Peter Levitan & Co.
The New Business of Advertising
Look, if you have your act together, you will eventually sell your advertising or design agency and get to work from San Miguel de Allende (I just had drinks from this bar.) Dig?
This is not an impossible dream, it just takes some planning. Don’t be a me-too agency. Me-too has no value. Zip. So, you 50+ agency owners, give me a shout.
“Best Places to Retire” is one of those standard go-to magazine and website articles designed to capture the dreams of Baby Boomers. I get it. They usually include a mix of criteria like cost-of-living; climate; the economy; health care; recreation and occasionally culture.
Me? I need culture. I need intellectual stimulation not another discussion about someone’s daily hike. Here is a story. I was crossing Broadway on New York’s upper west side a few years ago and stopped to talk with an elderly woman sitting on a bench on the strip that divided the roadway. I asked her why she lives in New York. She said, “I feel free because I can get anywhere on buses or hop in a cab; I can have food and wine delivered right to my door; I have hundreds of restaurants to choose from; the best bagels in the world; the best medical care; I am surrounded by people and energy; I can go to Lincoln Center, the opera, museums, plays all at a discount and people like you stop to talk. Why would I live anywhere else?” By the way, Selma had one big advantage… she lives in a rent control apartment.
You know what? New York is NEVER listed as a best place to live in these articles. Not in US News, Forbes, CNNMoney, CBS News or AARP. What’s up with this? I mean, does living in Utah sound enticing? Guess what? It makes some lists? Have you ever been to Provo? In the winter? Tried to buy a bagel?
OK, New York and a couple of other major cultural centers do make a list. In this case on a smart website from the Milkin Institute’s Best Cities for Successful Aging. Check it out.
I didn’t ever live in a commune. I visited a few in the 1970’s in California, Massachusetts and Vermont. But the lifestyle just didn’t do it for me. A bit too cozy? Too “hippy”? Too smiley? Too many vegetables? Who knows. But, it did occur to me recently that people over, say 60, could actually start to think through the benefits of communal living to share costs, space and to connect. As many people realize, it gets harder and harder to connect once you’ve gotten past college, having kids in school and even moving around the country. It is simply more difficult to make close friends.
So, when I saw the article “Baby boomers may opt for communal living again” I did a Huh! Like, why not?
The article points out that we are witnessing a significant societal shift: millions of people are heading to 65+ (10,000 turn 65+ every day), they don’t live near their kids and they want independence. But, that independence does not have to mean living alone (or, oh shit, in a retirement home.)
Baby Boomers said that they were going to change the world. Well, they are: “By force of sheer volume, the (baby boomers) who in 1968 thought they would change the world by 2028 actually will,” said Andrew Carle, founding director of the Program in Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
What might I want in a communal experience?
Scenario 1: I see myself living in a tropical land (Chiang Mai Thailand?; San Miguel de Allende Mexico) in my own cabin in a chain of cabins that share communal services. Food, gardening, media…. brains, conversation, who knows.
Scenario 2: I live in an apartment in a large house in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg. This one is a bit more about intellectual stimulation.
The bottom line is that my buddies and I could share some universal services, living costs and laughs. Sure sounds better than moving into Happy Acres Nursing Home.
It is very hard for most of us to remember the days when your savings could safely grow via double digit interest rates. In the 1980’s you could generate 18%, in the 1990’s 8%. Today? How does 1.05% for a 1 year CD sound?
18% wow. Hey, if you had just $200,000 in savings you would have generated $36,000 per year in cash and add that to say $25,000 in Social Security and you could live real well in Mexico on an annual income of $60,000. I know you can do math. But, I like this one. if you had $1,000,000 in retirement savings then your bank or bond would send you $180,000 per year. Now we are talking France.
Today? Nada baby. Assuming a 2% rate of inflation you are way screwed if you have moved a good chunk of you dough into under 2% yielding fixed income securities. You are running a negative program.
Could the Fed’s monetary policy be killing people? All I know is that suicides by Baby Boomers 65+ is on the increase.
I talk to people. I talk to the people in line at the store. At the next table. Sometimes waiting for a light. On the plane. I get three basic reactions:
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