Nevin's Data "Points"

  It’s hard to believe that it’s now been five years ago that many of us went into our places of work, packed up, and went home for what most thought would be a week, maybe two — and wound up being a lot more than that. I was reminded of just how long it had been at a meeting last week — a group that first gathered a little more than five years ago. Honestly, until it came up in discussions, I hadn’t realized how long it had been — and how much has changed since. In March 2020, my wife and I had just returned from a funeral in the Boston area. While the worst of what we would come to learn about COVID was — well, yet to be learned — we knew that cautions were in order. So we drove, rather than flew to the event — which wound up being full of strangers (many of whom were in what would come to be acknowledged as “vulnerable” health categories). In hindsight, what might have been a “super spreader” event didn’t turn out to be one —even though less than 48 hours later the governor of t...

As you have (hopefully) heard by now, as of tomorrow (March 1), I am entering a new phase of life, one still affectionately referred to as “retirement.”  Not retirement in the traditional sense, though I do hope to work less hours, forego trips to the office, and spend more time doing the things I want, rather than the things I must. In recent months much has been made of how difficult it is for younger workers to grasp the reality of retirement—but the reality is that retirement “myopia” is not limited to younger workers. Indeed, the reality is that I am not 100% certain what that will be like, though I have described my vision of mine as being akin to Saturday mornings—no alarm, no commute, no meetings, and a much-reduced volume of email to read/respond.  Here’s hoping. I’ve done the math (lots of times), so the finances are fine. COVID gave me and my wife plenty of time together, so I’m not worried that I’ll drive her nuts by being around all the time—quit...

The future is an uncertain thing, and planning for uncertainty inevitably involves making some assumptions. Here are seven that, done improperly, can—yes, derail your retirement realities. How Long You’ll Work Perhaps the most important assumption is when you plan to quit working, or perhaps more accurately, when you plan to start drawing down your retirement funds. Today most Americans are doing so at 62, though 65 seems to be the most common assumption—and while using 70 (or later) will surely boost your projected outcomes (it both gives you more time to save and reduces the time that you will be drawing down those savings), it may not be realistic for many individuals. Indeed, the 2022 Retirement Confidence Survey from the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) notes that the age at which workers expect to retire has been slowly rising. In 1991, just 11% of workers expected to retire after age 65. By 2022 that number had nearly quadrupled; 41% of wor...

Things are—slowly—getting back to normal. Planes are filling up, commutes are slowing with increased traffic volumes, and in-person meetings are back underway.  And while for many readers things have been back to “normal” for some time, I’ve had the opportunity over the past two months to participate in three separate advisor events that were the first such in-person gatherings since the onset of the pandemic. We’ve learned not only how to navigate things like virtual committee meetings and education sessions, but found that in many cases those platforms could be even more effective in extending our reach to individuals who might not have made it to an in-person session, or who might have been more receptive to those messages in the wake of COVID concerns about health and job security.  While we’re not quite “done” with COVID (and perhaps we never will be), we’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons. The notion that we have to be in a physical office to be produc...

It’s hard to believe that just two years ago many of us went into our places of work, packed up, and went home for what most thought would be a week, maybe two—and wound up being a lot more than that. In March 2020, my wife and I had just returned from a funeral in the Boston area. While the worst of what we would come to learn about COVID was—well, yet to be learned—we knew that cautions were in order. So we drove, rather than flew to the event—which wound up being full of strangers (many of whom were in what would come to be acknowledged as “vulnerable” health categories). Throughout we were aware, conscious of a certain risk, but we were not overly cautious—about on the order of what you would do when you come into contact with someone who had a cold.  In hindsight, what might have been a “super spreader” event didn’t turn out to be one—even though less than 48 hours later the governor of the Commonwealth was putting in place lockdowns and restrictions that wo...