Rock Your Retirement Show

We Try to Convince Ourselves...

Most of us thought that happiness is linked to our accomplishments. We convinced ourselves that we’ll find contentment in life when we have an ample amount of money or buy those luxury bags, clothes, or cars that we’re longing for. But the truth is that we can create that feeling of happiness and contentment right now, regardless of any circumstances.

Today, Barbara and I will share with you how to come to a place of contentment, in spite of everything that's going on.

If you are a new listener to the show, we have a lot of back episodes where you can find information that you're looking for. But starting with Episode 239, which was three episodes ago, we started following the life of Barbara mock. This is section one of this one year project, there will be 12 sections, which we will release on a monthly basis, so be sure to subscribe.

Give Yourself Something to Look Forward To

Sometimes having something to look forward to is more valuable than any money or deposit you might lose. In terms of retirement planning,  Barbara has been listening to all kinds of webinars and seminars that her employer offers. When you're in work mode, these things go past you with these emails and training and classes and you just let them go by and it's kind of like when you're pregnant, you all suddenly see all these other pregnant people.

Now that Barbara's on the road to retirement, she's seeing all these opportunities that she didn't pay attention to at work. Every month, there's training and classes that are offered, but there's always one about preparing for retirement.

Now there's zoom. She's learned more about deferred compensation and more about Social Security. And then there was one that really aligned with the Rock Your Retirement program where it wasn't anything about money, rather it was about creating your personal definition of retirement. The presenter was talking about the steps of retirement, the stages of retirement, how important it is to redefine who you are, and just the different approaches. The time Barbara's spending in either reading or listening to the Rock Your Retirement podcasts or these classes is just really helping her form an idea of what her life is going to look like in retirement.

Barbara and Kathe discuss Barbara's "practice retirement" which is a vacation she took at Priest Lake. For full show notes, go to http://RockYourRetirement.com

Barbara Mock is getting ready to retire. Here's what's happening. Follow her journey over the next 12 months.

Kathe pops in your feed to tell you about the new format of the Rock Your Retirement Show.

Update 8/3/2020:  We are changing the format of the show.  Stay tuned.  We will still be releasing at least monthly but you are going to LOVE what's coming!! (Also if you added a comment here earlier, we had a computer blip that affected this post.  It wasn't you, it was us.  Sorry about that).

I wanted to let you know what the future is for the Rock Your Retirement Show.

If you have listened to the episode where I discussed my traumatic event, you’ll remember that I’m re-evaluating my life. This event was life-changing for me. If you haven’t listened to the episode, and you are interested, just go to Episode 209.

Since this traumatic event, I decided I wanted to scale back on some of my workload. I have already announced to my remaining financial planning clients that I’ll be retiring from financial planning on 12/31/2020. Although I partially retired from financial planning in 2015, I continued to work with my favorite clients.

With Covid-19 affecting so many of our lives, I’ve had additional time to reflect. In my time of reflection, I have discovered that I need to make some further changes. And those changes affect the show.

Since 2016 I have been paying to host the show. Although I’ve added some advertising it has never supported the show. In fact, my affiliate link provider has indicated to me that I’m not getting enough click-throughs, so they want to start charging me as well! So, if I continue to run ads it will actually cost me money!!

It has been a tough choice however, I have decided that after we run all the shows we’ve already recorded, I’m going to take a break and we will stop doing our weekly episodes. It costs me about $150 per month to keep the show going, and my revenues are nowhere near that amount.

The only way I can continue on a regular basis is to get some listener support. You can support the show at a $3 per month basis if you’d like. If a small percentage of my listeners did this, then I will get the $150 I need to continue weekly episodes beyond 07/06/2020 when our last weekly interview is scheduled to be released.

Don’t worry though, even if I don’t get the support I need to continue on a regular basis, I’ll still pop in sporadically to tell you how I am doing. So, stay subscribed so you get the notifications.

In case you’re interested in supporting the show, here’s where you can do it: http://RockYourRetirement.com/Support

Your friendship over the last few years, and support of the show and me personally, means the world to me.

This post of Retirement and Retirement Lifestyle first appeared on http://RockYourRetirement.com

If you are living in a multi-generational household or considering it, you must listen to this series. Last week we discussed the pros and cons of multi-generational living. Today, we are talking about tips for living in a multi-generational household.

Multi-generational living means a single household that includes family members of several generations, grandparents, parents, and children, all under one roof. Was once a cultural phenomenon, has slowly become a national trend. For some families, it’s about caring for aging parents, others have adult children returning home. Also, for some, it’s a cultural expectation. And others have adult children that haven’t left.

Learn to Deal with Conflict

It's tough from the spouse’s point of view. For Tae’s part, you can't be as a direct daughter-in-law it's hard for his wife to talk to her father-in-law like, “Hey you two you need to clean this up.” Time’s a little bit different, all of us have to contribute in a multi-generational household. To avoid any kind of conflict down the line, Tae would rather do the work upfront.

Tae’s wife is not living with her parents, she's living with his parents. So, it's very important to recognize, appreciate, listen to her concerns about a multigenerational household, without being judgmental but just kind of hear her out.

Set Boundaries

Tae’s family shares a community fridge. Everyone shops at their own timeline and then everybody was just kind of stuff their own things in different sections of the refrigerator. There was this time when Tae’s wife was going to cook and couldn’t find the carrots that they just bought. This is one of those items where you know it keeps coming up. So what they did to fix this problem was they labeled parts of the refrigerator saying, okay this my section, this is the grandma section. We don't go into each other’s sections and everyone's got their own section.

We have come up with the system of separating parts of the refrigerator and then just reinforce it on a regular basis.

Even Though You're In a Multi-Generational Living, You Still Need to Prioritize Privacy

It is recognizing that everyone has their own personal space in the house and one of the things that helped out was having separate spaces within the house. Tae’s family has their own little community area where they can have their television and just sit on their couch. They lay out the things that they want, not getting into each other’s space as regards to like who left the newspaper here or who left tissues here. It’s a place where we can create our own mess, they can create their own mess, and we're not getting into each other’s space. That was very important for them.

Split Expenses, Where Possible

When Tae’s family decided to cohabitate, Tae would take over the mortgage a majority of the utility expense. His parents thankfully said they would take care of the electric bill and the phone bill. So, to clear things up, they said they would take care of the gas bill, the water bill, the mortgage, and then you guys can get take care of the phone bill and the electric bill. Food is a little interesting because they don't have clear agreements. Tae and his wife would go and do their own shopping at Costco for what they want and then for his parents they would purchase what they want.

In a Multi-Generational Living, Going with the Flow

Conflicts are going to happen on a weekly basis just because when you have four adults living in the house.

Are you living in a multi-generational household or considering having your parents move in? Do you take care of aging parents as well as your own children? Do you know someone who is having challenges with caring for their parents? If any of these situations are yours, then this series is for you.

If you’re asked to picture a typical American home, you’ll probably imagine a single-family dwelling holding a mom, dad, kids, and maybe a family pet. That picture isn’t as typical as it once was. Today’s family home may also house grandparents or a young adult or two. Multi-generational living is a term used to describe households in which there are at least two adult generations in residence. Two types of multi-generational living are becoming more common in recent years; two-generation households, where adult children live with parents, and three-generation homes, where there are adult children, parents, and grandparents living under the same roof.

Are you living in a multigenerational household or are you considering having your parents move in? Do you take care of aging parents as well as your own children?

Do you know someone who is having challenges with caring for their parents? If any of these situations are yours, then this series is for you.

In other countries, the sandwich generation is a cultural thing, and it has been passed on from generation to generation. Therefore, it’s a given. But is it necessarily a bad thing? There is nothing wrong with caring for family members.

In last week’s episode, we spoke about what the sandwich generation is and what issues you may face if you are taking care of both your parents and your own children. Today, we’re talking about six lessons for the Sandwich Generation. Now Tae and I didn't get through all six of the lessons in our conversation but they are all listed below

Get to Know Everybody’s Finances

Growing up as an immigrant family, Tae’s parents didn't know anything about retirement savings, and money wasn't discussed in his household. Tae said when his parents moved in they didn't have a formal sit down but he does have a sense of his parent's financial situation. His father has a small business where he generates a little money from that, but both of his parent's main source of income is Social Security.  He also knew that whatever money that had saved was really the down payment that they had for this home. So his parent's offer was we will help you with the down payment for your home bu you know, that we come with the house and you guys take care of the majority of the overall expenses.

The conversation of finances can be tricky because there is a fine line between knowing everything about your parent's financial situation and still respecting his parent’s independence and their decision making. So, definitely, by living together, they were able to have more natural organic conversations where he learns more a little at a time. But he doesn’t know if he could sit down with that and be like ‘alright, let's learn everything'.

Understand whose money it is

Just because you are responsible for paying all the bills doesn’t mean it’s “your money.” If you can have your parents make some of the financial decisions that is the best way to go. Also, if you have children living with you, make them pay their fair share for certain things. Even if you are able to afford to shoulder the cost alone. Many experts suggest that grown-up children who return to the nest post-college should pay their parents for a portion of the household expenses. “Otherwise, they don’t grow up to be independent.

Seek out the right professionals and organizations for help

You don't have to do it alone! Unless you’re a financial and legal wiz — and an ace social worker to boot — there’s no way you can manage the myriad affairs of your life, let alone your parents’ lives. If you haven’t already, you’ll want to consider working with a financial adviser for everything from retirement to college planning. You’d also be surprised how much direct help you can get — or referrals to professionals — through government programs or nonprofit organizations. (Best of all: A lot of these resources are free.) A great place to start is your local Area Agency on Aging (these are programs funded through the federal government

Find good care

If your aging parents need extra care, get help! In the article, the author writes: If there’s a single professional who’s made the greatest difference in my life — and my father’s life — in the past couple of years, it’s the caregiver who spends about 35 hours a week with him.