One of my daughters (to remain unnamed!) got into a fender bender with our 2010 Toyota Camry back in February.
That car had treated us well over the years. I had picked it up after our previous Camry got totaled in a collision with a deer on the way home from Calgary a few years ago. It had only 140,000 km or so on it and was running great, as Camry’s are known to do.
Unfortunately, SGI didn’t value it as much as I did. They took an average of several vehicles on the market and based on that average, they decided it wasn’t worth repairing the roughly $8,000 in damages.
(Sigh…) Back to vehicle shopping. Thankfully we found a replacement vehicle for roughly the same dollar amount as our settlement from SGI.
When I think of averages I always remember hearing about Jeanne Calment.
She was born in France in 1875 and lived until the ripe old age of 122 years and 164 days, before dying in 1997.
She met Vincent van Gogh and watched the first space shuttle launch! What an amazing life, especially considering the average lifespan in France is about 82 years!
You may have heard the counsel to plan for retirement based on the average lifespan.
Dangerous.
Could your lifestyle hold up through those extra 40 years of retirement?
The concept of “average” or “normal” life expectancy literally means that HALF the people are dead by that age.
Therefore, it also means that half the people are still ALIVE!
For Jeanne (and you and me, I hope), it means many more years of lifestyle that your retirement monies must support.
A recent report estimated that only 1-out-of-2 soon-to-be retirees will have sufficient assets to last their lifetimes. Some Baby Boomers have decided that they will just work until they die because they don’t have a choice.
Why no choice?
They may have received the wrong advice. Maybe they didn’t plan. Maybe they were sold the wrong product. Either way, the sooner you know, the more choices you have.
It never hurts to get a second opinion and find out if you’re good beyond the averages.
