Commun ty Matters Manor of the Plains
November 2016
The surprising secrets of some successful retirees If you’re in your 40s, 50s or early 60s, odds are you’d like to know what it takes to have a happy and successful retirement.To find out, a few authors — such as Wes Moss (“You Can Retire Sooner ThanYou Think”) and Bob Lowry (“Living a Satisfying Retirement”) — have surveyed retirees. And now Marc Diana, the Los-Angelesbased CEO of the new personal-finance site MoneyTips.com, has surveyed 510 retirees to learn the magic elixir. He published the findings in the free e-book, “The Retiree Next Door: Successful Seniors’ Surprising Secrets” (you can download it at the MoneyTips site). I spoke with Diana, a serial entrepreneur who also founded Savings.com, to find out what those surprising secrets were and what pre-retirees should do now if they want to join the club. I confess that the results did, indeed, surprise me. Highlights from my conversation with Diana: RETIREES continued on page 2
Manor of the Plains residents and veterans Dalbert Holman, left, and John Oringderff share stories about their service in World War II and the Korean War. Dalbert, a pilot, once flew John to Colorado Springs for surgery in his personal plane.
Pilot served his country and his community As a B-26 pilot in the Army Air Corps, Dalbert Holman flew more than 50 missions in the South Pacific during World War II. After he served his country, Dalbert came home to Dodge City and started serving his friends and neighbors with his own airplane. Dalbert had always loved flying, so when the war was on and he felt compelled to enlist, the fledgling air force was his first choice. He was proud to serve, and he received the Air Medal. “I was doing the right thing,” he said. After the war, Dalbert went into the reserves. He was called back to active duty when the Korean War began. When he was back home for good, Dalbert was hired by a local cattleman who had his own plane to fly him around the region for business. Soon, Dalbert bought his own sixpassenger plane and started his own business as a pilot for hire. But he also did favors for folks in town who needed to get somewhere fast. That included John Oringderff, who need to get to Colorado Springs for minor surgery about 25 years ago. When he was recovered and PILOT, continued on page 4
RETIREES continued from page 1
What made you decide to do this survey? Diana:We did a survey of boomers four months ago and found that half of boomers were not satisfied with their finances and a third had no plan.We thought that was a recipe for disaster for a large body of Americans, so we said: ‘Let’s reach some successful retirees and see how they are doing and how did they get there so we can help boomers approaching retirement.’ What did the successful retirees have in common? They’re living within their means and they had a savings plan for retirement. About a quarter of them calculated how much they’d need to retire
Community Matters is published monthly for residents and friends of Manor of the Plains by Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America, Inc., a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Learn more at PresbyterianManors.org.
Jerry Korbe, executive director Kurt Lampe, marketing director Lisa Montoya, activity director Jacque Soltero, health care activity director To submit or suggest articles for this publication, contact Kurt at klampe@pmma.org. Telephone: 620-225-1928 Fax: 620-225-3982 Address: 200 Campus Dr., Dodge City, KS 67801-2760
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when they were in their 40s; another 21 percent did it in their 50s. And how much were they saving each year before they retired? Nearly 60 percent saved between 6 and 20 percent a year. What surprised you in the survey results? 44 percent said they were comfortably retired with less than $500,000 in assets. That surprised me quite a bit. I’m in my 40s and that wouldn’t cut it for me. What does this tell you? It hits on one of the ingredients in the root of what I uncovered through the survey, which is that successful does not mean ‘I’ve got gobs of money and houses all over the place and cars.’ People who came to terms with what they wanted out of life and managed to figure how to budget and live within that were happily
retired. Are the successful retirees frugal? No.They’ve been prudent, not frugal. Only 35 percent call themselves frugal; the rest said they spend enough to live comfortably. And 67 percent live on less than a $100,000 a year; 23 percent are in the 25 to 50 grand bucket. The key is that two-thirds of them have been on some kind of monthly budget and stuck to it. Did they use financial advisers to plan for retirement? About 62 percent consulted advisers, at least some of the time, through their career to make investment decisions. Was having a financial adviser useful for them? Without a doubt. Engaging an adviser made them more likely to have a budget and to live within it.
Veterans at Manor of the Plains For Veterans Day, Activity Directors Lisa Montoya and Jacque Soltero will be taking all veterans to our local Applebee’s restaurant for lunch. At 3 p.m. we will have an ice cream social for veterans, residents, family and friends. Gailand Bartlett, Merchant Marine
Jack Honnold, Army
Bob Bailey, Navy
Delmer Kolbeck, Army
Bob Borthwick, Army
Richard Maxwell, Navy
Ed Durler, Navy
Eugene McAdam, Air Force
Russell Erickson, Army
John Oringderff, Air Force
Sedley Hall, Navy Air Craft
Louie Schaapveld, Navy
Gerald Harrman, Navy
Russell Schartz, Army
Lawrence Herrmann, Army
Richard Torline, Army
Dalbert Holman, Air Force
DeanYoung, Navy
Bill Holt, Army
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Community Matters November 2016
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A Sonic surprise Jacque Soltero is always coming up with great ideas for the Manor of the Plains Residents. Another beautiful day in September and Jacque decides to gather residents who wanted to travel to Cimarron and enjoy the beautiful afternoon at Cimarron’s brand new Sonic. As you can see from the smiles a good time was had by all.
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PILOT, continued frompage 1
ready to come home, Dalbert came back and got him. “I knew people who flew with him quite a bit,” John said. Today, both men live at Manor of the Plains. They were pleased to get reacquainted a few years ago. John, too, served during the Korean War. But unlike his friend Dalbert, he didn’t get to fly as he’d hoped. At a meeting of enlistees, he said, “The first question I was asked was, ‘How many of you men in here are married?’ About 80 percent held up their hands and they said, ‘You can leave now.’” That included John. Dalbert, on the other hand, went through basic training before marrying his wife, Ada.
John did get one wish, however. In 1952, servicemen were sent to either Europe, Asia, or Alaska. John requested Alaska. “Fortunately I got it.You don’t always get what you want in the service.” He worked as a cryptographer in security services, encoding messages with the radio intercept group. They worked off-base. Someone always had to be in the room or they would be locked out. One day the building started shaking. John said they took turns going out of the room to see if they were under attack. But it was actually an earthquake. The best part of serving in Alaska, he said, was the fishing. “There were three of us on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. We’d load the car so that when we got off duty we could take off down the peninsula and fish.” They would catch salmon, and then
wait for the trout that followed them upstream, eating the salmon eggs. As we celebrate Veterans Day this month, we honor John, Dalbert, and all of the men and women who served our country.
New beginnings in 2017
We will focus on new beginnings in an upcoming issue of Community Matters. As we approach the new year, what resolutions are you making? Have you ever made a resolution that changed your life? What are your hopes for 2017? If you’ve got a story to share, contact Marketing Director Kurt Lampe, and your story could be featured in an upcoming edition of Community Matters.
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Community Matters November 2016
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