Poor People Don’ t Retire
By Ashley Barnett
A few years ago I had a light bulb moment when I realized something about aging. I was standing outside of Costco waiting for it to open( because that’ s the only reasonable time to go to Costco) with a good-sized group of retired folks. I was standing there looking at all these people and thought to myself“ See, I don’ t really need to lose weight right now because everyone gets thin when they get old.”
I’ m sorry … what?!
That was a huge slap in the face for me. I had been carrying around this underlying unquestioned idea that somehow when you got old you magically got thin. It really had never occurred to me that, for the most part, fat people don’ t get old. That’ s why you don’ t see very many fat old people.
That correction in my thinking made me get a lot more serious about my health.
Then I flipped it around to see what I could learn from this in other areas … areas like finance. Maybe this explains some people’ s reluctance to save for retirement? I bet there are people out there who believe that somehow getting old makes you rich, just like I thought getting old somehow made you skinny. So I’ m here to challenge that thinking.
The Quarter Roll Spring 2013 8