Thanks, Jonathan.I'm 71 and like many HD folks, am better at saving than spending. I like the idea of taking up to 5% each year (subtracting Vanguard's 30 basis points adviser fee first) but . I bet I'm not the only one who has a couple of 'extra buckets' that help me mentally gauge my discretionary spending. I set up a donor advised fund --despite Vanguard's 60 basis points cost-- to help me track and stay on target to help where I can. And I have a bucket for 'surprise extras'. The elephant in the room for spending, of course, is unexpected major medical and/or longterm care costs. My mom had an 11 year dementia journey. It exhausted her ample savings. She still had her pension and social security, but that only covered 50% of her last year. It feels impossible to plan for 'worst case longterm scenarios' other than living will and health proxies and making choices to refuse anything other than quality of life treatments in the event of terminal diagnoses.
Your comment about life's randomness really struck home. We seem, as creatures, to need to live by stories, connect threads in some way. And there are so many stories that purport to explain why something happens! . I worked in public health, and our capacity to identify 'risk factors' is both real but never the whole story. (And we're never as sure as people on TV stock market programs are...) As I age, the value of humility becomes clearer and more helpful to me in every day living. I seem to remember someone-- maybe a rabbi?-- saying 'act as if you can make a difference but don't think you're the main player."
Your question of why people don't talk about dying inspired me to reflect on my own experiences. It was only well after my mom's death (following a 12 year dementia journey) that I really understood that the common dementias (vascular, Alzheimers, Lewy-Body) are terminal diseases. None of my mom's doctors explained that clearly to me. The educational work of Dr. Tam Cummings in Texas has been a real beacon of light in this area. My mom's doctors were competent and well-intentioned, but clearly not trained or comfortable in actually communicating anything about terminal disease to my mom or her family. Added to that was the difficulty of getting a 'definitive' diagnosis (which is often tricky in many situations, along with the risk of mis-diagnosis). Your example is really helping the discussion, and I hope we can learn to become much more open in our discussions about dying and death.
Comments:
Thanks, Jonathan.I'm 71 and like many HD folks, am better at saving than spending. I like the idea of taking up to 5% each year (subtracting Vanguard's 30 basis points adviser fee first) but . I bet I'm not the only one who has a couple of 'extra buckets' that help me mentally gauge my discretionary spending. I set up a donor advised fund --despite Vanguard's 60 basis points cost-- to help me track and stay on target to help where I can. And I have a bucket for 'surprise extras'. The elephant in the room for spending, of course, is unexpected major medical and/or longterm care costs. My mom had an 11 year dementia journey. It exhausted her ample savings. She still had her pension and social security, but that only covered 50% of her last year. It feels impossible to plan for 'worst case longterm scenarios' other than living will and health proxies and making choices to refuse anything other than quality of life treatments in the event of terminal diagnoses.
Post: Spending It
Link to comment from January 11, 2025
Your comment about life's randomness really struck home. We seem, as creatures, to need to live by stories, connect threads in some way. And there are so many stories that purport to explain why something happens! . I worked in public health, and our capacity to identify 'risk factors' is both real but never the whole story. (And we're never as sure as people on TV stock market programs are...) As I age, the value of humility becomes clearer and more helpful to me in every day living. I seem to remember someone-- maybe a rabbi?-- saying 'act as if you can make a difference but don't think you're the main player."
Post: Why We Struggle
Link to comment from January 4, 2025
Your question of why people don't talk about dying inspired me to reflect on my own experiences. It was only well after my mom's death (following a 12 year dementia journey) that I really understood that the common dementias (vascular, Alzheimers, Lewy-Body) are terminal diseases. None of my mom's doctors explained that clearly to me. The educational work of Dr. Tam Cummings in Texas has been a real beacon of light in this area. My mom's doctors were competent and well-intentioned, but clearly not trained or comfortable in actually communicating anything about terminal disease to my mom or her family. Added to that was the difficulty of getting a 'definitive' diagnosis (which is often tricky in many situations, along with the risk of mis-diagnosis). Your example is really helping the discussion, and I hope we can learn to become much more open in our discussions about dying and death.
Post: Eyeing the End by Jonathan Clements
Link to comment from October 26, 2024