Boomers on a Budget: Transportation

Get rid of excess vehicles. The obvious starting point. So, we have a For Sale sign on the little white truck. It's our least fuel efficient vehicle at about 20 mpg. For now, we're keeping the Mazda Tribute (Tom insists he gets high 20s) and the Toyota Prius (currently at 51.2 mpg). How far into retirement does a couple go before dropping to one car? We had the briefest of conversations about this; we both said, almost simultaneously, that our separate vacations make this impossible.

Reduce the commute. Well, Tom and I certainly accomplished that in 2008. My work for clients is primarily through telecommute. (I save on gasoline, dry cleaning, and lunches. The savings are appreciable.) If you are not ready for that drastic a change, working from home just one day a week will make a healthy dent in transportation costs. Pitch the idea to your boss by suggesting that everyone go on a 4-day week; the office will look very green in the annual report. If you are the boss, declare a trial period to test for changes in productivity, loyalty, and absenteeism.

Relax the commute. If there's no way reduce work days, try to flex the schedule. Gas mileage goes up after rush hour.

Carpool, etc. Texas is not known for its carpools. But here's a good etc.—a boomer woman colleague bought a scooter last year to travel between home and campus. She brags about her $4/month gasoline cost.

Eco-drive. Boost gas mileage with tips from Ford's eco-driving web page. The company's sponsored research demonstrates 15% and higher improvement in typical drivers' fuel efficiency. Conscious choices make 25% improvement likely. (Hypermiling fans claim much higher improvement of 50% but also invite charges of using unsafe and unlawful strategies, such as turning off the ignition when the car is in motion.)

My favorite eco-driving techniques. I cannot say what improvement these measures produce but I did notice higher mpg after I adopted them:

1. When I'm the only car on the city street, drop speed to 20 - 25 miles per hour.
2. When I'm the only car on the highway, drop speed to 50 - 55 miles per hour.
3. When I'm the only car on a hill, "coast" up the hill as I approach the crest. (This takes some practice and it's hard to give direction but the basic idea is to reduce the work of the engine in the last few seconds of the climb.)
   
4. When I'm the only car approaching a yellow or red light, take my foot off the accelerator and coast to the intersection.
5. When cars are behind me in the same situation, drop my speed to the lowest socially acceptable level. This means taking into account the possibility that someone behind me is armed and short-tempered.
6. Plan trips around the hours of my favorite radio shows to help me tolerate the slower pace of my travels. Yep, and also around the hours that I am least likely to have cars behind me.
   

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Boomers on a Budget: Communication

If you are already using Internet: and I assume you are, because you are reading this blog online, it may be time to give up the landline. That's your home-based telephone. The one that's tethered to your land. The one you pay monthly charges for...and maybe even extra charges.

Internet phone calls via VoIP: VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. SKYPE and other web services allow you to call other computers and also landline telephones at no cost. Almost all services allow multiple callers. (Scope out a number of VoIP providers; many are completely free. Try out those before you subscribe to one that charges a fee.) Signing up for such a service feels overwhelming only because we are not accustomed to the idea. The actual sign-up is very easy. You will need a headset; the cost range is $10 - $30. (No need to pay more.) Even if your computer has a built-in microphone, invest in a cheap headset. Sooner or later, you'll be on a call with screeching feedback and you'll want a headset.

Video phone: Yep, SKYPE video. I have another favorite: ooVoo. More and more laptops are coming with built-in cameras, but you can find adequate webcams for $10 to $30. You may want to purchase webcam and headset together for the best deal.

Web conferencing: My clients have wonderful, expensive conferencing software. And increasingly colleges are purchasing high-end conferencing systems for synchronous online classrooms. But for my use, personal as well as professional, I rely on the free products from Elluminate (vRoom) and Adobe Connect. Number of "seats" is limited and so is the functionality, but there are plenty of bells and whistles beyond the basics we all need: video of speakers, audio for multiple people, shared screen for document display, and whiteboard.

On a personal note: Seven years ago—yikes, almost eight—we moved and never ordered phone service for the house. We were already using cell phones and we knew we would continue to have broadband Internet. A landline would offer nothing extra, and the savings was $37/month. I noticed a period of adjustment: it took about four months to stop anticipating "catching messages" when I got home every night. There was no longer an answering machine. ~ Lida

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Boomers on a Budget: Household Measures

There's nothing like a Wall Street meltdown to put the family budget in perspective. While a Boomer Budget could easily center on investment strategy, I'm going to assume that you are already losing enough sleep over that. I'm going to cover more mundane aspects of the household budget.

1 - Buy my large DietCoke with extra ice at Sonic only between 2pm and 4pm, when drinks are half price and therefore less than $1. I continue to tip with whatever coins are in my car (50¢ - $1, usually).

2 - Attend movies only during early-bird hours, worth a $2 discount in my town. When I go to Harkins, I carry in my "loyalty cup," through which a purchase of soda is a mere $1. (I have found myself staring at the Senior Discount lately. I'm shy a few years.)

3 - Learn to love whatever's on sale at the grocery store. Today, Kix cereal was on sale for $1.88 (as opposed to $3-something), so that was my choice instead of Rice Chex. (When I was a child, Kix was a rare treat. I expect to feel young while eating the cereal over the next several weeks.)

4 - Reduce reliance on brand names. In our household, this means letting Tom Bold do most of the shopping for staples. He moves through the grocery store quickly, focused on low prices and blind to advertising.

5 - Resist the urge to pay off the mortgage. (Well, keep making payments, please; we're all counting on that.) I'm referring to the boomer tendency to pay off the house as quickly as possible for psychological comfort. Our last mortage was by choice a 15-year commitment, and pay-off is running ahead of schedule. But the budget-conscious choice for the next couple of years is to slow payment to the actual amount due. That will make the most use of the tax deduction that the mortgage interest permits.

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.

Boomers on a Budget: Lowering Expectations

Unrealistic expectation. Boomers of any age , but especially those on the leading edge*, have some adjustments to make in the coming lean years. That's because we thought we had already given up one luxury: retirement at age 55. Regardless of the statistics that assure that not so many people actually retire at age 55, boomers grew up with that thought in mind. People could retire at 55. It was within the realm of possibility.

But it wasn't: For most Americans, very early retirement was not a possibility. Even if a neighbor was in that happy number, we saw that person (almost always a man) "double-dipping" in a second career while drawing retirement from the military or some other "lifer" commitment; clearly, he still wasn't retired. Most Americans could not really retire at 55. We accepted that. But the damage was done: we were exposed to an idea that now makes delayed retirement in our 60s a very unhappy prospect. Whatever we expected to happen in the next 5 to 10 years is probably now not possible. The financial crisis promises lean years ahead, and that's the optimistic view.

Lowering expectations: Boomers will be budgeting and probably delaying retirement—or some aspect of it. For example, the year to sell the family home and use the proceeds for a retirement community may need to be selected very carefully. Most retirees will need to wait for the market to recover before attempting a sale. Even then, the house may not bring the profit once anticipated. Can you start imagining a different retirement?

Live like a New Yorker: I'm thinking about Manhattan, where people routinely pare belongings to the minimum in order to fit into small and shared housing. Where public transportation is the norm and private car is the anomaly. Where high costs of everything drive ingenuity and resourcefulness. Well, that's where the rest of America will turn: budgeting with ingenuity and resourcefulness.

On a personal note: The irony is not lost on me: just a few months ago, Tom and I made the decision to not move to New York due to the housing market and the many trade-offs we would have to make. We were not prepared to live like New Yorkers. Now, we're getting prepared...but we'll be living it in Texas. — Lida

*Boomers on the leading edge versus trailing edge:
Leading Edge = birth years 1946 to 1954
Trailing edge = birth years 1955 to 1964

© 2008 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.