I’m walking through Costco, and at the end of the aisle is a woman, apparently in her 70’s, handing out food samples.
I grab one. It’s a great way to get rid of the “Hungries” that can make you buy food you don’t really need.
But as I’m walking away, I turn and watch this woman for a few minutes. She’s not standing quite straight up, and I see a slight wince every time she reaches down for a new box of the product she’s promoting.
I feel sad. Is she standing there because she wants to or because she has no choice…if she wants to keep the lights on and food on her own table?
Most of the other “free food ladies” fit the same description.
Unfortunately, she’s not an isolated case.
The next morning my wife and I are out for our (almost) daily walk. One of the blocks we tread still has a few new houses being completed to fill in the lots that were unsold during the 2008 housing crash. I notice a crew prepping one of the nearly-finished homes so the new owner can move in. The crew is comprised mostly of young men, but one man stands out. He’s clearly past what we consider retirement age in America, yet here he is cleaning windows and floor tiles. Is that what he planned to be doing at this stage of his life? I doubt it.
These images break my heart. And they rekindle the fire in me to save as many people from these outcomes as I can.
Will you be handing out food samples or cleaning windows in your older years?
A failing financial life plan is like cancer. Early detection improves your chances of survival. Are you willing to have a screening? Are you willing to see where your current financial behaviors are taking you?
If you are, we have an assessment tool that will give you a pretty good financial picture of what your post-employer years will look like.
It starts out with the ominous National Institute on Retirement Security study showing that 92% of Americans are on a trajectory that will leave them FAR short of what they’ll need to ever completely stop working. The assessment then takes you through some simple addition and subtraction to see what financial trajectory you are on.
If this assessment shows you are in trouble, and may never be able to stop working, we have tools that can help you confidently change that outcome. But first you have to KNOW. Sound decisions require sound facts.
Take this quick “Can You Ever Stop Working?” assessment, so you can make sound financial decisions going forward.
It’s free. 🙂