You Still Have Time But Will You Still Have Money

This episode, titled “You Still Have Time, But Will You Still Have Money?”, focuses on the financial challenges many seniors face as they approach or enter retirement—especially the concern of making their savings last without a steady paycheck.

Hope and Harold emphasize that they are not financial experts, but aim to spark thoughtful decision-making. They encourage listeners to rethink habits and explore practical ways to stretch their resources. Overall, the episode encourages listeners to be proactive, think creatively, and make intentional choices so their money lasts as long as possible—ideally longer than they do. 

Episode Website: https://youstillhavetimepodcast.buzzsprout.com

Have a question or comment or want  to be notified when new episodes are released

Email Us

youstillhavetimepodcast@gmail.com

Leave a voice message:

https://www.speakpipe.com/YouStillHaveTime

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to You Still Have Time. We are your host. I'm Hope. And I'm Harold, and we'd like to welcome you all of our returning listeners. Thank you, thank you. Thank you as always for listening and for anyone who may be a new listener, we welcome you. We hope that you enjoy what you hear, and if you do that, we hope that you will come back again and again. So we just decided to call this episode. You still have time, but will you still have money? Because we know that one of the biggest concerns for many seniors especially. Especially when you're on the verge of retirement. You know, when you you start thinking about how am I gonna live? I'm not gonna get a regular paycheck every two weeks or every month or whatever. But even after that, a big concern is how you use your resources to the best of your ability so that they will last as long as possible. And I think that. Hoping I can speak to this from experience because you always are in a position to say, think about how long will. My money lasts. Will it outlast me? Will it last as long as I do? These are concerns that maybe some of you don't have, but I'm sure that a significant number of you are thinking about how long will this, this money last? And there's no steady income, there's no paycheck, and uh, and I know there's help indicated. It stops a lot of people from retiring because they're concerned that without a paycheck, they don't know how they're gonna make ends meet. And that's serious business. But let me make the disclaimer that we usually do when we're talking about, especially things as serious as finances and financial matters. We are not experts. We are just people who are living our lives. And some of these things impact us and we thought. You know, it might be interesting to our listening audience, so we did a little research and we're gonna pass on the information that we found. Feel free to do your own research and our goal, our goal is really to inspire a thinking process. Think about it, because one of the concerns that I have. Is that we get locked into a comfort zone and we don't really think outside of the box, so to speak. And some of these issues are really going to require some out of the box thinking. And some of these issues are going to require not only out of the box thinking thinking, number one, maybe some outta the box thinking and maybe some collaborative thinking. The, some that you might have to discuss certainly with your loved ones or with a financial advisor or whomever, but. We're gonna get started and we're gonna start with a big one. And that's home ownership. Not everyone owns their home. Some of some people are renters and, but if you do own a home, as a senior, as an older person the number of seniors who are house rich but cash poor has grown. And if you are struggling to stay in a home that puts a financial strain on you, maybe it's time to think about what alternatives there may be for you now. Now, one of the things that I tur certainly understand. You've been in a home 30, 40, 50 years. You've raised your children there. You remember when you were the only homeowner on the block or in the area, and now you are there just you and your spouse or or just there alone. And it's hard to think about moving. It's hard to think about, well, where am I going to go next? But I. If you are struggling to make payments, whether they be taxes, repairs any kind of bills on the house utilities you've got this property that's worth a significant amount of money, but it's illiquid. You can't spend the money that's built into the house. It might be a time to think about maybe I should sell this property because it is just the two of us and we don't need all of this space. Yeah, and those memories that are, that, that reside in that home, I mean, you know, there are Mentos that you can take with you. There are images that you can take with you, but maybe it's time to think about what the next move will be. You know, a lot of our podcast talks about encouraging people to keep moving forward and to keep thinking and not to get locked into being, you know an elderly person because you're still alive, you're still thinking, and you're, you still enjoy things and you still wanna live. So if you are in a situation where you're struggling to stay in a home, that. Yeah, no longer really meets your needs. It may have, you know, a flight of stairs that you or your spouse or whomever, you know, has a hard time going up and down. I know even in our home, whenever I want something, if I'm downstairs, it's upstairs. If I'm upstairs, it's downstairs. And you know. It's great exercise, but sometimes the thought crosses my mind. How long are we gonna stay here? Or think about those of you, and I'm sure some of you who are listening can relate to this. You have rooms with stuff in them, just stuff. There's nobody sleeping in that room. It's just stuff. And you, you, when you really become, when you really look at the situation, why do, first of all, why do I have all this stuff? I think hope. Didn't we talk about we did that dec cluttering episode. We declutter. So two episodes ago, listen to it, right? So you listened to that episode about decluttering, but you are paying for, you're living in a house with rooms of stuff and. As I think hope, maybe she said it already, if not if the financial issue is not a concern for you, you can afford everything and no, you're not, you're not struggling. Hey, fine, you can have a, this big house with empty room or rooms full of stuff and you pay the taxes and you pay utilities. But if you find every month that you're struggling to make those payments. Think about why am I here? And that's all that this podcast is about, encouraging you to think about alternatives. And of course then the next question everyone asks, well, where am I gonna go? And of course there are alternatives there. There are fit those senior communities that. Some people might enjoy because you might, as Harold said, your home might be worth a lot of money. You bought it 35, 40 years ago for $150,000 and the house next door to you, somebody just bought for a million and you are in your. Homes struggling. And this means whether or not you've done, you know, maybe you took out a home equity loan and you still have a, a small mortgage, or maybe you have no mortgage at all, but it's still overwhelming. You're in too much space. You've got utilities and maintenance and property taxes and it's just something, you know, the community around you has changed. You are, you're the oldest people on the block and you know, you don't really have the kind of relationships that you used to have. All of those things, you know, you can consider. Maybe you wanna sell your home and move to someplace warmer. If you live in a cold climate, maybe your children or other family members live in different parts of the country, and you might consider moving closer to them because. Because you know, you are getting older and you would like to have that kind of community around you, all of those things. So we're not saying that you have to do it, we're just asking you to think about it. Yeah, I think so. And um, one of the things that in doing our research, and also not only in doing our research, but hoping, I'd think about should you rent or should you buy? I don't know if we can answer that question. I think that's, no, we can't even answer that question for ourselves. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's a very individualized, individualized issue. But maybe you could take some of the equity out of your home on the sale of your property. Yeah. And rent for the rest of the years. Yeah. Use, use, you know, take those funds, put it in a in a nice interest earning account. And maybe some of you could even live off of the interest. Wouldn't that be something? But these are all things to consider. Have we beat this one to death? I think we have. Okay. I think we have. So, so again, this episode is. Geared to how to take, make your money to what whatever you have, make it last. I guess we want to as long as possible. As long as possible, preferably longer than we do. Well, what what we don't want is to waste money on things. Correct. Okay. We don't want to waste any money. We want to be using our money as. As efficiently and as, thank you. That was the word I was looking for. Okay. Efficiently and as effectively as possible. And the next big category that we have on our list is healthcare. I think many of us, probably most of us, have healthcare costs and. And I know that many of you sometimes experience sticker shock when you either going to the doctor or for medications, or for treatments or for surgeries. If you're fortunate enough to have some gold star insurance that you know your company gave you when you retired and you don't have to pay for it, that's wonderful. But for most people there is a cost involved. You're gonna pay one way or the other. And we know that healthcare costs are really. Out of this world. It's so sad that in the quote unquote richest country in the world, best country in the world that we have a healthcare system. But I don't wanna get political. No, no. We don't wanna get there. I just but there are certain things that we can all do. To maybe save a few pennies here and there on, on healthcare. And that's really our objective of this whole episode. Save a couple of pennies wherever we can. One of the things that we uncovered during our research was. Reviewing your Medicare plans annually because choosing the wrong plan may cost you thousands and unnecessary out-of-pocket expenses. And you know that when is it? November whenever the open, right, right. Enrollment period is I should have written that down 'cause I did see it like a hundred times reading this stuff. Whenever that open enrollment period is. Usually you are bombarded with stuff in the mail. Certainly there are enough TV ads and. If you're like us, you know, we mostly ignore them, but maybe need to stop, especially if healthcare costs is a concern for you and investigate make a call, look at a website and just explore and see what these companies are offering because it might be to your benefit. I think that one thing I said earlier about you. Many of us do things habitually. This is the way we've always done them. So you just, it's comfortable. You just stick to way you've always done it. But doing that may have cost you or maybe costing you excess amounts of money in various, uh, situations. We have our list on our list. Switch to generic prescriptions. Use tools like GoodRx to compare costs, use programs at A RP prescription. Discounts. Discounts. Yeah. There, there are ways out there to save money and I know some of it. It's going to take work. And I know we are saying this from experience 'cause we are people that are very set, we are set in the routine. I mean, if they, if somebody says, oh, you have to go to this drugstore, as opposed to that one, it's like, well, why I've been going to this one for years. That's just the way we are. But if you are. Looking or you attempting to save money? I think that there are a lot of ways to sort of, you know, you're not going let's face it, none of these are going to save you millions of dollars or hundreds of thousands. But at our. Stage your life. Hey, maybe if it saves you $10, if it saves you $10, it's better. What do you always say? Hoping $10 more in my pocket is better. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. And you know, ask one of the things we don't have written down, but you know, talk about this with your friends, because a lot of times, I mean, you don't have to get into specifics as to how much people pay for this, that, or the other, but if you might have a friend who's found a way to. Get certain medications at a discounted price. Talk to your doctors. When we talked about generic prescriptions, make sure that doctor, does this medication come in generic form? Maybe, and maybe the doctor's in the habit of just using the, the brand name, but maybe it can save you some money by getting that same medication in generic form. And then another thing. If you are involved in like senior programs at senior centers and community health clinics, a lot of times they have wellness programs that you might want to take advantage of. I know a lot of churches and community centers sometimes do those checkups where you can go and get your blood pressure checked and get, get all kinds of little tests. That might cost you money. If you went to the doctor and the doctor did them you can go to the health center and get it done. You know, maybe they're having a senior day or something and you can go and get it done for free. You know, just look for the discounts there. There are a lot of them out there, and it's up to you to take advantage of that. And I know that at least with our healthcare package we have a. Access to Silver Sneakers. Was that, what was it called? So, so No. Now you made me forget the name of it. It's Silver Sneakers. Is it? Yes, silver. It's Sneakers. Silver Sneakers. Silver Sneakers. It's a program that gives like free membership at certain gyms, right? So certain participating gyms and. And I think that it's important that we stay active. Of course, we talked about that on mm-hmm. A prior e episode. So for those of you who are just coming into our, the youth still have time family. Just recently, you could look back at prior episodes we talked about the value of staying active and gym membership is, it's a cost, but if, if you can get a free membership. Hey, or, and some, and some gyms offer senior discounts, so look into that too. Don't be ashamed to say, oh, I'm 72 years old. Do you have a special membership for me? Because a lot of times they do, and you may not look, your Asia they don't wanna insult you by offering. You a senior membership when you only look 50 something else. A number of, uh, uh, discounts that we prob a lot of people pass up on. And these are the ones like. Theater discounts, movie discounts food discounts, restaurant discounts, restaurant discounts ihop, you know, senior day is Wednesday, right? Right. You know, why not go to IHOP on Wednesday if you wanna go out to lunch? Correct. There are so many of those that. We just discount because, well I don't know. We just don't think, well, I'm not, you know, I'm not really a senior or I'm not old enough to take advantage of that, or, or some, or some people. I don't want people thinking that I need this. Right. Exactly. Or, I mean, I understand. You go to some of these restaurants and the senior ru, the senior menu is like. Boil broccoli. No, I mean, I understand that, but, or they bring you a senior portion with two french fries. Okay. No, I need a real, but really, I'm, I, I say that in jest, but take advantage wherever someone is going to give us. A discount, I think we at least need to investigate, certainly in the movie theaters, oh, yes. Movie theaters, right? Or, or travel. I mean, I, I, when we go into we live right outside of New York City or Manhattan and we travel, we take advantage of the senior. Discount tickets. Why would we not you, you mean to tell me I can travel for half the price of a full fare ticket? You bet. I'm gonna take advantage of it. So we're just saying explore all of those opportunities. And for those of you who live in cities, I know in, in the city of New York, for example, and even where we live they have senior services like Access-A-Ride. Access-A-Ride. The van or a car comes pick. Comes to pick you up and it's a low cost option. You may not be able to drive anymore. Maybe, you know, you have a vision issue or a mobility issue or something. These are are inexpensive ways. You don't have to get into an Uber. You can make a reservation and, and get an Access-A-Ride for $3 and, and go wherever you wanna go. So don't overlook all of those things. And, and I will say honestly, we are preaching to ourselves. Yep. Okay. We are preaching to ourselves because we did the research on this, and so many of these things we have not even investigated. So we are right in the same boat with you. There are, okay, so this next group of discounts, I think they all they probably just fall into one category. Look at what you're spending money on and is there a way to save money? I mean, one of the things I think about multiple vehicles, we have two vehicles and one of those vehicles basically moves about a thousand miles a year. Do I really need that second car? Do I need to pay insurance on a second vehicle? Many of you may be in the very same predicament where you've got a second vehicle that's not even, you know, you don't even drive it. Think about, maybe that's a cost that I can save. Harold briefly said something about travel, and we talked about moving around locally, but if you are taking vacations, if you are going away on vacations, there are certain times of the year where it's cheaper the travel than others. You're not going to. What do they call them? You can schedule vacations for what they call the shoulder seasons. Those are the seasons that, you know, when the kids aren't out, when the kids are out from school and families are traveling, that those are. High seasons. So, you know, ticket prices are usually higher, hotel prices are usually higher. But if you're a senior and you're retired and you can go at any time of the year, look for those bargains in the off season travel. Right. Why would you want to travel during the summer when the kids are outta school and the prices are higher? The one of the other things is. I, and I know this will probably hit a nerve with many people, hope, and I just had a conversation with a good friend about cable tv. Cable tv. I know that we just recently cut the cord. And why? Because you're just comfortable. You know, you pay your cable bill and it just goes up and up and up, and you'll start to look at it and say, well, wait a minute. Why am I paying all of this money and I watch like five channels? Yeah, because it's, it's our comfort zone. It was a little difficult. We did a little research. We, we, we touched base with our kids, you know, because the younger folks having, it's more most of them are not tied to a cable plan like we had been. But we looked at it and we said. We could save almost half what we're spending, almost half of what we are spending. And I think that all of us, if you are spend, if you're still tied to a cable plan and you don't think that you need it, you know you are watching two channels or three channels meanwhile, but you're paying two or $300 a month, consider. Cutting the cord and maybe there's some other options for you. Yes, because we came, we came cable came into being when we were raising our families and, and working and all of that. So that's what we're used to. Cable used to be something that was special. And those channels like HBO used to be included in your cable. And now we have all of these. Streaming services, Netflix and Hulu and Tubi and this one, and, and Peacock and, you know, associated with different channels, peacock and Paramount. Then there's so many options out there. So all we are saying is maybe if when you open up that cable bill each month, and I'm saying open up, maybe you get it. Like I do get an email and it tells you, you know what, what your cable bill is and you say, my goodness, I used to pay $130 a month and now it's. $270 or $312. It's a lot of money. There are other options, and if you are not familiar with them and don't feel comfortable with investigating them, talk to your kids. Talk to younger people, especially because as Harold said, they're kind of up on what's happening. And also take a look at what you really need, because that would be the first step. What do you really watch? What channels do you really use? And then. Hopefully you can find something that, that you can make right for you that would save you a lot of money, I think. I think that's a great, that great advice because I know for us we, when we really analyzed what we watched and what we were paying for, there was a big discrepancy and I think finally something like. Cell phones. I was amazed at some of the statistics regarding cell phones and it talked about people who still had their kids their adult offspring on these plans. And why is that? Because you just never paid attention to it. You had your kids on their plan, your plan when they were teenagers, maybe when in co teenager Yeah. Teenagers are in college, right? Yes. And now they're 40 and 50 years old and they're still on your plan. Have them put you on their plan. How's that? That's it. That's, that's it. Have them put you on their plans. We haven't done that yet. No. But yeah, we're, as you can tell. You know, we are talking about all these different ideas for ways of saving a bit of money, and Harold said earlier, no, maybe it's not gonna save you hundreds of dollars a month, but if it's when we change from cable, it could. Yeah. Yeah. We saved over a hundred dollars a month in cable. We saved over a hundred dollars a month when we cut the cable cord. And, you know, you add up all these little things, you know, $10 here or $20 there. You might have an extra two or $300 each month in your pocket, and it's better in your pocket than in someone else's. Maybe you know of other ways of saving money. You know, you can always send us a note and we can do an addendum later to, to this. Right. Episode and, and that's, I think that's a, a good segue to, as we finalize this podcast you could reach out to us at You Still Have Time, podcast@gmail.com. You can leave us a text message and information is in. We'll be in the show notes. We want you to subscribe to our channel. You can use a leave a voicemail message. You can also leave a voicemail message a, what's that? 90 seconds? You can leave up to a 92nd. Voicemail message. No. Profanity, please. No. No. And, uh, and, uh, we really appreciate, we would appreciate any comments or advice or questions you have. Again, look into our show notes and, uh, raise a reach out to us there. And, um. Yeah. And hopefully you've we've encouraged you today, we've inspired you to take a look at certain things and maybe it can save you money. And we are not even asking for a kickback. That's right. Yeah. No, we are not looking for, you know 10%, but anyway but if you feel like sending 10% our way, we'll figure out a way to get it now. But anyway, so thank you for listening to the podcast and we hope that you'll join us again. And as we always say, just remember you still have time. See you soon. See you soon.