Boomers in Debt

An article in USA Today this morning talks about Baby Boomers saddled with debt, but it is another example of "fun with numbers," that is, using the numbers to prove whatever point they're trying to make. (In this particular case, it is a very long lead-in to what people with large debt should do to get out from under.)

The chart they present says that 80% of the 66 million Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, have debt and the median for all is approximately $70,000. The text of the article, however, states that "one-third have no debt; the middle third have $37,500 in overall debt; and the top third have $200,000 in debt."

Okay, so let's flip this on its head: Sixty-six percent of the Boomers have less than $19,000 in debt. Not an insignificant amount, but certainly not an indication of a generation drowning in red ink.

And let's take some of the rest of the chart apart:
Forty-seven percent of the Boomers have mortgages with a median debt of $90,000. Some portion of the third of the generation with $37,500 in debt must have mortgages. Unless your house is under water -- worth less than what you owe -- you could sell it and pay off the balance due. Debt erased.
Thirty-five percent have car loans with a median of $14,000. I bought a new car in 2013 and financed part of it  at 0% because the dealer knocked a chunk off the price if I did. So I am one of many who had an auto loan and I am sure I wasn't alone in doing this. Real debt or artificially created?

The article then goes on with the usual advice for the 33% of Boomers who are saddled with the large amount of debt., including "increase your income" and "pay off high-interest debt first."

Yes, I'm sure those would be a good start, but let's go right to the core: "Spend less than you earn!" If you had practiced this all along, you would probably be where the other 66% of the Boomers are.

So, How's Retirement?

The number one question I'm asked these days involves my being retired. Doesn't matter whether the person asking is retired as well, nearing retirement, or decades away from it, the inquiry centers on my departure from the work-a-day world.

Though I retired on March 31st, the first couple of months felt more like a long vacation than the end of having to go to work. By the time I'd wrapped up some audits and other odds and ends that carried over at the office, April was pretty much gone. I spent a lot of time in May working in the back yard, the major project being the removal and resetting of about half the pavers of the patio. Playing volleyball at the beach, doing voluntary Notary Public duties at the library, and establishing the weekly Men Seeking Pizza lunch group gave the weeks structure. And, before I knew it, it was the end of June and time to go teach at CTY.

Now that my summer teaching stint is over, I'm in full onset retirement mode. (As the session ended, my various colleagues at CTY were boasting or bemoaning that they had one week or two or three before they had to go back to work. After many years of saying, "I go back to work on Monday," I was able, this year, to say, "I go back in 46 weeks." which is when CTY starts in 2016.)

There's still volleyball, notarizing, and pizza lunches, along with various regular and not-so-often chores around the house. There's a list of indoor things I intend to do once the weather turns cooler, but right now I'm taking advantage of the sunshine and the pool and getting lots of reading done. I can stay up and watch west coast baseball games or an extra episode of whatever DVD set I'm binging on -- it's currently Season 3 of The X-Files -- without having to worry about getting up early. And, unless I've got an appointment for a platelet donation, there's no need to set the alarm clock.

So, how's retirement?  So far, so good.

Highlights of CTY 2015

CTY 2015 is done and all the staff members and students are back in the real world. As always, the six weeks seemed incredibly long yet passed remarkably quickly. Among the things that happened this time around...

* My long-time "camp pal" Scott Dodd, who has been our Academic Dean for a decade, wrapped up his final CTY summer. He's heading for a full-year position in his home school district which will preclude his return to Chestertown. We had a very nice retirement dinner for him, along with some fun roasting of the guest of honor.

"Mr. R" and Scott Dodd (photo by Olivia Maldonado)

The CTY 2015 Second Session Instructional Staff

* Despite some periods of pre-teen angst, my second session students were able to do a second-best-record 86 assignments. These included a wide varieties of poems, fiction exercises, news stories, advertisements, and even tales of a haunted painting in the classroom upstairs.

* During an activity period, a superhero trivia quiz I had intended to run turned into a one-student oration of his personal reviews of every comic book-inspired movie and TV show from the past thirty years. Then he proceeded to tell me what he expects to happen in all the upcoming movies and TV shows, after which the period was (thankfully) over and he had to go back to his dorm.

* The volleyball court we'd been playing on for the past two years got paved over to make way for a new dorm building. Our replacement, a backyard setup of poles and net, just wasn't the same, so our VB playing was seriously curtailed.

* Among the words of wisdom uttered in the classroom:
    + "Do you like cheese on your cheeseburger?"
    + "What other types of persuasive writing are there?" "Verbal?"
    + "Hey, where did my pants go?"
    + "Why are you biting your notebook?"
    + "Algae has to pee too."
    + "Girls are more scientifically prone to lying."

A Visit from Alex

Alex and Papa sport newly cut hair.

  I drove home from CTY Friday night to spend Saturday with my favorite little buddy. He arrived with his parents on the train  in the late morning and, after lunch and a failed attempt at a nap, we set out on our adventures.

  At the top of the list were haircuts for all the men. ("First I get a haircut, then I get a lollipop, and then we go to McDonalds.") I don't know if it was the first time that the barbershop had three generations there at the same time, but it was a first for us. With Chuck in the chair next to us, Alex sat on my lap while the barber ("His name is Alex too!") cut his hair. After they were both done, it was Papa's turn; my haircut is the quickest since a) it's all done with the clipper on one setting and b) there's a whole part of my head that doesn't have any hair any more.

  Alex did get his lollipop -- a yellow one -- and then we stopped at the drugstore to pick up a prescription. As it turned out, they had a free lollipop jar. Alex did not pick one for himself, since he already had one, but chose ones for Chuck and me. (He eventually ate them for us.)

  We went to McDonalds and Alex got his Happy Meal, but managed to eat only the french fries and one bite of the burger. (The rest  came home and became his Sunday lunch.)

  Back home, he spent time playing in his sandbox and swimming pool with Grandma, who was then able to get him to take the long-delayed nap.

  A variety of other activities filled the time before and after dinner, including making pudding with Mommy, reviewing all the toys in the basement with Daddy, and making Play-Doh spaghetti and french fries with Papa.

  He then decided it was time to go outside with the chalk and some of his trucks. Alex's current favorite is the firetruck, which is always driving off to deal with emergencies. He had me draw a road on the driveway for the firetruck to travel on. Then I had to add a fire station for it to park in, along with a cat in a tree and a house on fire.

The firetruck drives off to rescue a cat in a tree.

Alex and the firetruck go off-road through the Papa Tunnel.

  After a snack and his bath, it was time for a story and bed. It should be noted that Papa's default story is about a little boy named Alex and what he did that day. It took awhile for him to get settled, but then he slept through...
  ...till 5:00 a.m., when he was wide awake and proceeded to tell Papa stories and all of his plans for the day.

"Hi! Welcome to CTY!"

   This is CTY's twentieth year at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland and over the two decades, I have greeted thousands of students and their families during registration.
   "The Bob Table," as it is sometimes called, has been part of the registration procedure for as long as I can recall. In the early days, it was where parents dropped off forms they had forgotten to fill out or turn in and signed up their children to attend religious services on the weekends.
   It evolved into the "Answers Table." When parents asked where they might be able to purchase something they'd forgotten to bring, what the best route out of C'town was, or where they could get a meal before heading home, CTY staffers would respond, "See that man in the pink shirt? He'll know." (Once an Answer Man, always an Answer Man!)
   These days, I sign up parents for their last-day conferences with the instructors, collect forms, and still answer questions. But my favorite part is seeing my prior-year students back for another CTY summer, many of whom have gone through growth spurts in the intervening period.
   And, occasionally, there is a long-ago student whose younger sibling is now taking a course. It is a delight to see them again, though there have been a couple of times when "I'm so glad to see you're still here!" came across as "Wow! You're still alive!"
   (I guess I deserve that for telling them that I'm the one who told Thomas Jefferson we should buy Louisiana and that I charged up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt.)