The Retirement Detox Program

Could you claim compensation for a mis-sold financial services product?

If you live in the UK, you may be interested to learn about a new service being offered by my coaching colleague, the excellent business and wealth coach, Judith Morgan - a service which may enable you to make a claim amounting to thousands of pounds if you have, or have had, a mortgage, secured loan, motor vehicle on finance or credit card.

But, first, a bit of background - I'm always careful about recommending other people's products and services but I've known Judith for around 4 years and wouldn't hesitate to recommend her services to anyone I feel would benefit from them.  For many years, Judith was an accountant and her clients were predominantly entrepreneurs and small business owners.  Now she works as a much-loved and very well-respected wealth coach and business mentor, teaching clients all about how money works, how to get out of debt and become financially free and how to be more profitable in their businesses. 

Judith is now offering a new service which you might be interested if you have bought a financial services product such as a mortgage, secured loan or car finance at some point since 1990 (which surely includes us all?) or if you, or anyone you know, has a credit card where the contract was issued before 1st April 2007.

Judith can explain everything much better than I can, so here's the link to her website, www.ClaimWithJudith.co.uk, so you can find out about her offer for yourself. If you ARE interested, I highly recommend speaking to Judith in person about how it all works and what you can expect to happen.  As she says herself:

'I have been working to help people with their money throughout my entire business career. I love to help people with warmth, humour, intelligence, good communication and with no judgement whatsoever. I aim to help all my clients learn more about what is available to them.'

Phone Judith today on 05602 050 625 for a no-obligation discussion and tell her I sent you...

From banking executive to head chef at 64

Are you considering an 'encore' career?  Here's some inspiration for you...

When Joel Orner was offered a buyout from his job as vice president of a California bank at age 64, he jumped at the opportunity.  A keen cook, he enrolled in classes at the School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena and, despite having to study longer for exams (because of struggles with his short-term memory) and the fact that he was having to work harder than he had ever worked at any job, he loved every minute of it.

Four years later, Orner is an executive chef with the Los Angeles Yacht Club.  He earns 70% less than he did in banking and often works longer hours, but says he'll be a chef 'until he drops'.  Read his story here.

Great Quotes - On giving it your best shot

There is a strange and comforting relationship between failure and preparation.  It's a common assumption that if you really try your hardest to get something and don't get it, you'll be shattered - so it's safer not to risk going all out.  That is totally false.  The exact opposite is true.  If you've prepared for every contingency you can imagine, and then it doesn't work out, you won't feel so bad.  You'll just say, 'Damn!  Well, three cheers for me, I really tried,' and go on to the next thing.  You never feel really bad when you've given something your best shot.  You may be disappointed, but you don't blame yourself.  But if you haven't given it your best shot, you feel terrible.  Because you never really know whether you could have done better... but you do know you could have done more.  Win or lose, all-out efforts leave you feeling clean and good about yourself.

Barbara Sher

See books by Barbara Sher from our UK Bookstore (powered by Amazon.co.uk)

See books by Barbara Sher from our US Bookstore (powered by Amazon.com)

How a British headmaster cured himself following a stroke

When school headmaster, Martin Stephen, had a stroke, he was transformed 'from a healthy, professional 56-year-old into a lump of flesh on a hospital trolley'.  He soon realised that, if he was to recover, he was going to have to rely on his own resources and, basically, cure himself. 

Together with his 74-year-old mother-in-law, Martin devised his own rehab programme - a daily regime which included bouncing a tennis ball off the kitchen floor 2,000 times and writing out the alphabet for two hours. 

Six months later, he considered himself cured.  Read how he did it in Stroke: 'I had to cure myself'.

An affair to remember

Here's a sad and cautionary tale from the US.  Dorothy was 82.  Bob was 95.  Both had dementia.  Both lived in a nursing home.  When they fell in love and, horror of horrors, started having sex, all hell broke loose... Read the full story at Slate.com and, please, feel free to comment.

Late Life Partnerships: Living and Loving After 60 by Tereasa Jones

Not too long ago, love between men and women in their seventies was rare and was considered inappropriate by some. But baby boomers are changing all of that. New attitudes about self, the desire to continue to experience healthy, happy, and fulfilling relationships later in life are opening up new opportunities for today's older men and women.

At the turn of the 20th century, the average life expectancy was about 47 years of age and the few people that lived beyond that were not sufficiently healthy or independent to consider marriage. Thanks to advances in medicine and the availability of education on how to take care of oneself, the average life span today is about 72 years for males and 79 years for females. 

As we live longer, the number of widows and widowers are increasing as are the number of divorced men and women. For those who are considering relationships later in life, the question of what to do about living arrangements as we age has changed to what to do about loving arrangements. People today are recognizing that they have half of their lives left after the last child has left the nest. And they want to make the most of it.   

Those who marry young build their lives together. They grow together, deciding the course of their lives and their likes and dislikes. Their money is usually thrown into the same pot and they accumulate savings and investments along the way. For those who marry when they are older, many have already determined their lifestyle, already have family traditions, and have worked a lifetime for the money they do have. In addition they may have grown children and grandchildren.

It is clear that these marriages have an entirely different landscape and set of considerations from those experienced in younger years. In my work with these couples, I have uncovered several important questions for couples to think about if considering a commitment later in life:

• Where shall we live? Your place, my place, or a new place?
• What do we do with cherished possessions that we have accumulated from previous marriages?
• How do we handle our money? Do we split living expenses down the middle? What about our investments and savings?
• How do we try to blend families of grown children and grandchildren? Where do we spend holidays? Which family traditions around these holidays do we honor?
• How do we divide the chores that it takes to run the household?
• How do we plan for the possibility of death or disability on the part of each spouse? How will these plans affect our children?
• How do we determine how much time and/or money we will spend on each of our children and grandchildren?

As with any couple, those who come together later in life also argue over a lot of the same things they did when they were younger.

• Sleep habits. Snoring, watching TV in bed, time of retiring for the evening and getting up in the morning.
• Driving habits. Whose car to drive.
• Degrees of tidiness.
• Decorating the home.
• Maintaining the home.
• Dealing with change. Some are more flexible in this area than others.
• Maintaining individual domains. Many of these individuals have lived alone for awhile and have established their own spaces and habits.

While the list of issues these couples face may be long, they really don't have any more issues to settle than those who marry young. The primary difference is that they have lived enough life to know that they have issues that need to be settled.

Those who become couples later in life are anxious to get on with living their lives and do not want to spend a lot of time rehashing old problems. While the ride may start out a little bumpy, these individuals are trail blazers. Their experiences in earlier years can help making planning and enjoying their lives in their boomer years all the better.

And because they have had these early relationship experiences, they can problem solve more effectively and find common ground and compromise much more quickly. Today's baby boomers are definitely paving the way and setting the pace for up and coming generations -- and could we expect anything less from this dynamic generation?

Copyright © 2008 by Tereasa Jones. All rights reserved in all media.

Tereasa Jones Certified Relationship Coach
www.CoachedLiving.com 918.787.6900

 

Myths about older workers by Dr Richard P Johnson

Myth #1: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Reality: Studies show only negligible loss of cognitive function of people under 70. While older workers take longer to absorb completely new material, their better study attitudes and accumulated experience lower training costs. The fastest growing group of Internet users is people over 50.

Myth #2: Training older workers is lost investment because they will not stay on the job for long.
Reality: The future work life of an employee over 50 usually exceeds the life of new technology for which the workers are trained.

Myth #3: Older workers are not as productive as younger workers.
Reality: Overall productivity does not decline as a function of age. Productivity can actually rise to greater worker accuracy, dependability and capacity to make better on the spot judgments. Older worker's production rates are steadier than other age groups.

Myth #4:Older workers are less flexible and adaptable.
Reality: Older workers are just as adaptable once they understand the reason for changes. They are more likely to ask, why, because they have often seen past changes in processes and procedures abandoned in mid-stream when they didn't bring expected rewards quickly enough.

Myth #5:Older workers are not as creative or innovative.
Reality: General intelligence levels are the same as younger workers. Eighty percent of the most workable and worthwhile new production ideas are generated by employees over 40 years old.

Myth #6: Older workers cost more than hiring younger workers.
Reality: While workers with tenure are entitled to more vacation time and pension costs related to number of years worked, replacing workers is not cost free. Aetna Insurance Company did a study of this issue and discovered those factors added 93% to the first year's salary of new employees.

Myth #7:Benefit and accident costs are higher for older workers.
Reality: Total sick days per year of older workers is lower than other age groups because they have fewer acute illness and sporadic sick days. While individual older worker' health, disability, and life insurance costs do rise slowly with age, they are offset by lower costs due to fewer dependents. Overall, fringe benefits costs stay the same as a percentage of salary for all age groups. Older workers take fewer risks in accident-prone situations and statistically have lower accident rates than other age groups.

Dr Richard P Johnson is the founder of Retirement Options, Inc., an organisation which is dedicated to helping people lead enriched lives in their retirement years through pre-retirement assessment and planning. Over 30,000 individuals have taken the Retirement Success Profile(RSP)© and LifeOptions Profile© as well as experienced the Retirement Options© program over the past 16 years. You can find out more about the product and program online at Retirement Options

What's your relationship recovery time?

The Dating Goddess, who writes for the LifeTwo website, poses an interesting question: What's your relationship recovery time?' and offers a rule of thumb that states that it takes 25% of the length of your previous serious relationship to recover and be ready for the next one.  Check out what she has to say here.