The other day, this article appeared on the Yahoo! Finance webpage and it made my blood boil. It told the story of 60-year old Nancie Eichengreen who was laid off from her job as a legal secretary. She already had earned a Master’s Degree and, like all unemployed Americans, she was told that if she wanted a job then she had to pad her CV and go back to school.
So back to school Nancie went…to get a second Master’s Degree.
So how are things going for Nancie these days? According to the article:
“It’s kind of scary because I don’t envision a retirement for myself,” Eichengreen told Yahoo Finance. “I’m just going to have to keep working.”…Today [she] is living off of student loans and says it’s unlikely that she’ll be able to pay off her $200,000 student debt, which includes what she borrowed for her first Masters’ studies in broadcast management.
This is a perfect example of American’s being given bad advice by financial advisors. Instead of telling her to make some wise investments in Forever Cash assets or to think outside the box and start a new business, they tell her to go into even more debt and to keep doing the same thing she has been doing for all these years– even though it hasn’t worked so far.
Then, the article lists some ways that retirees can make their Social Security and pension checks stretch further. One of them was “Consider switching from mortgage to rent.” While I am all about saving money by not spending it stupidly, I can’t say that I agree with this advice.
Do you really want to live in a rented apartment in your golden years? Do you want to deal with the concerns of living in someone else’s house until the day you die? I don’t think that’s any way to go out. While paying rent and not a mortgage might be a good temporary solution, I can’t imagine that it will contribute to the joy in your life.
Financial advisors have had years to get their act together. I say we should just stop listening to them, at least until they have something new to say.