Joan’s Boomer Blog

I love signing up for free newsletters and ebooks. I’ve gotten lots of great information on retirement and simplifying and enjoying life from them. Here is a list of some of my favorite ebooks relating to enjoying our retirement years. I know there are others and I’ll post them as I find them.

You will probably also enjoy the blogs which offer these free ebooks as well.

From Love Being Retired - Navigating the Retirement Jungle

Dave at Love Being Retired has written a terrific free ebook that covers lots of the issues faced by those approaching retirement. Some of the topics include evaluating when we can afford to retire, identifying and pursuing our passions in retirement, health, finances, travel, frugal retirement living and more. Dave’s blog and ebook have a very friendly, readable style and give you lots to think about.

The Positivity Blog offers a free ebook The 7 Timeless Habits of Happiness

You would think that the words “happiness” and “retirement” would be synonymous. Often, however, that is not the case. Our retirement years bring many challenges, health problems or physical limitations, worrying about our children or our finances, losing that zest for life we had when we were young, just slowing down generally. In other words, although the challenges are different than when we were young, retirement still brings it’s own share of cares and worries. The real challenge in retirement, as in any part of life, is how to be happy no matter what life throws at you.

The Seven Timeless habits of Happiness gives you sound tips on being happy, no matter what your age. Don’t put off being happy until some vague, distant time when your life is perfect, choose happiness now.

If you stop and think about it, if you don’t choose happiness in your retirement years, when will you do it?

The 437 Best Things Ever Said about Retirement by Ernie Zelinski

Ernie Zelinski, the author of How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free, offers free ebook download of the ebook listed above and The 1001 Best Things Ever Said about Work, plus excerpts of other books he’s written.

This ebook is full of great quotes about retirement and getting older. It’s a quick, fun read.

For those of you interested building retirement income from your passion in life, get Rich German’s free ebook Monetize Your Passion. This 234 page ebook is packed with great information on how to identify your passion, build a business and make money from it.

If you choose to make a donation to Rich for this ebook, he is giving all proceeds to programs to help homeless children in the USA. He’s managed to raise thousands of dollars with this project to donate back.

Zen Habits Guide to Simpifying Your Life

This isn’t exactly an ebook but the Zen Habits website offers a complete list of links to their articles on simplifying and decluttering your life. Many retirees have “been there and done that” in regards to big houses, lots of possessions and buying the next new thing. They long for peace and simplicity in their retirement. Zen Habits offers lots of great tips in this area.

If you’d like a source for free ebooks on any topic imaginable, check out Free-ebooks.net. Just register and download ebooks on hundreds of topics.

If you’ve downloaded any good free ebooks lately in the areas of retirement, simplifying your life or finding happiness, please let me know or post it in the comment section.

I read an article recently that suggested “older” people were starting to balk at being called seniors. Even AARP was beginning to use the term “medicare eligible” for those over a certain age. Baby boomers seem to be the generation who never thought we’d get old and now that we’re here, we don’t like being reminded of it.

How we see ourselves and how the world sees us are, of course, two different things. I read lots of blogs about boomers, seniors and retirement. Some bloggers have the general opinion that boomers should just move out of the way and die to make room for the younger generation. Others say the boomers will be the saving of the economy, while yet others say the current economic mess is the fault of greedy, materialistic boomers. The peace and love generation turned into evil Wall Street broker types and ruined the country. One blog I read yesterday suggested we should collectively pay off the national debt when we die by reinstating the estate tax and taxing social security - just as a favor for the younger generation.

Personally, I get tired of my generation getting the blame for the world’s ills but I know when all these generation X, Y, Z people turn 55 they will be singing a different tune. Wasn’t it our generation who said “Don’t trust anyone over 30?”

I guess, when it comes to aging, we always tend to see ourselves through rose colored glasses (maybe we’re losing our vision, along with our waistline?) I find myself listening for people at my Y exercise classes to mention their age and then I think “Wow, I’m older than them but I look so much younger!’

Of course, one place us boomers don’t mind the term senior is when it comes to “senior discounts!” Here on my blog, posts about senior discounts are among the most popular. I guess since some of these discounts can start as young as 50, and since they do involve getting a bargain, we don’t think of it as something negative.

I remember one time quite a few years ago, I went into Taco Bell just to get something to drink. The high school kid waved away my money and said, “It’s free.”

I said “Really, are you sure?” I thought, what a nice young man, giving me a free drink. It wasn’t until quite some time later that I found out Taco Bell gives free drinks to “seniors.” I guess to a high school kid, all of us “old people” look like we qualify so they don’t even bother to ask.

When I was in my 30’s I did a short stint as a waitress in a Mexican restaurant. Our restaurant gave senior discounts and I remember not liking to insult anyone by asking if they were old enough to receive one. Some people were insulted if you did ask them and they weren’t old enough. Other people jumped right in there and told you they were old enough and expected to get it.

Fast forward to 2008. I was 58 years old then and checking out at Kohls. The 30-something woman at the register informed me it was senior discount day and asked if I qualified. I said, “It depends on what age it is.” She said the senior discount started at age 60. I laughed (thinking of course that I certainly didn’t look 60!) and said “No, I’m not old enough yet.”

At this point she got rather insistent, really wanting me to have that discount. She said, “Well, is it near your 60th birthday? I can still give it to you.”

Gone are the days when we fear insulting someone about their age! -lol.

How we define ourselves is important. The term “Older American” seems to be catching on.  I always liked “baby boomer” because it makes us sound young and important but maybe that’s getting passe. Advertisers are sure struggling to define us, having suddenly woken up to the improbably idea that our age group too spends money, not just that coveted 18 to 39-year-old age group. Although ads directed at us older Americans most often involve hemorrhoid creams and cholesterol medications, rather than the latest iPhone or iPad.

Personally, I think advertisers are missing to boat there. Us senior, boomer, medicare eligible, older Americans also covet iPhones and iPads and all the latest gadgets.

Do you have any thoughts on what you’d like us older people to be called? If senior is out and -Heaven forbid - elder, what new word can we come up with to define ourselves? I’d love to hear ideas. Maybe we can start a new trend.

Review of How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free

Retirement should be a time to enjoy life to the fullest and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free offers inspirational advice on just the way to do that.  A creative and fulfilling retirement is about more than just money, and author Ernie Zelinski covers how to put money into its proper perspective so you don’t need millions to retire.

How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free also offers advice on other retirement topics, such as:

• How to get up the courage to retire early.
• Find purpose and fulfillment in your retirement - That sounds easy but it takes some thought.
• How to follow your dreams and not get sidetracked by what others think you should do.
• How to take charge of your mental, physical, and spiritual health.
• Setting retirement goals — including whether or not you should relocate.

When you’re thinking about the retirement years ahead, making them the best of your life probably seems like a no-brainer. Actually, though, the earlier you begin planning for the many different aspect of retirement and setting some goals, the more prepared you will be to take advantage these years.

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I always laugh when I hear about people who have a million dollars saved for retirement and want to know if that’s enough! I suppose there are people out there who have millions saved, but I don’t know any personally. Money is undoubtedly important in planning for retirement, especially for us non-millionaires, but retirement is also a time for reassessing your life and deciding what things are most important to you in the second half of life.

Some questions to ask yourself when you’re facing retirement in the coming years:

1.  How do I see myself spending my days?

If you are working and choose a retirement date, what do you see yourself doing on day 1 or day 2 of retirement? How about day 352? If you retire with no plan in mind for how you will spend your time, you may just end up being one of those old guys or gals who sits on the front porch in a rocking chair. There’s nothing wrong with relaxing but you’ll soon get bored if that’s all you do.

Chances are, if you are working still, your days are busy and purposeful, even if the purpose is collecting a paycheck so you can put some away for the long-awaited retirement. To be successful in retirement, you will still need a purpose for getting out of bed. What will your purpose be?

When your days stretch endlessly before you, it’s important to have a plan for how you will use them.

2.  Ask yourself what your interests and hobbies are right now.

Do you have interests and hobbies beyond working and paying bills. I have to tell you, these aren’t really classified in the hobby section. If you don’t have any interests that excite you and are fun to do, maybe you should acquire some before retiring to help you pass the time later on.

If money is an issue it might be better not to take up a hobby like knitting (you should see my yarn stash!), collecting old cars or golf. These type of hobbies and interests can get expensive. If you are interested in these things anyway, figure out how to turn a profit from your hobby. Teach classes, write a blog or ebook to support your hobby.

Some interests don’t have to cost money, or at least not much. Interested in Civil War history? Visit Civil War battlefields, research battles on the internet or volunteer at a local museum. Do you love miniature railroads? Find a miniature railroad museum which needs help. Volunteering is a wonderful way to share your interest or hobby with others and still feel you are giving a valuable service.

Some hobbies or interests are free to do and might make you a buck or two. Write that great American novel you’ve always wanted to write or take up hiking, which is great exercise too.

3. Am I healthy and if not, what can I do about it?

The pursuit of good Health can be very time-consuming and retirement is a great place to put your mind to being healthier. Take up walking daily or join the local Y and take classes. You can make friends or join social groups at the Y or at Senior centers too.

Grow a garden so you have plenty of fresh veggies to eat. I have a friend who gets free cuttings for berry plants and other perrenials for his garden. You can also trade seeds or get heirloom seeds so you can save them from year to year if money is an issue. If you life in the city, you can still grow lots of food in containers.

In retirement you can spend some time reading about any health issues you may have and what you can do about them. Many doctors shove a pill at you and head out the door, partly because they don’t feel that patients will follow their advice anyway about what else they can do to improve the situation.

if you need to lose weight, retirement is a great time to put your mind to this health issue. You now have time to keep a food journal, get out and exercise and read up on healthy eating.

4.  Have I made time to cultivate friendships to last through retirement?

When you retire, it’s important to have friends to spend your time with. If you don’t have a few good friends now to have lunch or coffee with, plan on where you’ll look for some when you are retired. Joining a hobby or volunteer group, seeking out the local senior center or Y, or taking a class are good places to begin.

5.  What do I still want to accomplish in my life, now that I have some time?

Maybe at one time in your life, you thought when you retired you’d read every Shakespeare play ever written but do you still want to do that? Goals change over time and when you’re facing retirement it’s a good time to reassess goals. What is important is that you have goals! Choose a top 10 list of things you want to do in retirement - and I don’t mean fixing that hinge that’s been squeaking for the past year. Think bigger. What have you always wanted to do but never had time for?

I used to do a lot of beadwork and when I didn’t have time for it anymore, I thought of just selling my bead stash, books, etc. My mom talked me out of it because she said, “You never know if you might want to take it up again when you have time.” So I kept everything and “when I have time” beadwork is there if I want to do it.

My mom used to sew for us as we grew up and when she retired and had time, she took up quilting. She turned out the most beautiful quilts and we were all able to benefit from her hobby.

I’m sure there are many more important questions you can ask yourself when preparing to retire that have nothing to do with money. What are some of the things you’ve considered?

The holidays are around the corner and coming up with a gift idea for someone who uses a walker or is confined to a wheel chair can be challenging. Giving the gift of health is especially important in these circumstances so here are a few ideas:

• Clip-on Cup Holder for Walkers, Wheelchairs Drinking lots of water is very important for health and with this clip on cup holder, someone confined to a wheelchair or using a walker will always have water handy.

• Walker Basket with Beverage Holder Tray - Walker Accessory This handy basket clips onto the front of the walker to keep water bottles, magazines, medications, just about anything, always within easy reach.

• Walker or Wheelchair Insulated Cup Holder Another cup holder, but insulated to keep drinks hot or cold.

• Carry-All Walker Pouch - Navy Carryall that attaches to the front of the walker in various colors.

• Lotions and bath salts to soothe tired muscles.

• Bain D’esprit - Vanilla Almond Spa Bath and Body Gift Set Relaxing bath and skin products - all put together in a beautiful basket.

• Sloping Orthopedic Seat Cushion - Medium Firm - Arthritis Product for comfort when sitting for long hours.

• A massager for sore, tired muscles.

• Case Logic Lap Organizer for Wheelchair to keep many items within easy reach.

These are just a few healthy gift ideas for someone using a walker or confined to a wheelchair.

Here are more healthy gift ideas suitable for anyone on your list.

Here are some terrific healthy gift ideas from Dr. Andrew Weil.

Do you know what you’re really passionate about in life? Have you found your purpose? Are you working at a job you love? Maybe you’ve been laid off recently and need some guidance in setting some goals to finding a new career. If you’re a boomer, you probably want the second half of life to be more fulfilling than the years that went before.

According to the law of attraction, or just plain old-fashioned goal setting, what we focus on will grow in our lives. I believe that but my issue has always been trying to figure out what I should be focusing on. What goals do I really want to achieve? Especially as we near our retirement years, we think of all the things we still want to do. Which goals are most important? Many of us would like some retirement income so how can finding our purpose help us make money?

I’ve been thinking about goal setting and finding my life’s purpose more lately because a couple of weeks ago, I got an email newsletter about how to find my passions in life and the opening paragraph really stuck in my mind:

Suppose you asked yourself, “If I focus on one thing, what could I be like in a year? What could my whole life look like?”

If I focused on one thing for a year, set one goal, and dedicated myself to making that one thing happen, what would my life look like? There are a lot of important parts to that question, the first being, what is important enough to me to dedicate myself to it for one year? What one thing would make the biggest difference to my life?

If you’re like me, you’ve had many goals in the course of your life - finding a new job, losing weight, starting an exercise program, being a nicer, more patient person, sticking to a budget or focusing on attracting more money. Probably most of us have set these goals in our life - over and over and over. Are we thinner now? Do we all have lean, muscular bodies now? Are we rich? Probably not.

Right now you may be in your 50’s or even your 60’s and struggling with a job loss or facing retirement. It’s hard to set positive goals with our bank account nearing zero.

In order to discover your true passion in life, what one thing could you do to make a difference? Forget being thin and rich for a moment. These are outward trappings anyway, not things that really make a difference to the kind of person you are.

I love this quote about the law of attraction - “We don’t attract what we want, we attract who we are.” If you worry about money all the time or fight being overweight, that becomes who you are so, although you want to be rich and slim, your life becomes about wanting, not being.

I have decided to go back to square one and begin by connecting with my inner being to see what my subconscious wants me to know about myself. My goal for finding the purpose for the second half of my life is to meditate every day. I’ll start with 15 minutes and try to build on that but I’ll get at least 15 minutes.

I plan to start a meditation journal on here so if anyone is interested in joining me, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you need help purpose in life and setting goals, here’s some great books that may help:

Create A Life That Tickles Your Soul : Finding Peace, Passion, & Purpose (Tickle Your Soul Series). This book by Suzanne Zoglio got terrific reviews on Amazon and boomers, you especially will love the idea of re-inventing yourself in the second phase of life. Find your true purpose and passions in life and carry that into a whole new career!

Finding Your Passion: The Easy Guide to Your Dream Career by Marcy Morrison. If you are currently unemployed and seeking a new direction, looking for a way to live your purpose in retirement or in a new job, this is a great book for you.

Work with Passion in Midlife and Beyond: Reach Your Full Potential and Make the Money You Need by Nancy Anderson. Making money is great but wouldn’t it be nice to make money doing something you are passionate about? Many baby boomers have spent years working at jobs they didn’t like just to make a living. Now in the second half of life, maybe it’s time to do something you love doing.

The Purpose Driven® Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren is one of the most famous books about finding your purpose in life. The premise of the book is that there are no accidents, that God plans everything, or if you’re into the law of attraction, the Universe has a plan for you. You just have to figure out what it is. The Purpose Driven Life can help you do that.

Have you discovered the passion and purpose in your life? I’d love to hear about either your new purpose of your struggle to find it. Visit my Meditation Challenge journal and share your thoughts.

I just discovered a terrific website where you can find out, not only what happened in your birth year, but in the decade of your birth. I was born in 1950. All About Eve won best picture, Judy Holliday won best actress for Born Yesterday and Jose Ferrer won best actor for Cyrano de Bergerac.

Beat the Clock and Jack Benny were on TV and the song Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy topped the music charts in my birth year.

The credit card was invented the year I was born too. In the 1950’s people mostly lived on the cash they had, which wasn’t always much but they weren’t in debt either.

In 1950, Snoopy the cartoon character, Jay Leno and Stevie Wonder were born the same year as I was too.

There is some info about the decade of the 50’s too when the economy was on the upswing and the Cold War and Anti-Communism consumed the news.

Reading about what happened in the year and decade I was born brought back some great memories! Not the Cold War part, of course, but looking back, even the Cold War seems kind of tame compared to terrorism. At least we knew who the “enemy” was then.

I look at the 1950’s as the last time of innocence for young people. I was a teen in the 60’s and by the end of that era, there was the Viet Nam War, drugs and a social revolution going on that forever changed that youthful naivete we used to have.

What happened the year you were born? Just click here and type in the year you’d like to revisit.

If you’re a baby boomer, your kids have left home and you have a dog, you know you’re getting older when

We have photos of the grandkids in the bluebonnets too so why not our dog?

your dogs become your “kids.” We always had a family dog when the kids were growing up. She was a great dog and we loved her but she was always just kind of “there.” In our household though, as the kids progressively left home, we started filling it up with rescued dogs and cats, until, at one point, we had 4 cats and 2 dogs. I even volunteered at the local animal shelter.

When I started volunteering, my husband told me specifically, “Don’t bring any animals home with you!” I did a very good job of ignoring all those hopefully doggy faces until our youngest daughter left home for college then I got hooked by this one little wall-eyed puppy, the last of a litter of six puppies which had been at the shelter for a month. In that county shelter, dogs and puppies who had been there too long were routinely put down on Fridays, which was the worst part of volunteering there. I never helped with that, of course, but I knew about it, which was bad enough.

As a reporter for an Oregon online new website, I’d attended a seminar on pet therapy and I thought that would be a great way to spend my time now that the kids were gone. Surely adopting a puppy was a good way to get into this, although you couldn’t be sure you’d get a dog with the right personality for this type of work.

Who could resist this little face?

Anyway, with the best of intentions, I decided to take this one little puppy home for the weekend, telling myself I just wanted to socialize it and see what happened - or if my husband would make me take her back to the shelter:)

Needless to say, my husband not only fell in love with the puppy, Molly, he was soon out buying her her own bed, toys and other things the other dogs sure hadn’t gotten when they moved in! We always said Molly was our daughter’s replacement when she went off to college.

Fast forward 5 years and the rescued pup is still with us. During that time, my husband, daughter and I even moved lock, stock and barrel to Texas from Oregon with the four cats and now, three dogs. Would never want to repeat that trip! Also, in that time, one of our dogs and two of our cats died of old age and we somehow acquired another kitten.

Back to my original premise though - You know you’re getting older when your dogs become your babies - My husband and I aren’t the only ones in our age group to start acquiring dogs that we pamper tremendously once the kids are gone. In fact, most older baby boomers we know have some pretty lucky dogs as part of their households.

There are some negatives about adopting a dog when you’re facing retirement. If you want to travel or if you

Playing with your dog is good exercise too!

have to live on a tight budget, having a spoiled dog can sometimes be difficult. Our dogs eat high quality dog food, go to the vet regularly and have even had their teeth cleaned (never thought I’d admit that.)

On the other hand, dogs offer companionship, they love to be walked, which gets you out to the park or out to exercise on a regular basis, and you can take them traveling with you quite easily if you want to. We’re even getting an RV to travel with, just so the dogs will be comfortable!

You know you’re getting older when your dogs become your babies, yes, but in our later years we also have lots of time to devote to a dog, which we didn’t have when the kids were young and life was more hectic. Everybody needs a smiling face to greet them expectantly whenever they come home and having pets is a proven factor in healthy aging.

Do you have a dog you love like another child? I’d love to hear about it. In the meantime, if you love dogs, you might be interested in Molly’s Dog Blog. You can read about her journey from being alone and forgotten in an animal shelter to being a pampered pooch in a loving home.

I was a teenager in the 1960’s and still love listening to the music of the 1960’s. Petula Clark, Herman’s Hermits, Gary Lewis and the Playboys and the Dave Clark Five were some of my favorites back then. I even got to see Gary Lewis and the Playboys in person, wearing my white go go boots, of course!

The late 60’s were a good time to be a teen in a small town. We spent our weekends at the skating rink where they had a dance with a live band from 10pm to midnight. We cruised the strip when gas was still 25 cents a gallon and cigarettes were 25 cents a pack. Smoking was about the worst thing you could do to “rebel” and be cool.

There were a lot of good things about the 1960’s. Back then, we thought there was nothing much to do but looking back on it now, it seems like the last time when kids were allowed to be naive and innocent as they grew up.  Most mothers still stayed home with the kids, my mom made most of my clothes and I actually loved them! No name brands, no expensive toys like iPods and cell phones. We put a dime in our shoe every time we went out so we could always call home for Dad to come and pick us up if we got into trouble.

If you’re feeling nostalgic, you should check out the 1960’s hits on YouTube. Listening to that music takes me right back to those years, which seem to get better and better the older I get.

I loved this video, which covers music from 1965 to 1969, the exact years I was in high school. It shows random images from those years, like album covers, to go along with it.

Enjoy! YouTube also has music videos from other eras too so it’s easy to find your favorite.

These days everyone is concerned with online privacy. Has someone put negative comments or reviews online about you, your company or your brand? Reputation Managers can help you create a positive online presence or help you remove negative comments from search engines.

When people do a search for your company or brand, what do they find? Has some dissatisfied customer, a disgruntled ex-employee or even a business competitor put unfavorable and unfair comments about you and your business out there for anyone to see? Is it even possible to get these removed from the web and help create a more positive reputation for you?

Yes, it is possible by using Reputation Managers to help you.

Changing negative comments on the Internet is not an instant process. It can take from one to six months to get that positive image up higher in the search engines and get rid of the negative but it can be done. Reputation Managers are there with you every step of the way.

Take control of your online presence by getting a free evaluation from Reputation Managers. See for yourself how they can help you create a positive online presence for yourself, your company or your brand.

The author was compensated for this posting.