Human mortality is a touchy subject especially when you hit the half-century mark. Thanks to a friend, I developed a morbid fascination of reading the daily newspapers backwards from the sports page and stopping at the obituary columns to scan through all the persons listed there. When a see a familiar face, I will feel sad and share with friends. But I am mainly looking at the average age of death and wondering how many more years I have on planet earth.
A few weeks back, we started to talk about this topic in a business lunch discussion. One of the guys just became a new father at the ripe age of 52. When his daughter graduates, he would have been in his mid-seventies. While we worry about how much time we have left, he went the opposite way and asked the question: “What if we live to 100 instead?”.
If we still have so much time left, what are we going to do from now till then? With medical advances nowadays, issues like dementia are expected to be solved in the next 10 years. We might even find a cure for cancer soon.
If one looks around, we can see many more very active +80 year old senior citizens still having a hunger for life and having more energy than most +50 “youngsters”… In the US House and Senate, you see career politicians going right into their 90s. Most 70-year-olds now seems to be able to lead active lifestyles. My parents are 90 and 85 this year and they are still relatively mobile and continue to take overseas vacations periodically. The latest census for Singapore shows that the average life expectancy is around 83/84. We are already number 3 in the world. In 2000, it was 78. So we have steadily increased over the last 20 years by another 5 years.
While we live life to its fullest, what if we survived to 100? Do we have the funds to outlast our mortality? Hopefully, the kids will be able to support the parents, but that is not a given. The government is trying to implement pension plans called CPF life. But would the monthly amounts receive in 10 years time be sufficient then as inflation kicks in?
One has to actively plan for one’s retirement years as soon as possible. Put assets into 10-year buckets to utilize in different future periods – 55 to 65, 65 to 75, 75 to 85 etc. Some say that you should utilize 4% of your retirement funds per year and with some compounding, it can last for +20 years. If you set aside to use $8k per mth, then you will need just under $100k per year. So $1 million will last you 10 years. Cashing in of some insurance policies in the future will also net you some cash flow and having some passive income from rental income and REIT dividends will provide more cushion.
Money aside, one will also need to keep the mind active and sharp. Constant exercise is good and having a life long learning attitude is healthy. We need to constantly seek new “adventures” and have goals to strive for, in order to make this life interesting and bearable.
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