August 2019

Lose those “Easy First Five Pounds”

I can hear the gears grinding already. The “Easy First Five Pounds”? Be serious. You are laughing now and saying, “There are no easy pounds to lose”. Oh, but you can lose weight without dieting and without changing your life style very much. Did you get that? Not very much. But, you have to do something.

Now for all you doubters I want to provide a little disclaimer and a peek into how I look at life. First, this plan is based on eating what I believe are good foods. I am not a dietician or doctor but I try to cover the four food groups and eat sensibly. I try to listen to my body and eat what I’m craving as long as they fall into the “good category”. I rarely eat candy bars anymore but I do eat protein bars that are often chocolate and peanut butter flavor, fill my need for protein and satisfy my desire for something sweet. I try to think outside of my normal diet for things that can be good for me but still satisfy. Mixing chocolate protein powder with skim milk in a blender makes a high protein meal and a dessert all in one. Try it. It is delicious.

The other thing I want to emphasize is that I don’t diet. I adapt my lifestyle to help me feel good and get to where I want to be. Sure I am cutting back on calories, but what I really have done is change the way I live on a permanent basis. I have cut way back on salad dressing and butter for example. They contain lots of empty calories and a little goes a long way. I am always looking for ways to change my lifestyle for the better instead of looking for something temporary. Finally, I am a creature of habit. It is just the way I am hardwired. I often eat the same things every day for days on end. I believe repetition helps regulate my cravings for bad foods, but you might need more variety than me. That is fine. We each should be able to adapt our lifestyle for our own best use.

Here’s how I got started.

First I First I identified my vices. Everybody has a vice or two. Some of us have been known to have more than a few. To take the bad edge off, let’s call them bad habits. My bad habits have been candy bars, snack cakes, ice cream, fast food and beer. There might be others but these five are all I’m admitting right now. I have found by experience that one

From the book: “Fifty Tips to Better Living

This article would cover 5 pages on the standard 6 x9 format I used for “The Twins”

Lose those “Easy First Five Pounds”

The other thing I want to emphasize is that I don’t diet. I adapt my lifestyle to help me feel good and get to where I want to be. Sure I am cutting back on calories, but what I really have done is change the way I live on a permanent basis. I have cut way back on salad dressing and butter for example. They contain lots of empty calories and a little goes a long way. I am always looking for ways to change my lifestyle for the better instead of looking for something temporary. Finally, I am a creature of habit. It is just the way I am hardwired. I often eat the same things are day for days on end. I believe repetition helps regulate my cravings for bad foods, but you might need more variety than me. That is fine. We each should be able to adapt our lifestyle for our own best use.

Here’s how I got started.

First I identified my vices. Everybody has a vice or two. Some of us have been known to have more than a few. To take the bad edge off, let’s call them bad habits. My bad habits have been candy bars, snack cakes, ice cream, fast food and beer. There might be others but these five are all I’m admitting right now. I have found by experience that one

You Can Choose

Perhaps twenty years ago I became addicted to reading food packaging labels. I guess it is really not an addiction but I am seriously devoted to knowing what I am eating. One of the first things I noticed was how many calories were in salad dressing. I have been active and healthy my whole life but I find during times of stress and business my weight will rise. I strive to keep my weight under the 25 BMI marker, and counting calories is something that woks for me. For such a small quantity, salad dressing seemed like something I could live with less.

I began to reduce my intake of salad dressing by measuring how much I was putting on my food. Within a short time I began making a conscious choice to eat salad without any dressing. Once, I remember wondering why I even started to put it on salad. I guess iit was always available and I just did what everybody else was doing.

What happened over the years since I began to avoid dressing is just a small example of what happens when you make a choice. First, I began to really enjoy salad without any dressing. Plain and simple I love salad just plain. For me, dressing covers up the flavors of the fresh vegetables. Second, I have come to eat fruits and veggies of all kinds raw and without oils and dressings. All these fruits and vegetables are great for my health and I truly love my eating choices. Friends ask me why I deny myself and I respond honestly that there is no denial going on. This is how I love to eat. Sometimes they just stare at me.

Why am I writing about this? Because we all sometimes forget that we have a great deal of choice in our lives. We hold the power to choose what we want to eat and what we don’t want to eat. And sometimes the things we add or take away turn out to be the things we prefer.

Is there anything wrong with salad dressing, or bacon or red meat? I don’t have a problem with any of those, I just simply made a choice to not eat those on any regular basis. Do I eat dressing, bacon and red meat? Yes, but I eat so little of those three that you might think I do not.

Why do I make this choice? Because salad dressing has a lot of empty calories, bacon is heavy in fat and nitrates and red meat is heavy, makes me sleepy and some research shows it may be related to heart disease. So I choose not to eat them. In the case of red meat sometimes I crave a good cheeseburger so I’ll eat one. One every two or three months probably isn;t going to do me great harm. Bacon used to be a standard in my house but over the past few years I have just lost interest in it.

So, I am not telling you what to eat. I try, not always successfully, to avoid giving advice. I simply want to show what has worked for me. What has worked wonders for me is to make a positive choice and do my best to stick with it. Maybe my example will be something that works for you.

Can you laugh at yourself?

The ability to step outside yourself and get a chuckle or even a bellyaching laugh at your own expense may one of the most overlooked positive personal characteristics. I bet you know a few people who are so wound up they just cannot appreciate their own silly mistakes. That is sad because laughter, smiles and silliness will lower your stress and make you a more complete person.

What is the funniest thing you ever messed up? Could you laugh at yourself? My ex-wife and I were on a cruise in the mid nineties. The day we were to disembark, a letter and a luggage tag was left at our door. Printed on the tag was the word Amarillo, the city in Texas. We were dumbstruck because at the time we lived in Concord, New Hampshire. Why would they think we were heading back to Texas? So we marched down to the customer service desk to get this straightened out.

We get to the desk and explain the problem. The clerk looks at us for a moment and calmly points out that the tag, which happens to be yellow in color is not specific to a city. It is telling us that we put our luggage in the "yellow area". Then she points out that Amarillo is the Spanish word for yellow. My wife and I look at each other and start laughing. We look back at the clerk and she starts laughing. We thank her in between bursts of laughter and we turn around and head to a bench where we sit down and begin to laugh hysterically. Tears are rolling down my face as I look up and see the clerk pointing to us as she explains to the next people in line what happened. They start laughing too. We all enjoy this moment for a good while. I am laughing now just thinking about it. I’ll never forget how funny that moment was and how much I laughed at myself.

Can you laugh at yourself? If not, maybe you should lighten up and enjoy life. You'll live longer as you laugh your stress away.

Peace and Love
JohnnyO

Open Mic Night

Living a good life over fifty is a jigsaw puzzle of varied shapes and sized pieces. Each piece represents something important to us, a person, activity or belief. These are the things which fill our lives. If you look around my little webpage you will see I have broken these down into five basic areas. Love, laughter, security, health and creativity. Each of us will weight these differently but I absolutely believe that a good life over fifty has some attention to each of these subjects.

For instance, you could be an amazing cake chef, turning out incredibly detailed cakes that blow the mind, but if you don’t take care of your health you won’t be feeling much like baking. In turn, you could be the greatest money manager of all time, chocking up record returns that beat all estimates, but if you don’t pay attention to your significant other, you could soon be counting the returns of loneliness.

I have a passion for music that has kept my creative life full of positive vibe. (get it…”vibe”) I play multiple instruments including guitar and piano, I write songs and sing. Although I have tried to make money in music over the years I have long given up the money making drive in return for the “filling the soul” drive. Music makes me smile, gets my blood moving and helps me be creative when I write and perform my own music. Plus, it is just plain fun. Every Thursday night I meet up with a herd of musician friends, and some other great friends who just come by to listen. It is an open mic format where each person who signs up gets to perform three songs. Without a doubt, this is the highlight of my week. There has to be something really big going on in my life for me to miss open mic.

Another aspect of open mic night for me is that I have marketed myself to my friends as a sideman, or a supporting player. If you are singing and playing guitar, maybe you would like a second guitar or a slide guitar or a harmonica. Since I play a number of different instruments, I can cover a lot of ground. Last night I got to perform eleven different songs with four different people. This is close to heaven on earth for me.

One interesting thing occurred to me several weeks ago. I thought about the friends I have in life, and then I sorted out the ones I see most often and do things with most often. Guess what? You already see it don’t you? The friends I spend the most time with share my creative music hobby. That’s not to say I don’t get together with others, but easily ninety percent of my friend time is with music folks.

What is your creative hobby or passion? If you say you don’t have one you aren’t looking hard enough. My Dad’s creative hobby was woodworking. He loved to make small furniture like bathroom vanities and bookshelves. He made little note clips that sat on the table and he cut out and painted an untold number of those small wooden cats that sit on top of your door frame. My 92 year old mother played the piano well into her 80s and even with her dementia and Alzhiemers she can still bang out Dixie upon request. Amazing that she can’t remember what she had for lunch ten minutes ago but she can still play a song on the piano.

Find your creative passion and nurture it. If you still insist you don’t have one, I’d suggest you pick something and give it a ride. I truly believe it will fill your soul and make you smile and feel good. Finds ways to meet up with others who share that passion. Go to meetup.com and look for groups that share your interest. You soul is calling. How will you fill it?

How my parents retired comfortably and doubled their nest egg.

Every time I read an article about retirement planning the general concept is that in retirement you will be removing money from your investments in a steady stream. For many Americans that may be true. However, there are alternate ways to manage your money in retirement. As with everything involved with retirement, the success of your plan, no matter what it is is to plan well ahead of time and position yourself and your money for success

Let’s assume that you could live on your social security without having to withdraw any money out of your investments. My parents did exactly this. My Dad retired in the late 1980s with about $140,000 invested in IRAs, Mutual funds and annuities. They had a combined social security of 1800 per month.

So how did they get by on $1800 per month? Well, first of all they owned their own home free of any mortgage. Without a mortgage, their biggest expenses were utilities, property taxes and food. These barely added up to $600 per month. That left them 1300 per month for everything else.

My parents enjoyed retirement by going to Florida for 5 weeks a year and two or three Golden Age style bus trips to tourist spots and historical sites. When they needed money over the $1800 per month they would pull it out of one of their assets but the bottom line is that they were only accessing money that had been earned as interest and gain on investments. Their money grew over 25 years from $140,000 to $260,000 in 2015.

I read articles about retirement that say a person or couple needs twenty rimes their yearly income to live well in retirement. Or you need 1.7 million in order to retire. Hogwash. Sure, if you intend on carrying a mortgage throughout your retirement , then yes maybe you need that much. But chances are very good that you could do very well living on just your social security.

Quite simply it is all about how you live, and what you “think” you need. If you are the kind of person who needs that newest iphone or a new fancy German car every 2 years then maybe you do need one point seven million dollars in retirement. Me? I’m a guy with a seven year old Nissan Sentra that runs great, gets 30 miles to the gallon and needs few repairs. I eat at home a lot and rather than spend $50 a month for a fancy gym I walk my neighborhood and do my push-ups on the sidewalk. I’m trying to emulate my parents. You can do it too.

I’ll be offering more tips on how to retire comfortably without burning your nest egg. Thanks for reading, stay tuned and I hope you write to me and say hello.

Talk to your Children

I have strong feelings about many things. Not that I am right about any of them, but we all the right to our opinions. It is said that we love our children unconditionally and they love us the same way. Is this true? In many families, yes this is true but that does not mean that there are things you can do to improve your relationship with your children.

Now that we are in our fifties, most of our children are young adults. My three are all in their twenties. They are living their lives and are very busy as your children probably are also. I believe in the little things like the power of something so simple as spending ten minutes talking with your child each day if they still live with you. “How was your day?”, “What did you do last night?” These are simple questions that develop little bonds of connection between the two of you.

I can hear you now. “My kid doesn’t want to talk to me, they are much too busy. All they care about is their phone.” Au Contraire, they want so bad for you to interact even if they don’t know it. Perhaps you haven’t had a simple and honest conversation in a while. It is easy for us at any age to forget about the importance of regular interaction. It is never too late to reach out.

When I see my kids I make a habit of listening a great deal more than I talk. “How is work going? What projects are you working on? What is your Boss like?” My parents loved me and my bother and sisters but they didn’t say much that I remember. I know my Dad was often preoccupied with work and my Mom burned a lot of energy trying to organize everything in her life.

Take a minute today or tonight to call your children and just say hi. Maybe they will be slightly annoyed but just tell them you were thinking of them. Call them again next week. If your child doesn’t respond right away, don’t give up. Be persistent. That persistence is your love reaching out to them. The act of reaching out with rub off on them and before you know it you will be hearing from them.

Tip #2 Become Allergic to Debt

I will be the first person to say that there is good debt and bad debt. For the average American there is no way to buy a house without the 30 year mortgage. It is a simple fact. That said, in my opinion, most other debt is just a bad idea. Maybe a case could be made for debt that helps you grow your business or gets you into a vehicle which gets you to a paying job. Outside of that I am a debt – downer.

Who really benefits from consumer debt? Bank and Finance companies make a tremendous amount of money from you and me if we carry credit card and personal debt. Interest rates often run at least 16 to 18 percent and can run upwards of 24 percent. You say you have an offer for a 0% interest rate on a balance transfer credit card? I say…“Gee, that seems too good to be true.” Guess what…..it is. Credit card banks charge a balance transfer fee of at least 3% and often 5% of the balance you are transferring. That means you are paying a big flat fee to borrow that money. That is not smart money.

Ok, hopefully you get the point, so now why am I so down on debt? Over the age of fifty, for me, my life goals have become about saving as much as possible and preparing for a secure life in my 60’s to 90’s. The interest payments you make on money owed is called Debt Service. In the world of financial jargon ‘Debt Service’ is unusually clear. You are serving (paying money) your debt. It is as simple as that. You are paying interest on a meal you ate 6 months ago or that guitar you purchased 18 months ago.

Being debt free means you will never have to pay money out of your back pocket for something you probably could have done without. Having a debt free mentality will force you to make good decisions about your purchase. You will ask yourself important questions. “Do I really need this thing?” “Do I really need this $45 meal”.

So do whatever you wish, but I am allergic to debt and I believe you should become allergic also. Avoiding debt will improve your basic bottom line, increase your savings rate and improve your retirement nest egg.

Get Your Guitars Out!

Why are so many guitars in the closet? I meet a lot of people who own closet guitars. A closet guitar is an instrument that lives in the closet. Someones buys with the purpose of learning to play. After a few weeks the inspiration drops away and soon the guitar is forgotten.

When I was in junior high I taught myself to play the guitar. By that point I had already been taking trumpet lessons for 3 years so I was able to translate some of that music knowledge to the guitar. However, I didn’t own a guitar. I learned to play on a Kay acoustic that my older brother had borrowed from his girlfriend. The reason it was at my house was because my sibling’s girlfriend wasn’t playing it. The reason I used it was because my brother wasn’t using it either. It was just sitting there like an art object on display.

Over the years, I’ve seen an awful lot of guitars on display in homes. I wish I knew how many folks buy a guitar, give it a try but never really get the hang of it. Many more than we might think.

The tag line for my guitar and piano music lesson practice is “Guitar Lessons for the Frustrated Beginners”. I chose this slogan because I have run into so many people who tell me that they have a guitar in the closet and they really ought to take a lesson. So what stops a beginner from becoming an intermediate? Lots of possible reasons. I hear stories about bad teachers who didn’t really teach them anything. Lots of people say their lives are just too busy to stay with it. I suspect it has a lot to do with the image of playing the guitar being a lot more fun than the actual learning.

The reason I wrote this little piece was to attract you to an idea. I base my lesson practice on two concepts. First I want to make it fun to play the guitar. That means we keep it light and the lessons simple. Second, we always try to spend some time working on a song of the student’s choosing. If you love the song Take it Easy, then maybe you love even more hearing yourself strum those chords. I try to focus on why you decided to try the instrument. Do you want to accompany yourself on piano like Nora Jones or Elton? How about your favorite Rock Stars. Do you see yourself as Bruce, rocking the arena. Or are you more like Eddie Van Halen, guitar monster?

I think the guitar is a very personal and different instrument. Lets briefly compare the guitar with school band instruments. Most people who learn to play the trumpet, clarinet or any other band type instrument are recruited to take lessons in order to develop talent for a school band. The band gives them a place to perform within a group. The band creates camaraderie and makes one feel a part of something bigger than themselves. Many would agree those are good feelings.

The guitar is a more solitary instrument. The vast majority buy a guitar, take a lesson, then go home to sit in the quiet of their bedroom were they practice and hide their mistakes. There is little outside reward because no one gets to hear them play. The player who finds a few friends to play with will tend to stick with it longer and get better faster. A good friend of mine who could play a few chords and notes asked me what he could do to get better. What would a typical teacher say? “practice, practice, practice.” I used a different set of words. I said, “Find a band to play with”. He ended up forming a bad with some friends. Guess what. He plays pretty well now. Guess what he was doing while playing with that band? ” That’s right. He was practicing. But he was practicing with a group where he got some positive feedback and felt like he was part of something bigger.

So the moral of this story? Get your guitar, practice a few chords and ask around to see who plays. You will be surprised to find out how many guitars are in the closet. Offer to come by their house with your guitar and suggest you play a few tunes. If you offer to bring a six pack and some nachos, they will almost surely say yes. Next thing you, you are the next Brookes and Dunn. Rock on friends.

Be a Saver

Retirement Tip #1 Be a Saver!

This little nugget of wisdom I picked up on a podcast. I listen to a lot of podcasts across many subjects from money to history to music. Steve Chen hosts one I really enjoy called The New Retirement podcast. I have no idea who Steve Chen is but he sure gets some interesting guests on his once a month podcast.

A few months back I was listening and toward the end of the show, Steve asked a guest, “What is the one most important thing any person can do to prepare for retirement. The answer was so simple. “Be a saver”. Returns and types of investments are super important but if you are not saving money on a regular basis, you won’t get very far.

This means something to me because for years I was well managed spender. I always paid my bills on time and I made what seemed to be well thought out decisions about money and spending, but I wasn’t a committed saver. I would save some money then I would “need it”, pull it out and spend it. I carried credit card debt every month.

Five years ago I changed everything on a challenge from a very good friend of mine. She challenged me to get it together, pay off the debt and get my savings and investments straightened out. Within six months of that challenge I was out of debt and I became a saver. I am now debt free and well on my way to a good retirement nest egg. I max out my 401k and I save every week into an IRA and a non-qualified stock fund.

I bet you know someone, maybe you, who seems to live a great life with lots of things but has no savings. Those “things” won’t serve you well in retirement. A good sized nest egg is what you really need. Be a Saver.