Friendship and Connections

By Susan B. Geffen

I just read two articles in the Journal from the American Society on Aging.  Each underscores how important it is to stay engaged. By now, I have drummed this into your head as a means of maintaining healthy brain function, but I have not discussed the impact it has on your basic mortality. 

The first article was about how continually striving to create friendships are the secret to a longer and happier life. After having cared for her sick mother, the author posed this question "who would be there to help me when and if I needed it?"    

She was never married and had no children. She set out to find answers and found out that friendship networks were often referred to as a "behavioral vaccine."  

She cited a ten year Australian study on aging that demonstrated that close friendships have a dramatic effect on longevity.  Another study revealed that proximity and frequency of contact with a friend was associated with higher breast cancer survival rates. Click here to read the rest of this article.

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Why Everyone Needs a Financial Advisor

by Liz Schiller, Retirement Benefits Consulting

When we're young, if we're thinking ahead, we start saving for the future. We put money into the 401(k) at work, or maybe we start an IRA. We pick some investments that we think will grow.

As we know, the market has ups and downs. The long term trajectory of the stock market, historically, has been upward, on average. 

But there have been periods when the market was flat, and periods when the market went down. Sometimes it has gone down quite a bit, like in 2008 when the market dropped almost 40 percent.

If you were 35 or 40 in 2008 and your retirement savings took a hit, it hurt, but you knew you were not going to retire tomorrow, or next year, or even the year after that. And the amount in your retirement savings may have seemed like a lot, but it was not the end of the story.

When you're in your 50s or 60s and you're getting closer to retirement, there's a lot more at stake. A 40 percent drop in your retirement assets can mean a big change in your plans.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

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