THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2019 NY F3
Parents spending days chasing young chil-
dren around will complain that they feel far
older than their years. But their parents — if
they have their health and a bit of wealth —
are just as likely to say how young and vital
they feel, better than they imagined 60, 70 or
even 80 could be.
Older people’s ability to proclaim their
youth, strength and all-around-great lives
appears to be thriving. But the age you feel,
as opposed to the years you’ve accumulat-
ed, affects how you think about your money,
many experts now believe. They say it influ-
ences how people save, spend, donate and
plan what to leave to heirs.
This effect isn’t confined to the 1 percent
— or even people who are just comfortably
upper middle class. Chip Conley, founder of
the Modern Elder Academy, said research
had found that as long as they are in good
health, even those in the lower middle class
reassess their finances in their 50s to pre-
pare for longer lives than they might have
expected.
Such a reset is not a one-time thing. By
their 70s, even rock ‘n’ roll legends are
aware of their audiences’ focus on not outliv-
ing their money. The current tour of the sep-
tuagenarian Rolling Stones is sponsored by
the Alliance for Lifetime Income, the trade
organization for the annuity business.
Ken Dychtwald, chief executive of Age
Wave, which does research and consults
with businesses on aging, said he was pleas-
antly surprised by how great the Stones
sounded after a recent concert, but he was
equally surprised by their sponsor: a group
of some 35 companies whose main product
aims to provide retirees with a pensionlike
monthly check.
Sex, drugs and a guaranteed annuity? For
the Stones, at least, it seems to work — and
enable Mick Jagger to continue performing
with the gusto of a rocker a third his age.
That pragmatic drive to keep enjoying life
is what prompts people to alter their finan-
cial decision-making based on how old they
feel, not a wishful denial of their true age,
Mr. Conley said.
While chronological age is fixed and the
age you feel is largely in your mind, the reali-
ty is that men and women are living longer,
affluent men are living longer still and afflu-
ent women are living the longest of all. But
retiring at 65 and living out your years on
what you have saved isn’t possible for many
people; it also doesn’t make financial sense
and could impair their longevity, re-
searchers said.
So people who feel fit are acting much dif-
ferently, working longer or taking on side
projects to supplement their savings.
They’re doing this while traveling and en-
joying themselves. In a sense they’re doing
what twenty-somethings can do without
fear.
“People who feel fit and that they’re at the
top of their game will probably imagine that
they have a long horizon in front of them,”
Mr. Dychtwald, 69, said. “That’s good news
and bad news. They may not fall prey to an
illness, but they’re going to live a long time,
so they’ll need more money.”
Peter Kent, an engineer who built and ran
multiple tech companies over the years
from the 6,000-acre residential community
Luther Forest in upstate New York, is still
president and a board member of AptaMa-
trix, a sensor technology company.
He said he stopped working full time a
few years ago. But that was only because he
had other interests he wanted to pursue.
Mr. Kent and his wife, Pilar Moyano, a re-
tired professor of Spanish at Union College
in Schenectady, N.Y., live in St. Petersburg,
Fla., and travel frequently. They also are
part of a lifelong learning group at Eckerd
College for retired senior professionals.
“I’m 75, but I feel like 60,” he said. When
asked how he felt 15 years ago, he said:
“When I was 60 I was working for a start-
up, and we were just having fun. Start-ups
don’t have a lot of money, but I felt like I was
making a contribution and I was having
fun.”
The couple is also in an enviable spot: He
calculates they have enough money to live
comfortably for 30 more years. He at-
tributes that to an experience at the first
company he started, Kent Engineering,
where some weeks he worried if he would
be able to make payroll.
“That was very scary, and I decided that
wasn’t a very comfortable position to be in,”
Mr. Kent said.
Mr. Conley said many of the people who
are older but spend their money in a youth-
ful way — on things that are meaningful tothem but not frivolous — have at some point
gone through what he calls a “great midlife
edit.”
Usually around 55, the edit helps them
pare back all that they accumulated in the
first phase of their life, and it makes them
more realistic about how they’re going to
live longer and be situated to do so. He said
that paring-back exercise is as common
among lower-middle-class wage-earners
who realize they will have less to live on as it
is upper-middle-class empty-nesters who
downsize from a house to a condo.
“We try to help people understand the
way we live today you’re going to have a lot
of adult life ahead of you, so don’t get caught
up on how Social Security is going to sup-
port you,” Mr. Conley, 58, said. “You’re notgoing to retire at 65. You’re going to have
part-time work by desire or need.”
That reframing helps older people re-
main youthful but pragmatic on financial
decisions. A big part of their shift in percep-
tion is continuing to earn money in some
form much later in life.
“To encourage people to think of working
way into their 70s, we talk about how retir-
ing can be bad for your health,” Mr. Conley
said, mentioning research on longevity
rates and retirement. “People need to build
skills that allow them to build money. They
could be an Airbnb host with a cottage in
their backyard, plus $20,000 from Social Se-
curity and then part-time consulting at
$20,000. That’s enough to live for a very
long time.”
However it’s done, these 60- and 70-year-
olds are not sitting around watching cable
news and waiting for the early bird buffet. If
anything, they’re willing themselves to be
out and about.
What dollar amount might signal com-
fort, if not happiness? That’s like asking
how long is a piece of string. But one rule of
thumb that AARP suggests is an amount
per year around 70 to 80 percent of what
you were earning before.
If, however, you’re planning to travel ex-
tensively, that number may be closer to 100
percent of your pre-retirement income.
The common theme for older people who
can spend money like they’re decades
younger is self-control. Many showed that
self-control when they were younger and
began a habit of saving. Others may be
faced with a sudden and late realization.
“You see people get into binge savings in
their 60s,” said Kelly Goldsmith, associate
professor of marketing at Vanderbilt’s
Owen Graduate School of Management.
“What that suggests to me is as you ap-proach your retirement years, you under-
stand I’m going to be the same person 10
years from now. There is less of a gap be-
tween who you are and what you’re going to
be.”
Ashok Kalro, a retired researcher at Bell
Labs who is a friend of Mr. Kent in St. Peters-
burg, said that at 75 he is far more relaxed
around money than he used to be. At 35, he
said, he was worried about making and sav-
ing enough. At 55, he was concerned about
preserving it. But now, having been disci-
plined during his highest earning years, he
is able to spend like a 25-year-old with little
worry.
“I feel comfortable in spending on what I
need or want,” he said. What holds him back
is a desire to ensure money is left for his
daughter’s family. “It just prevents me from
excess,” he said.
For those who lack much self-control, Ms.
Goldsmith pointed to experiments by Hal
Hershfield at U.C.L.A. and Daniel Bartels at
the University of Chicago, where people
were given virtual reality goggles that let
them see themselves in their 80s. She said
the experience made them more willing to
accept long-term rewards over immediate
ones, changing how they might make deci-
sions about retirement.
Ms. Goldsmith, who has 4-year-old twins,
noted that young parents who complain
about being old have it all wrong. “I say I feel
old all the time,” she said. “But what I really
am is tired. I’m over-scheduled. I’m busy.
But that doesn’t make me related to my 80-
year-old self.”
That fatigue can be a problem, she said,
because of the decisions it provokes. “What I
want to do is rebuild my energetic resources,
which is a nice way of saying indulge my-
self,” she said. “I want to spend money in the
present and restore my energy.”
Compared with past generations, aging
today is a whole new ballgame.
“Younger people have images of their par-
ents and grandparents,” said David Baxter
of Baxter Consulting Group, a marketing
consultant and researcher on aging. “The
important thing to remember is they grew
up with yesterday’s health care and yester-
day’s styles. We have today’s health care
and today’s styles.”
(That 40-something at the beginning of
the 20th century would, indeed, have been
old — with a life expectancy around 47 in
part because of high infant and maternal
mortality. But by the end of the century, that
number had risen to about 79, with an added
bump for nonsmokers and for women.)
And the result is they have changed their
way of thinking and living with the financial
resources they have. “Old age is a new
thing,” Mr. Baxter said. And that requires
people to reimagine how they’re going to
pay for it.By PAUL SULLIVANPeter Kent and Pilar
Moyano on vacation this
month on Cromwell’s
Beach in Honolulu. They
have retired from
full-time employment
and spend much of their
time traveling.The Great Midlife Edit
Reassessing their finances can
empower many to live well longer.
MARCO GARCIA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESHow young you feel can
influence how you
handle your money.
Late last month, Kathleen Eaton of Amelia
Island, Fla., went online to buy a dog. She
found a miniature black schnauzer named
Holly at a site she thought was puppyspot-
.com. She emailed the company and was
told she could get the dog for a discounted
price of $750.
She asked to pay with a credit card, but
was told to wire the money to a Western Un-
ion in Oklahoma City. The company would
then send her information about Holly’s
flight the next day.
“My husband kept saying, ‘I don’t like
this,’ but I didn’t listen,” said Ms. Eaton, 75,
who retired four years ago from a career
managing real estate offices.
She sent the money, and emailed again
that evening asking for the flight number,
but heard nothing. A few days later she
reached out via email and was told that
there had been delays, but that Holly would
be coming soon. Then another email ar-
rived requesting an additional $950 for
health and insurance coverage. “I said:
‘You’re scamming me. I can tell your opera-
tion is phony,’ ” Ms. Eaton recalled.
Ms. Eaton called the police, who are in-
vestigating. Most likely, a website similar to
the one she wanted popped up — a practice
called “spoofing” — and she didn’t realize it.
But one thing is clear: She was scammed.
And she is hardly alone.
“We often hear from empty nesters who
are retired and looking for companionship,
so these scams are ripe for that population,”
said Amy Nofziger, director of AARP’s
Fraud Watch Network Helpline.
The pet scam is one of the latest that older
people fall victim to. In March the Depart-
ment of Justice described criminal cases in-
volving nearly $700 million lost in the previ-
ous year by about two million people. The
ones hit hardest by this kind of fraud are
over 70, and they experience an average
loss of $41,800, the Consumer Financial Pro-
tection Bureau reports.
“Those numbers are underreported be-
cause many times seniors are so embar-
rassed,” said Anna Maria Chavez, executive
vice president and chief growth officer at
the National Council on Aging.
In other instances, people have no idea
that anything is amiss until a collection
agency calls to tell them a payment is delin-
quent. “That’s when they discover that
their credit card or Social Security number
has been stolen,” Ms. Chavez said.
Besides the pet scam, some of the newer
tactics for defrauding older people focus on
Social Security, grandparenting and em-
ployment searches.
Since 2014, nearly 1.3 million reports have
been filed with the Federal Trade Commis-
sion about callers pretending to be from the
Social Security Administration, Health and
Human Services, the Internal Revenue
Service, the police or the F.B.I., according to
a commission report in July.
“We just had a client who received a
phone call claiming there were criminal
charges against her over her mortgage,”
said Stacy Francis, the president and chief
executive of Francis Financial in New York.
The client was being pushed to pay to get
the charges dropped.
“She immediately called us and her mort-
gage broker, who we introduced her to, to
figure out this problem,” Ms. Francis said.
“After some initial panic and chaos on her
end, we were able to assure and calm herthat it was a scam.”
Deceptive callers might tell victims that
their Social Security numbers had been sus-
pended, or that they owed back taxes and
must pay immediately or face jail time. Usu-
ally, they require cash or a prepaid gift card
as payment.
Similarly, with the grandparent scam, the
victim receives a phone call or email from a
“grandchild” who has been in an accident or
is in trouble with the law and needs money —
typically gift cards or cash sent through
Western Union.
Another report from the Federal Trade
Commission noted that last year, people of all
ages reported median individual losses of
$2,000 to these sorts of “family and friend im-
postors.” But for people over 70, the figure
was $9,000.
With the employment scam, impostors
post fake jobs, usually in sales and telecom-
munications, for which applicants submit
their Social Security numbers and other per-
sonal information. “They might actually
work for a few months before realizing the
whole thing is fraudulent,” Ms. Nofziger said.Fraud capitalizing on natural disasters is
also rampant among older people, who may
be barraged with requests to donate or to
hand over financial information to fake
charities. Many of the supposed charities
have names similar to existing ones, or
phone numbers with Washington’s 202 area
code. Or they might say they are working
with the I.R.S. to help victims get tax re-
funds or file claims.
A flip side of scams feeding on people’s
largess are those that offer unexpected
windfalls. Eight years ago, Mildred
Gedraitis, then in her mid-80s, got a mes-
sage that she had won a sparkling new Mer-
cedes; all she had to do was pay the taxes on
it, and she could drive it home to Rochester.
That’s what the nice man on the phone had
told her, anyway, and that’s what she in-
formed Jay Bellanca, her nephew.
Mr. Bellanca, now 67, was confused. “I
said, ‘This doesn’t sound right,’ ” he re-
called.
It wasn’t right. Instead of a prize, it was
the start of a long-term ruse involving wire
transfers through Western Union to a man
in Jamaica, whom Ms. Gedraitis had never
met, only spoken to on the phone.
It was especially puzzling to her family:
“She had always been tight with money,”
said Mr. Bellanca, a retired engineer in Sa-
lem, N.Y.
By the time Ms. Gedraitis died in 2015 at
92 with severe dementia, she had lost
nearly $350,000 to the fraud and was
$190,000 in debt. Her estate is still unset-
tled.
“My aunt would show up at a Walmart or
a Tops store, hobble up in her walker with
seven or eight thousand in cash to get a
money order to go to Jamaica,” he said.
“The problem is that elder folks lose some of
their cognitive ability to identify things, and
they get scammed.”
Ms. Eaton, who thought she was going on
puppyspot.com, still hasn’t gotten a dog or
her money back. PuppySpot’s chief admin-
istrative officer and general counsel, Josh
Kreinberg, said the company accepts only
credit cards and PayPal, never cash, West-
ern Union, Moneygram or other such meth-
ods of payment.
Ms. Eaton is still reeling from the experi-
ence. “I thought I was scamproof,” she said,
“till my heartstrings got tugged.”When a Schnauzer Is a Scam
With ever-changing tactics,
swindlers prey on older people.
By ABBY ELLINEven that email from
your grandson may be
no such thing.
JEAN-MANUEL DUVIVIER