New Life Tasks in Retirement

In the past month, I've been learning about the new complexities to deal with in retirement.  Not that the complexities didn't exist before, they were less extensive.   Here are some of my new complexities so far:

1. Medical.  I've never been one to go to the doctor much.  In my youth, most of my visits were to the emergency room for rugby injuries.  After adopting our daughter, there was an uptick in medical visits, but these were covered as routine visits.  Recently, I've been seeing specialists for a variety of reasons.  My new process now is to call the insurance company to confirm the provider is covered "in network" and what the exact cost will be.  That way I won't get an unpleasant surprise.  In addition, I've needed to call the insurance company and billing departments to determine how "non covered" tests are paid.  (Answer, the provider absorbs the cost since they are in network.)
2. Executor. As an executor of my parents' estate, I have learned more than I ever want to know about inheritance, transferring assets and working with financial institutions.  Hopefully, I can put my new knowledge to use in simplifying my estate for my executor.  In addition, I realized that estate planning will become important again with estate tax thresholds being lowered with the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts.
3. Income management.  When I retired in 2007, my company stock was at an all-time high and projected to grow 6% a year.   I expected to live off gains from my stock for at 10 years.  The Great Recession changed that.  Since I didn't have a pension,  I  realized I needed to more sources of income streams and have expanded to more sources than capital gains.

Of the three, the task I dislike the most is the Medical area.  It seems most of the new work I need is to deal with the health care bureaucracy, which will likely be made worse by Obamacare.   So the working the medical area only keeps me from losing benefits I should be getting.  The other two area have some upside potential for working on them.  So the extra work has potential to be productive.

For more on New Beginnings, check back every Sunday for a new segment.


This is not financial advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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