

Some additional resources on retirement passions and quests: 

I love this series of Jane Pauley interviews with people reinventing themselves in later life. 

Adventure Cycling has some great articles about bicycling quests.