How to Stop Phone Solicitations

One Reason to Write

This post sparked mine today. I've been writing (slowly, one anecdote at a time) my memories of my youth, and the stories that I remember being passed down from parents, grandparents, and other long-lived people. I was fortunate - in my mother's family, old age was the default - my grandparents were born in the 19th century, and passed on stories of their youth. My father's family was equally long-lived, but not as talkative (WV vs. Irish-descent). Still, I have an aunt by marriage whose passion is genealogy, and who had compiled a bookshelf of clippings, copies of newspaper stories, and charts of the family, back to pre-Colonial times. If you aren't on Ancestry.com (and, I don't blame you - the price has risen shockingly!), you might want to use a word processing program or app - Google Docs is easy to use, and can be shared with others easily - to write down your memories - personal, or what has been told to you. If you'd rather, set up a videocam, and...

Managing the Paper Onslaught

Almost every day, I find 3-8 solicitations in the mail, that are tied to my age/approaching retirement. Every one of them is designed to separate me from my money. Medicare ads Hearing aid offers Insurance ads Financial planning ads Mortgage refi offers Retirement property/retirement community flyers I generally junk most. A few I put into a folder, to be looked at when the need arises. I wonder what percentage of the senior population acts on these offers. I've divided my mail into groups: Current bills - they go into the slotted dividers, to be acted on/paid when due Information - two types Tax info - in the box to be taken to the accountant after the first of the year Long-term information - put into folders, and file away until needed Junk - toss/shred and toss Personal - my choice By far the biggest group is junk. I resist the temptation to load up on debt by immediately tearing the credit offers into pieces. The same with re...

All That We "Knew" About Aging and Health May be WRONG

Coffee - Bad? Apparently, NOT. This process has been going on for many years: Some medical study is made about health. Popularizers exaggerate the effects shown in the study, and inflate the core results into a program to improve/extend healthy lives. Eventually, the government gets on board, and mandates changes to diet, exercise, medication regimens, or medical procedures. After years of pushing the system on the general public, an honest re-evaluation of the effects is made, and - guess what? The advice is found to be completely wrong. Repeat Repeat Repeat Diet advice has gone from: Calorie reduction Exercise Low-fat High-carb Low-carb At the present, the low-carb forces appear to be on top. Never fear, they'll find out eventually that positive effects have been exaggerated, and the negatives minimized. Same with exercise. I'm not against regular movement and activity. What I'm against is mandating the same thing for everyone. The down side...

At Last! Retiring for GOOD!

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