introduction - 55 & faking...
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55, Unemployed & Faking Normal | 1
INTRODUCTION
YOU KNOW HER.
She is in your friendship circle, hidden in plain sight.
Her clothes are still impeccable, bought in the good years when
she was still making money.
To look at her you would not know that her electricity was cut
off last week for non-payment or that she meets the eligibility
requirements for “food stamps.”
But if you paid attention, you would see the sadness in her
eyes, hear that grace note of panic in her otherwise self-assured
voice.
These days she buys the $1.99 trial-size jug of Tide to make
ends meet. You didn’t know laundry detergent came in that size.
You invite her to the same expensive restaurants the two of
you have always enjoyed, but she orders mineral water now with
a twist of lemon instead of the $12 glass of Chardonnay.
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She is frugal in her menu choices, meticulous, counting every
penny in her head. She demurs dividing the table bill evenly to
cover desserts, designer coffees and second and third glasses of
wine she did not consume.
She is tired of trying to keep up appearances. Faking normal is
wearing her out.
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There are no media stories about her. Her slide out of the mid-
dle class is not sensational enough.
A friend told her she is broke not poor and there is a differ-
ence. She lives without cable, her gym membership and nail ap-
pointments. She’s discovered she can do her own hair.
There are no retirement savings, no nest egg. She exhausted
that long ago. There is no expensive condo from which to draw
equity and no husband to back her up.
Months of slow pay and no pay have decimated her credit.
Bill collectors call constantly, reading verbatim from a script, ex-
pressing polite sympathy for her plight before demanding pay-
ment arrangements she can’t possibly meet.
Friends wonder privately how someone so well educated
could be in economic free fall. She is still as talented as ever, and
smart as a whip, but work is sketchy now, mostly on and off con-
sulting gigs. You hear about this and that assignment, but can’t
remember when she had a real job. At 55, she has learned how to
fake cheeriness, to appear engaged, but her phone doesn’t ring
with opportunities anymore.
She doesn’t remember exactly when it stopped. But she can-
not deny now, having entered the uncertain world of “formerly”
and “use to be.” In the face of mega generational shifts, she’s not
sure anymore where she belongs.
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What she does know is that dozens of online job applications
seem to disappear into a black hole. She’s convinced employers
have set their online job recruitment algorithms to reject anyone
who graduated before 1995.
She wonders what is to become of her. She is facing a work
for life proposition. So far her health has held up, but her body
aches, or is it her spirit?
Homeless women used to be invisible to her, but she appraises
them now, with curious eyes, wondering if their stories started
like hers.
I wrote this piece in the summer of 2014. It is a composite of
my own experience and that of many of my boomer age friends. I
wrote it because I did not see myself in the articles on retirement
I was reading in the popular press.
No one I knew was traveling the world or buying a condo in Costa Rica.
As cool as it sounded, we could not afford to redefine retire-
ment on “our own terms.” Dreams of launching fulfilling second
and third act careers were put on hold to take part-time jobs to
pay the bills. Many of us were facing a work for life proposition,
one major crisis away from insolvency.
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My article struck a chord because you recognized the woman I
described as yourself, your friend, your sister, your daughter. You
used words like lost, ashamed, shell shocked, and secret sister-
hood to describe how you’re feeling.
You reminded me that “faking normal” happens to men too.
We endure what is happening to us in silence, often alone,
too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about it. We assume we
are small in number, the only ones facing serious, life-altering
financial challenges. We fake normal as best we can, trying to
keep up appearances as the floor is collapsing underneath us.
Well, it turns out we are not alone at all; there are millions of us.
Very few boomers have managed to save the 10-20 times our
annual salary financial experts tell us we need to maintain our
current standard of living. The grim reality, according to Teresa
Ghilarducci, labor economist and nationally recognized expert
on retirement security, is that 75 percent of Americans nearing
retirement have socked away less than $30,000 in their retire-
ment accounts.
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You do the math. If we make it to 65 in good health, there is
good chance we will live another 20 years. That’s a long runway.
I don’t have to tell you that a $30,000 nest egg is nowhere near
enough to fund your retirement.
And that number doesn’t take into account millions of Ameri-
cans who have no retirement savings of any kind.
According to the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at
Brandeis University, 78 percent of all senior households in the
U.S. are financially vulnerable, meaning they do not have enough
in retirement savings to cover basic expenses and projected costs
over their expected lifetimes.
I am writing this book for us.
But I am not writing from a place of doom and gloom. Doom
and gloom disempowers. What this book focuses on instead is
how we regain control over our lives in this new environment.
How do we throw open the curtains and let the light in after
months or years of despair?
But first, we must arm ourselves with facts. Right now our
shame, embarrassment, and fear keeps us in silos, disconnected,
isolated and silent. There is power in numbers.
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According to AARP, the 50 plus segment is comprised of some
100 million consumers spending $7 trillion annually on goods
and services. In fact, we make nearly half of all the purchases
in entertainment and apparel and account for 55 percent of the
sales of consumer packaged goods.
When a segment this size starts pumping the brakes on its
spending it ain’t gonna be pretty. We are one of the country’s
key drivers of growth and jobs. Millions of us cannot just crash
through the floor without far-reaching economic repercussions.
Business leaders and policy makers across the political spec-
trum are going to have to take notice. Corporate brand managers,
marketers and product designers are going to have to figure out
how to serve a plus 50 demographic segment accustomed to liv-
ing well, but now on a budget.
And we, who are living this retirement income crisis, have to
know we exist and begin to convene and connect with each oth-
er, tell our truth and share information and resources. This book
aims to help facilitate that conversation.
We also have to get it out of our heads that what happened to
us is our “own darn fault” versus baked into a broken retirement
security system that is stacked against most Americans from the
jump.
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And we have to let go of the thought that help is on the way. The Cavalry is not
coming to rescue us.
There is a big disconnect in Washington. At a time when
Americans need more help not less, a lot of policy makers are
threatening to cut Social Security benefits and Medicare.
The truth is we are going to have to save ourselves. Some of us
have already started down this road. This book is about how we
band together, learn from each other and share what we know.
It is about the practical steps we can take to secure ourselves
in retirement. It focuses on what we can do from where we sit.
And what resources and changes in our mindset are needed to
get us there?
It asks us to consider what matters to us now, at this age and stage. What is
realistic in terms of a lifestyle goal? What are we willing to give up? And what
must we give up?
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We boomers are too old for hollow reassurance. The truth is
that most of us will not get through this next phase of life unaf-
fected. There is no magic wand to make everything like it once
was, no blanket solutions.
But instead of doom and gloom, what if we flipped the script
and used the retirement security crisis to go where we needed to
go in the first place? What if we embraced our smaller foot print
in retirement as an opportunity to move toward a more sustain-
able way of living, of doing more with less?
Isn’t this the shift we all need to be making anyway to secure
our future and that of our children and grandchildren?
This book culls wisdom from boomers successfully navigating
the path ahead. It is a first step for us to look beyond our imme-
diate surroundings and circumstances to what is possible in the
new normal told from the perspective of people living it.
It takes a crack at the two big nuts that have a lot to do with
our sense of well-being – where we live and our ability to supple-
ment our income in our later years. What innovative ideas, ini-
tiatives or programs are on the horizon, in the works or on the
ground?
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Affordable, secure housing is one of the biggest nuts we have
to crack. As one boomer age friend said “if I have housing I can
extreme coupon it the rest of the way.” Solving the housing prob-
lem lifts a boulder off our backs.
In the book we will find out how people are dealing with their
housing challenges and consider some of the more innovative
housing solutions – co-housing and other mutually helpful living
models to see whether they’re realistic options for us.
Employment is the other big nut to crack. Many of us will be
working much longer than we ever imagined….well into our sev-
enties and even beyond. We find ourselves suddenly in the work-
force after divorce or the illness or death of a spouse. Others of
us have jumped or been pushed out of our jobs and are trying to
figure out what’s next.
We dread ending up as greeters at Walmart or, some might say worse, as the resident dinosaur in AN ofFICE where our
supervisor is the age of our youngest child.
Work for many of us, in the “new normal,” can and will look
different than in the past. Think free-lance, multiple income
streams and working from home. Fewer and fewer of us will be
sitting all day with our feet under someone else’s desk.
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This book aims to help us navigate these waters and learn
from our contemporaries who are doing so successfully.
A fast growing cottage industry is emerging of career transi-
tion organizations that are helping boomer professionals prepare
for work later in life. Let’s learn more about what they do and
whether they can help us.
The truth is we don’t have the same options we use to have. As
my friend Robert says, “we’re in the midst of a seismic shift. The
paradigms that use to serve us no longer do.” To see what works,
we are going to have to work all the traps, consider all the levers
at our disposal.
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Organization of
the BookLET’S FIRST FOCUS ON HOW WE GOT into this
situation in the first place. The specific details are differ-
ent in each case, but there are some systemic issues beyond indi-
vidual behavior that landed millions and millions of boomer age
Americans here. This will give you context and hopefully, help
you stop blaming and beating up on yourself.
We have tough choices to make ahead. To regain mastery over
our lives will take personal agency. We can’t be proactive, if we
are depressed, guilt ridden and hiding with the covers over our
heads.
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So once we understand how we got here, let’s deal with mind-
set and attitude. Because if we’re in a rut, and turned inward --
nothing will get through to us. We will just be going through the
motions, looking without seeing. In that state, we’re sure to miss
any opportunities that present themselves.
Next, we are going to look outward at our options. We are go-
ing to hear about Third Agers (55-75) like us and how they’re
coping….no scratch that….flourishing in the new normal. We are
going to learn what they did to make peace with their changed
circumstances and how they got their mojo back, their zest for
living.
I am not promising you that this is going to be a cake walk.
Everyone I profile in 55, Unemployed and Faking Normal has had
some tough times, periods of real despair. What we’re going to
learn are the tools, strategies and coping mechanisms they used
to dig themselves out of these deep holes --- what they did to get
good again.
I am also not promising you that you will be going back to your
old life of stuff and more stuff. FUGEDDABOUTIT…really. On a
modest or fixed income, that life is just not sustainable. That
doesn’t mean you have to live in a hovel in the woods somewhere
without electricity. But you will have to rethink “progress” and
redefine “luxury”.
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You’re also going to have to figure out what really matters to
you in this phase of life and prioritize. In the book you will learn
from the stories of other Third Agers grappling with these ques-
tions. You may find, as many of them have, that the process of
“smalling down” and living more consciously is beautiful in its
own right.
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Zoe:Learning to Soothe
From Within
WHEN I MET WITH ZOE, 62, LAST WEEK, she had $31 to
her name…literally. And I have never seen her happier,
more grounded and anchored in her torso. Yes, she has landed a
new client and money is in the pipeline, but in June she was still
on food stamps and living in a two bedroom rental in the suburbs
of a major city.
A career that included international business travel, high pro-
file clients, testifying before Congress and a group Emmy began
to unravel during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. “I am as
broke now as I was back then”, she says. “I didn’t climb out of a
hole and go back to my old life, but I have found an inner peace
that was out of reach before.”
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That old life included a 2,500 square foot 4-level home on a
tree lined street in a tony Washington, DC suburb, enough china
to host a party for 40 without paper plates and several invest-
ment quality, Persian silk carpets, one of them large enough to
cover her 14 x 18 living room.
The Great Recession happened on the heels of her divorce de-
livering a one-two punch. At 58, work all but dried up. Without
clients, things spiraled. “I was under so much pressure. I couldn’t
sleep. I’d hear a noise at night and jump up and run to the win-
dow, expecting to see the repo man pulling out of the driveway
with my car.”
Today she admits that all her energy back then was on get-
ting her old life back, her old identity. “My focus was all external,”
she says. “My idea of success was a personal relationship with the
sales staff at Bloomingdales, concierge services, and being greet-
ed by name when I walked into a Congressional office.”
After the economy tanked, money came together in dribs and
drabs. She’d land a couple of small contracts and then nothing
for months. “I was always digging out of a hole. When a check did
finally come, I owed it and more away in back bills.”
Meanwhile, she was still trying to play the part. This meant
saying yes when colleagues got together for a night cap after
working late or picking up the dinner tab with a potential cli-
ent. “Of course, no one ever suggested TGIF’s, Ruby Tuesday’s or
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Olive Garden,” she says laughing. It was always the chicest of the
DC watering holes where one drink and a couple of “small” plates
would easily run you $50 and up with tax and tip.
“In those days I was afraid to say no,” Zoe says. “I was tap danc-
ing as fast as I could, but the income just never came together
again consistently enough for me to reproduce my old life.”
By the spring of 2013, she was 3 months behind in her house
payment. She packed up her stuff and rented a storage unit large
enough to hold the contents of her 4 bedroom house and moved
in with family in another city.
She was grateful to have somewhere to go, but the change was
stark. “My college age daughter and I went from living in about
2,500 sq. ft. of space to 900 sq. ft.”
These were dark days. All she wanted to do was hide. The
move broadcast failure in her eyes. “I was in shock, embarrassed,
lost. I cried all the time. My identity was defined by the high pro-
filed jobs and all my ‘stuff’.”
I don’t have to ask Zoe about her lowest point. It was a little
after 7am when my phone rang one morning. Back then Zoe and I
checked in with each other almost every day, but never this early.
“You’ve got to talk me through this,” she said her voice fragile and
raw with emotion.
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We stayed on the phone for the next five hours. I listened a lot.
We cried together, raged together. Mostly I let her talk until she
was done. She felt afraid and exhausted. Old. Failure clung to her.
The world had changed in ways she did not understand. What
she offered nobody seemed to want. She was scared she’d would
never find work again, never get her life back.
I listened. This was not the time for platitudes and hollow re-
assurance. We both knew people just like us who had gone off
grid and couldn’t get back. In this new world, recovery was not
assured.
Continued in “55, Unemployed and Faking Normal.”
Release Date Fall 2015. Sign up for a free account on
www.55andfakingnormal.com to get resources and to share your
journey with other Boomers.
55, Unemployed & Faking Normal Copyright © 2015 by Lizzy White.
All rights reserved.