[How to live a long, healthy and productive life with streams of income to handle all your needs.]

The poet Charles Olson once said, in reminiscing about his life, “I have come to learn the simplest things last.” As I enter the most productive stage of my own life, the time after my 50th birthday, I have come to accept Thomas Edison’s edict, “There ain’t no rules around here, we are trying to accomplish something.” All of the rules on aging and retirement that are taught by our society through the media have become “working theories” for me… possibilities to be tested for validity and not to be blindly taken at face value.

Simplest Thing #1 – Retirement is a process and not a goal.

When I was growing up, I was taught that retirement was a goal that you achieved after years of hard work… and if you reached the age of 65. If you were successful and saved a lot of money you could “retire,” that is, quit working and live off your saved “earnings.” These earnings, combined with the government programs of Medicare and Social Security, would allow you to keep your present lifestyle intact until you died and then your heirs would receive the balance of your estate. My parents lived through the Depression, lived modestly, saved weekly, paid everything by cash or check and never used credit cards until later in life.

It is useful to understand how the concept of retirement came to be in the first place. During the Depression, when things were not going well for the average American, our government offered up a vision of a “leisurely retirement” as a morale boost for the beaten-down work force. Following the upturn in the U.S. economy after World War II and the increasing birthrate of the “Baby Boomers,” retirement was considered possible for the first time in our history.

In 1900, the average life expectancy for a white male was 48 years of age, a white female, 51 years. If that same person survived until 60 years of age, their average life expectancy would have increased to: male, 74 years and female, 75 years. If any of those individuals survived until 65 years of age, they could formally “retire” and receive the benefits of Social Security and Medicare along with their pension.

Since 1950, the average life expectancy of the same white male jumped to 66 years and of a white female, 72 years. If the same person survived to 60 years of age, their average life expectancy increased to: male, 76 years, female, 79 years.

Today, those 76 million “Baby Boomers” born between 1946 -1964 are on the receiving end of the largest transfer of wealth in American history – an estimated $1.4 trillion dollars from the 17 million Americans who put the boom in the post war economy. In all likelihood, Americans will never again be able to retire as early or as well as they can today.

In reality, only 24% of American workers say that they are confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years. With an average life expectancy of a typical present-day 65-year-old stretching between 15 and 20 years, funding a lengthy retirement is a very real concern. Add to that concern other family health and financial issues, including rising medical costs, and “unforeseen emergencies,” no one is ever really ready to retire.

In fact, we need to shift our thinking away from retirement and towards planning how to live a long, healthy and productive life with streams of income to handle all of our financial concerns from this moment forward.

How we use the present moment indicates what we truly desire. Ernest Holmes, the founder of Religious Science, said it best – “If you want to know what you desire, look at what you have in your life right now.”

By taking personal responsibility for all the choices we have made that brought us to this present moment, we are free to create new choices that will move us in the direction of what we truly want.

Simplest Thing #2 – It is not what you do, it is what you truly want that matters.

René Descartes, a 16th century scientist once said, “To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.”

There is the story of the traveling salesman who came upon a farmhouse where a man and his dog are sitting on the porch. The farmer is rocking in his chair and the dog is sitting next to him whining and moaning. The salesman asked the man, “What is wrong with your dog?” The farmer replied, “He’s is sitting on a nail.” The salesman then questions, “Why doesn’t he get off the nail if it hurts so bad?” The farmer could only say, “He’ll move when it hurts bad enough!”

How many of us, like that dog, have to experience all of our pain and suffering before we get up and do something different? Sadly, how many of us would question whether we “truly deserve” anything more than what we have in this present moment?

That was brought home to me most vividly when, as a financial planner, I worked with individuals and their families discussing their future needs. A common concern was that there was too little money saved, too much debt, and too little time left to make a difference. I believed at the time that my job was to overcome their concerns by setting up a plan for them to follow, like a diet or exercise program. For every successful outcome, there was another disappointment. A few clients even chose bankruptcy to cancel their current debt, only to find that, within months, their debt had returned to the same levels as before.

It seems that Parkinson’s Law was correct – “A luxury, once enjoyed, becomes a necessity.” Or, in my variation, the maintenance of one’s enjoyed lifestyle is more important than the cost of one’s lifestyle. The appearance of success (for example, consider all of those “reality” television shows) is more desirous than true success (for example, having the discipline to distinguish between necessities and luxuries).

Now years later, I realize that I must be a financial behaviorist for my clients. My job is no longer to change their beliefs about their money, their debts or their financial future, but rather to first change the mind of the believer! As Wayne Dyer related, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

The power to change is always and only in the present moment. In the past, I asked my clients to identify and define their assets, debts and future goals. Now I ask them to also identify and define their true lifestyle needs, current spending habits and their “willingness” to create new lifestyle “needs and habits.” Defining these additional items supports them in what they say they want to have for themselves and their families – financial freedom.

Simplest Thing #3 – It is not what you earn that is important, it is what you spend.

Until my clients are willing to accept their financial situation in the present moment as a challenge of personal character to overcome self-imposed doubts and fears and create new spending habits, nothing would change for long. Jim Ryun, the track athlete said, “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”

I can show people how to pocket the interest that they are now paying to banks, credit card and finance companies and turn it into personal wealth and a tax-free income for life. Yet, if my clients are not willing to take the first step to change their lifestyle, financial freedom will remain a dream, or at worst, a lottery ticket and an endless series of “lucky” numbers.

According to the May 2004 issue of Consumer Reports, Americans will pay more than $216 billion a year in fees for financial services. Last year, according to the FDIC, banks collected $32.6 billion in service fees, just on checking and other deposit accounts. That is 20% more than in 2002. We’re talking only late charges, overdraft fees, interest charges on credit card balances, and interest on car and home loan balances, to give you a few examples.

There is another alternative that can meet more of my clients’ needs than they even thought possible. I can teach my clients how to “recapture” the interest and fees they are giving to banks, credit card and finance companies. I can show how they can turn that recaptured interest into personal wealth and tax-free income and begin to recapture the entire purchase price of their cars and big-ticket items. They would become wealthier every year in either bull or bear markets by gaining control over their own cash flow.

Uncovering the choices we have made in our lifetime that have brought us to this present moment, can be the most daunting and yet the most rewarding of personal inquiries. To then consciously make “new” choices in this present moment can build momentum for a different future than the one you expected or thought you “deserved.”

Like Charles Olson, I have learned that the simplest things last. It is better to tell your money where to go than to ask where it went. My actions will always speak louder than my words. My ability to receive anything that I want is only limited by my willingness to question what I think I deserve. I am free to change my old comfortable lifestyle habits at any time with new habits that support my stated desire of financial freedom. And finally, this change can only happen in this present moment. Wishing won’t make it so.

Jim Goeke is a financial advisor in the Tampa Bay area. He can be reached at (813) 788-1788 or by for comments or consultations.