A $100+ B-Day Lunch Shocked My 75-Year-Old Aunt — What She Said Shocked Me [More].

Beyond the tab

“Goodness me! This is so expensive!”

It was a mistake. My cousin asked for the bill. The waitress delivered the receipt to her Mum, my Aunt.

“Girl, let’s eat at home next time. Life is so expensive now. I can cook for all of us.”

My cousin assured her mother that all was fine. She can afford it. An occasional celebration outside is okay. She held my Aunt’s hands as she comforted her.

But the old lady was visibly worried about our pockets.

“Life is so expensive now.”

Her laments marked the start of my worries.

Current-Day Retirees Is the Crystal Ball to Our Future

Society is incredibly unkind to our seniors.

• Ageism.
• Intergenerational friction.
• The Great Technological Divide.

All these phenomena work actively to expire them.

That they are, in general, outdated. That the world has changed. That they are behind the times.

Yes, I can agree to that.

But they were also young once.

My Dad used to teach me how a desktop computer works. The one that comes with a CPU.

Always back up your work with a thumb drive. Here, I bought some floppy disks for you to bring your work around with you.

He was that Tech Geek teaching me to get ahead using technology. He was ahead of me. And he taught me.

My Dad, now 72, has fallen off the bandwagon. The Smartphone terrifies him.

“Son, is it safe to use the banking mobile app? I see so many people my age getting scammed. They lost their lifetime savings. Why do young people do this?”

They tried. They got outpaced by technology. They become fearful.

Most importantly, they are trying to understand, not undermine us. It is challenging to live in a world where everything is so foreign and so… difficult.

And then, there are issues with money, retirement, and life.

We [I am 40] live in an era when having 1 million in the bank might be insufficient for retirement. My Dad thinks accumulating 1 million is the retirement endgame.

That is his life experience.

Do we need more for our retirement? It is anyone’s guess.

As mentioned in the introduction, my Aunt’s birthday lunch cost us $101. And that is pre-tax. Add the Big T in, and we paid roughly $130+.

Our retired elders in their late 60s and 70s would never understand this.

I was with my Aunt while my cousin go get the car. She shared how a family lunch was $40+, and everyone ate until they puked.

That was 15 years ago.

Today, we spent $130+, and 10 minutes after exiting the restaurant, she was thinking about grabbing a bun.

Think about that.

The World They Lived In Has Changed — Can We Empathize?

“Auntie, don’t worry. Be happy on your birthday. We can afford it. How is the lunch? Why are you so quiet just now?”

Aunt held on to me like a bride walking down the aisle with her father. She can no longer grip me tight. Now, her hook is gentle.

It saddens me how age robbed us of our strength and grants us feebleness.

I secured her hand to my arm with the other palm.

“I don’t know what to say. The world has changed so much… I don’t recognize it anymore.”

Aunt did not stop there.

Here are the extracted snippets that hit me hard.

“I was trying to find my favorite dish on the menu, but there was no menu. I wanted to ask for it. Then I saw you young people taking out your phone and scanning the weird box. Now I know the menu is on the phone.”

Weird box = QR code

“The screen is so small… I cannot see what is on it. My eyesight has gotten poor. And then… the menu is in English. I don’t understand almost all the food listed. No Chinese?”

Aunt attended Chinese school in the 1960s. She is educated in Chinese. The only time she learned English? Right. English classes.

“Today, we are made outdated by English. I don’t understand what is written. I have to keep asking you what this is, what that is. I feel so bad that I am not independent.”

How would you feel if this was you?

Would it suck? I bet.

And that brings me to our approach to retirement planning.

The Difference Between Financial Freedom and Retirement Planning

Many people I know plan for [their] retirement starting today and projecting into the future.

• They look at expenses today, annualize them, and then multiply by 10 years. Or 20.
• They think about hitting that financial milestone, hit it, and then eject themselves from the workplace ASAP. Wala! I am free!

That, to me, is financial freedom. Not retirement planning.

Retirement planning goes beyond money. It must involve life. Tracy Collins’s retirement articles are a testament to this.

And life makes retirement difficult.

Here’s why.

It is hard for us to imagine our life at 65, 72, or 75… at 40. We cannot. Therefore, we must,

• Speak to real retirees.
• Listen to the problems they are confronted with.

Often, problems present themselves at a certain age. So, yes. The elders are our retirement crystal ball.

Our elders today are struggling with,

• Software — Many I know cannot understand the world within an app.
• Smartphones — My Aunt and Mum are scared to ‘touch things wrong’. And oh, cyber scams.
• Inflation on savings — Chews away 30 or 40 years of virtuous savings. That is sad to me. Thriftiness is penalized.
• Streaming versus broadcast — My Dad cannot see the difference. Why should I pay for Netflick when there is free telly?

That is our elders. Today.

What about us?

I postulate the following.

• Increasingly demanding jobs — My ex-girlfriend is an accountant. She used to do payables only. Now? Receivables plus tax filing plus reporting. That is part-time work, by the way. Retire with a part-time? Be prepared.
• Artificial Intelligence — There are tech folks and hate-tech folks. The latter will continue to struggle. AI will eventually find its way to our retired life. Imagine learning that at 60.
• Financial/Retirement investing — What should we invest in if inflation stays 3% — 5%? And inflation compounds. We could be looking at 12% in 10 years. How to beat that?

Will these things happen?

I have no idea.

Maybe is my answer.

The Close

I am glad to speak to my Auntie at 75.

She showed me what a retired life for a senior is like. It is an unkind world out there.

I was lost in my thought bubbles while my cousin drove us home.

What would my retirement life look like… beyond the money?

I will need to speak to more retirees to figure that out.

Echoing Felicia C. Sullivan’s recent piece on Ageism.

I recommend this piece for a full, solid 4 minutes worth of deep thinking.