Posts about living in, understanding, and finding the best of mavenhood.
The Digital Magazine
Financial planning for retirement usually starts with a number: how much you need, and by when. It should start with what you actually want your life to look like. The Math of One looks at choices driven by one income, whether you’ve never married, are divorced, or are the sole earner in your household.
Building a solid financial plan around your priorities means the key question is bigger than the standard “whether you’ll have enough” for retirement.
What do you have in mind for the next five years, your 50s, 60s and 70s? Will the money you have and the money you continue to earn support the life you have in mind? Which choices become available at different points along the way?
Aiming to travel extensively changes the numbers, as does keeping your current home, downsizing, moving somewhere more expensive or maintaining two residences to live a “snow-bird” lifestyle. The same applies to leaving a demanding career, continuing to work because you enjoy it, giving money away, investing in a business or spending more during the years when you expect to be doing the most.
The choices included in the plan will inform spending, savings and investment targets, which might vary each year. If you want to travel extensively for ten years, maintain two homes for part of your retirement or make a major purchase at 60, putting those plans on paper will clarify what’s required and how these choices affect everything else.
By midlife, there are a number of expected and familiar milestones: a retirement number, a healthy investment portfolio, enough cash to handle the unexpected, a plan for Social Security and a general idea of when you want to stop working. While your choices create a target, and sometimes it’s a moving one, hitting the goal as a solo earner means running the numbers behind the checklist differently.
In The Math of One, most of the calculations change, and one of the biggest is concentrated income risk. If you’re the sole earner in your household and your income stops, 100 percent of the household’s earned income stops with it. That makes the standard three-to-six-month emergency fund an interesting number to question.
How long would it take to replace your income at roughly the same level? At 45, that answer can look very different for a corporate executive, a physician, a freelancer or the owner of a company. The answer is also likely to be different at 50, 55 and 60.
The number that matters most is the amount of time your cash and other readily available resources can buy without forcing another financial decision before you’re ready to make it.
Disability coverage is another part of the calculation. The percentage of income a policy replaces, how long benefits last and whether coverage follows you when you leave a job are all pieces to consider. If leaving a corporate position, starting a business or moving into consulting is on the agenda, employer-sponsored coverage is one of the benefits worth pricing into the decision.¹
Retirement plans introduce another set of calculations for the Math of One.
Fidelity’s widely used benchmark puts retirement savings at six times your salary by 50 and eight times your salary by 60.² This offers a quick number for comparison, but a personalized solo retirement plan needs to determine how much income accumulated assets can support over the years post-retirement.
Accumulated assets, projected spending, Social Security, taxes and longevity all feed the same retirement-income calculations. Running the numbers at different ages can produce a more useful midlife milestone than whether you’ve hit the savings benchmark above: the date your current level of earned income is no longer required to support the plan. Knowing when you’d essentially be free to move on, e.g. with the option to leave a corporate job, step down as the head of your company, move into consulting, work fewer days, or retire is a key piece of information.
Social Security is part of the retirement numbers. For someone who never married, the calculation is based on your own earnings record and the age you choose to claim. If you’re divorced and your marriage lasted at least ten years, it is worth running the numbers under both your own earnings record and the rules governing benefits based on a former spouse’s record. Survivor benefits can also apply after divorce.³
For either, claiming age is a financial lever. Benefits can begin at 62, increase with later claiming and reach their maximum at 70.⁴ Running those numbers alongside portfolio withdrawals, taxes and other retirement income shows how each claiming age affects the larger plan.
Taxes become particularly important when the plan starts moving from accumulating money to using it. A Roth conversion, the sale of appreciated investments or a withdrawal from a traditional retirement account all add taxable income in different ways, making the amount and timing of income from year to year part of the Math of One.
The years between leaving a high-earning position and taking Social Security or required minimum distributions can create room for Roth conversions, realizing capital gains or taking money from your taxable and tax-deferred accounts. Each decision can be measured against the tax brackets and Medicare income thresholds that apply to a single filer.⁵ Coordinating those decisions across several years can reduce the amount you pay in taxes over the course of retirement.
Long-term care is another place where the assumptions behind the plan can substantially change the numbers. The financial calculation needs to include the amount of paid care your assets and insurance are intended to support, along with the effect that expense would have on the rest of the portfolio.
By midlife, that calculation can be run against several levels of care and several lengths of time, using current costs as the starting point and accounting for future increases. The result becomes part of the retirement target rather than an expense considered separately years later.
There’s one more part of financial planning that’s about authority rather than accumulation.
A durable financial power of attorney, healthcare proxy and the people or professionals responsible for administering an estate need to be selected rather than assumed. In some states, a spouse has automatic legal standing to make medical decisions and may have default rights to an estate without any paperwork in place. Someone who isn’t married shouldn’t assume the people they’d choose will have that authority; explicitly naming them is part of the process.
The person given authority needs enough information to act, understand where accounts and records are held, and have whatever access the documents are designed to provide.⁶ These appointments don’t need to go to the same person; financial affairs, healthcare decisions and responsibility for an estate can be assigned according to the people best suited to each.
The Math of One doesn’t require a separate version of every familiar financial milestone. The differences are concentrated in the places where one financial unit changes the calculation.
There are useful numbers alongside the familiar question of how much you’ve accumulated: how long your resources can carry the plan through an interruption in income, when your current level of earned income is no longer necessary, how different Social Security claiming dates affect your plan, how taxes will affect your retirement income, what the life you want will actually cost, and how much capital you want available for care.
In the Math of One, those are the numbers that tell you what your financial position actually allows you to do in the future.
This article is for general informational and discussion purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, legal or estate planning advice. Consult a qualified professional before making decisions based on your own circumstances.
Footnotes
- Disability insurance coverage varies by policy, including the definition of disability, percentage of income replaced, benefit period and portability. Employer-sponsored coverage can end when employment ends.
- Fidelity Investments uses retirement savings guideposts of approximately six times annual salary by age 50 and eight times by age 60, with individual targets affected by retirement age and expected spending.
- Social Security Administration rules allow qualifying divorced spouses to receive benefits based on a former spouse’s earnings record when the marriage lasted at least ten years and other eligibility requirements are met. Separate rules govern survivor benefits for qualifying divorced spouses.
- Social Security retirement benefits can begin at age 62. Monthly benefits increase with later claiming and reach their maximum at age 70.
- Federal income-tax brackets and Medicare income-related premium thresholds vary by filing status. Roth conversions, realized capital gains and withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement accounts can affect taxable income and, at applicable income levels, future Medicare premiums.
- Powers of attorney, healthcare directives, executor and trustee appointments, and the authority granted under those documents are governed by state law and the terms of the applicable documents.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Peri/menopause has so many symptoms. Your gynecologist and primary doctor will probably talk with you about the most common symptoms. Maybe you have a great doc who will take time to really talk through your experiences with you. But chances are, they won’t touch on one major part of you that changes. Something you use every day, whether you’re in the privacy of your home or in a workplace or out with friends or at the gym.
Of course, hot flashes are the hallmark of this time of life, and sometimes appear with their cousin, night sweats. We also hear about insomnia, dry skin, loss of muscle tone, and period changes. But chances are, you won’t hear about the changes that happen to your voice.
You might notice that you have an urge to clear your throat more often. Or your voice doesn’t show up for you the way you’re used to: maybe it sticks or catches, or it feels gravelly instead of smooth. It’s just not there for you, the way it used to be.
Your voice is your identity.
Your voice isn’t just sound waves carrying words to others’ ears. The sound of your voice is the culmination of your life experiences: dialects and word choices influenced by the places you’ve lived. Inflection and pitch range from the culture you’ve embraced (and rejected). Your unique voice is a primary means of expressing your ideas, your passions, your knowledge.
Like losing libido, what does it mean for you, as a person, when your voice changes? When you lose the ease of expression that you rely on to connect with your colleagues, family, and friends? And more importantly, how can you reclaim it?
Thanks to the rise of visibility and more people talking about perimenopause, it’s pretty common to hear about everything drying out. Yep, your skin needs more lotion, your eyes need drops, you drink more water, and your OBGYN recommends lube. But consider this: not only do those tender folds of pleasure dry out, but also the tender folds of your voice box. Is drinking more water enough? Not quite.
Your vocal cords are thin, delicate tissues, and they lose elasticity in perimenopause, just like your skin and muscles do. So, in addition to caring for your muscles by eating more protein and lifting weights, your voice needs a little workout, too. (Don’t worry, we’re talking small adjustments, not a huge time commitment.)
Aging doesn’t have to weaken your ability to communicate.
Voice teachers around the world in their 70’s and 80’s have voices that are not only strong, they’re melodious, mellifluous. Their voices aren’t weak or creaky or hard to hear. They command the room with rich resonance and warm, round tones. They are heard easily, without pushing for volume.
In fact, now that you’re in the prime of your life, you have more worth saying. Your experience has given you wisdom worth hearing. So how can you reclaim your voice? How can you expand your ability to express yourself?
The answer, like so many things in midlife, is to take a little more care of yourself. Yes, drink more water and (try your best to) get a good night’s sleep.
But you can also go right to the source. Address the problem where it lives: in your vocal anatomy. Just as we need to exercise our muscles more to maintain their tone, the same is true for your voice.
Vocal care is self care.
Reclaiming your vocal power isn’t about fighting the aging process, it’s about giving your body the support it needs to express your ideas and emotions with your full self. A few quick additions to your daily routine can make a world of difference in how your voice feels and sounds all day long. Here are three touchpoints during your day to support your voice.
Start with 2 minutes in the morning.
Instead of hurtling from sleep to full-voice speaking, wake up your voice gently. You can do these while you’re in the shower or fixing your coffee, without adding minutes to your morning routine.
- Start with yawning. Yawning is for your voice like stretching before a workout. It opens the interior spaces that create resonance. It reminds your jaw how to fully open. (If you have TMJ or if you clench or grind at night, put your fist below your chin to create a little resistance when you yawn. This keeps the jaw aligned and prevents over-extending the jaw.) And bonus, yawning gets your breath moving deeper into your lungs, reminding your body how much breath capacity you really have. As you yawn, give your body a stretch, too. Doesn’t matter how, just whatever feels good to you. For example, raise your arms above your head like a cartoon yawning; open your chest; round your back; roll your wrists or flex your feet.
- Lightly hum. Put your lips together and with your teeth apart, and let a gentle hum happen. It can be a sighing hmmm or it can be an easy little tune that you make up. The important thing is to keep it easy. Don’t push into your highest or lowest notes, and don’t try to make it loud. This little hum is just for you.
- Wake up your face. Stretch your lips forward into a kiss and back into a wide smile, back and forth a few times. Pretend to chew a big bite of your favorite food. Pucker up your whole face, squeezing your eyes tight, then open eyes and mouth wide and stick out your tongue on an exhale. Sometimes we hold our breath with effort, but keep breathing as you do these to maximize the good effects.
Practice with mid-day tips.
Whether you sit at a desk for a while without speaking, or you’re speaking throughout your day, your voice will want a reset now and then. If you’re talking a lot, you may feel fatigue. If you’re not speaking at all, you may find your voice has “gone to sleep” and needs to wake up again. Here are a few tips to make sure your voice is focused and steady.
- Fully inhale before you speak. It seems like you wouldn’t have to remind your body that it needs air, but so many of us start speaking without the support that a deep breath gives us. Think of your lungs as a gas tank. Do you try to speak on a half tank? Quarter? Eighth? Aim for filling your lungs ¾ full or more before you begin to speak.
- Aim your voice.Touch your fingertip tothat space just below your nose and above your upper lip (the philtrum). If your voice doesn’t feel smooth coming out, or if people can’t hear you, think of your voice like a laser beam, traveling out through that spot toward the person/people you’re talking with.
Add 60 seconds to your nighttime routine.
It might seem ridiculous to prep your voice for sleep, but your voice likes a cool-down just as much as your muscles do after a workout. Just add this to your bedtime routine. This is simple, easy, soothing and you can do it when you’re already in bed!
- Face massage. A gentle massage for those muscles that have been creating your facial expressions all day. You can pat, tap, or make gentle circles with your fingertips. Be sure to give a little attention to the muscles in the jaw hinge, just in front of your earlobes.
- Sigh. Nothing tricky here, just take in a deep breath and sigh it out on a gentle “ahhh.” If you’re inspired to, let it turn into a yawn or add full-body stretches. You can also let your sighs end in a hum.
By weaving these gentle practices into your daily routines, vocal care becomes second nature, like brushing your teeth. When you care for your voice a little bit every day, that investment pays off every time you speak.
Midlife changes often feel like an onslaught of surprises happening to you. Vocal care is something proactive that you can do for yourself. Taking care of your voice honors the instrument that carries your story. It helps you ensure that your presence stays as vibrant as your experience. And it just plain feels good, too. Luxuriate in little moments of caring for your voice, and enjoy the fuller range of sound that lets you communicate with ease.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
