Working 9 to 5 ’til 95?

Our 2 Cents – Episode #169

Working 9 to 5 ’til 95?

Welcome back to Our 2 Cents! Steve and Gabriel are back this week with some interesting topics, including the latest news from the Federal Reserve, the rising cost of car insurance, and the importance of staying active and engaged in retirement.

1. What’s Up? Car Insurance Costs!:
   • Over the past 12 months car insurance costs have gone up nearly 21%. So, what gives?
   • We’ll share the three main reasons that are driving up prices.
   • Plus, things you can consider to help keep your car insurance costs down.
2. Working 9 to 5 ’til 95?:
   • The story of a 101-year-old woman who continues to work, but it isn’t for the money.
   • Why she says her long career has prolonged her life and happiness.
   • The importance of staying socially connected and engaged to maintain cognitive health and overall well-being in retirement.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: You are listening to Our 2 Cents, with the team from SGL Financial, building wealth for life. Steve Lewit is the president of SGL Financial and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest and financial news, trends, strategies, and more.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, hello and welcome back to Our 2 Cents. You’ve got Gabriel here, and Steven here. Welcome to today’s show.

Steve Lewit: I won’t say Steven and dad.

Gabriel Lewit: Steven and dad.

Steve Lewit: Okay.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. I can’t say we’ve got dad here. That would be odd. But I do say we’ve got Steve here and Gabriel.

Steve Lewit: Well, before we came on, you said you have an odd dad, so you could say that.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, he was humming and singing randomly to himself.

Steve Lewit: No, I was singing.

Gabriel Lewit: I think it was gibberish. Who knows what it was.

Steve Lewit: I was singing a song because it made me happy, and I thought it just was nice.

Gabriel Lewit: So, you are feeling happy today?

Steve Lewit: I am very happy.

Gabriel Lewit: Any particular reason?

Steve Lewit: Well, it’s the second day of spring.

Gabriel Lewit: There you go. Okay.

Steve Lewit: And it’s freezing outside.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s not warm, warm yet.

Steve Lewit: No, it’s not.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s warmer.

Steve Lewit: It is warmer.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. We hope you’re doing great. We’ve got a good show lined up for you today, you’ve got a range of different topics here to talk about. Really, to kick things off, we found a very… Well, actually, no. We found a very interesting story, I’m going to save that just for a moment. But also, literally as we speak, and by the time you hear this, we’ll probably know the answer. But the Fed is meeting. Okay? They’re going to decide whether or not to raise or lower or keep rates the same.

Steve Lewit: I will be amazed if they lower rates.

Gabriel Lewit: Not that we’re on social media, but if we were, we would probably do something like #ratewatch or rate watch Fed, something like that. So in other words, we’re going to keep an eye on this for you. And most likely, on our next podcast we will let you know what they did and what that means for you, our valued listeners.

Steve Lewit: And for the stock market.

Gabriel Lewit: And for the market, of course. Okay. Not a lot to say here yet, because we’re not going to prognosticate. Is that the correct usage, prognosticate?

Steve Lewit: Great word. Yes. Yes it is.

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t say that very often.

Steve Lewit: I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say it.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, it just popped in as being the right word for the situation.

Steve Lewit: It shows the level of your education and expertise.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I don’t know about that, but I read some books as a kid and…

Steve Lewit: Well, look, everybody’s looking for the rates to go down. The problem is that inflation hasn’t gone down where the Fed wants it to go down. That’s why I can’t imagine anything is going to change. And I think that the market has discounted all of that already.

Gabriel Lewit: So, to be determined. Stay tuned and tune back next week, we’ll tell you the scoop, or you might see it on the news.

Steve Lewit: For sure.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Well, now moving on to the more… Well, actually, we’ve got a couple main topics for today. Before I get to the really interesting one, we’re going to talk about something… I’m teasing. I’m teasing everybody here.

Steve Lewit: But that’s a terrible tease. You’re saying before we get to the really interesting one, which means that you’re going to talk about something that’s not very interesting.

Gabriel Lewit: No, it just-

Steve Lewit: Which is a turn-off for a listener.

Gabriel Lewit: It is interesting, just not as interesting. So you’ve got to stay tuned to find out what the more interesting topic will be.

Steve Lewit: I would’ve promoted that differently.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, you can do that when you’re the host.

Steve Lewit: Okay.

Gabriel Lewit: All right?

Steve Lewit: Okay, host.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, so we’ve had a lot of people talking to us, of recently. Of late, I should say. Or recently about the cost of their car insurance going up.

Steve Lewit: It’s crazy.

Gabriel Lewit: All right, so we thought we would give a little recap on the state of the car insurance market, options you might have to maybe reduce or pay less, but some of the things you should or shouldn’t do related to that. And then just give you a sense of what’s going on in that part of the insurance world. I thought we would start there.

Steve Lewit: Gabriel, can you make any heads or tails out of how they price car insurance? Because you go from one to the next.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that’s a little beyond my pay grade exactly how they price things internally based on their underwriting and actuarial research.

Steve Lewit: It’s almost as mysterious as your credit score. It’s like, how do you come up with these rates? And then two weeks later you’ll get a different rate.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, to give that a little context, insurance rates for car auto insurance is up, let’s see, 20.6% over the last year. All right, so if you were paying $100 a month, you’d be paying 120. And many people are paying more than that. And the question is, why? What can you do about it? And that’s what we’re going to unpack here a little bit here today.

Steve Lewit: And God forbid you have a young driver on your insurance, it’s crazy what they want to charge for an inexperienced driver under 25 years old.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes, it is. Yeah. I’ve got a number of years before I have to worry about that.

Steve Lewit: But guess who has to worry about it now. You have a brother and sister 22 [inaudible 00:05:10]-

Gabriel Lewit: I told you, make them pay their own insurance, man. [inaudible 00:05:14] Tell them to go out there, get a job, pay for the insurance, pay for the gas.

Steve Lewit: Just like we made you pay your own insurance.

Gabriel Lewit: I most certainly did. You probably don’t remember that. I paid for my own gas, my own insurance.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, a little bit.

Gabriel Lewit: No. More than that.

Steve Lewit: Okay. Anyway.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. All right, why is car insurance up? What gives here? Mostly, it’s due to a number of factors, but the core of them are increasingly expensive car repairs. We’ve got an increase in the frequency of accidents, and an uptick in the amounts of auto theft. Those three things are combining to create an increase cost, which the insurers are passing along to you, the consumer.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s like anything else. Do you remember when long-term care was first offered and all the insurance-

Gabriel Lewit: Was I alive then?

Steve Lewit: Well, offered in a big way. You were alive then. Probably. I mean, when we really first started focusing on long-term care.

Gabriel Lewit: You mean when we as a company started offering it, or when it was first offered?

Steve Lewit: Well, do you remember years ago that long-term care insurance, traditional long-term care insurance was priced out by the insurance companies. And they thought that pricing was great. But because of overuse, like you’re saying, there are more accidents than there were because more people used that long-term care insurance, their premiums went through the roof. And a lot of people cancel their policies. You can’t cancel a car policy, you have to have it. So you’re kind of in a bind. If there are more accidents and costs of repairs are more expensive. What do you do?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah. Well, in lieu of making any changes, you pay more money in premiums.

Steve Lewit: You just pay more or-

Gabriel Lewit: So that passes along to you. But let’s talk about some of these different pieces here. There’s some data in here about the cost of cars. And one of the guys in this article here quotes that, “if any car maker or manufacturer could come out these days with a $25,000 car, they’d make billions of dollars because everyone would go out to buy that car.” And the reason, quite frankly, that they’re not is all these parts these days, as cars get more and more technologically advanced. Backup cameras, you’ve got automatic windows, you’ve got push button starts, you’ve got fancy display screens. If you look at a car today, even the cheaper cars compared to cars 10 years ago, they really have taken a very large technological leap forward. And that is part of why cars are more expensive. And one of the downsides of more expensive cars is more expensive car insurance.

Steve Lewit: And technology is hard to keep online. It goes offline very often. I use a navigator in the car rather than my phone, which is really a silly thing because you pay a fortune to have that in your car. And it goes offline more often… So I don’t want to go in and pay for that for a repair.

Gabriel Lewit: When you say you use a navigator, you have a person in your car navigating.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, navigator.

Gabriel Lewit: You hire a gentleman to give directions.

Steve Lewit: Sits right next to me and I say, “Joe, I want-“

Gabriel Lewit: It seems like that would increase the cost.

Steve Lewit: Okay. I used the wrong word.

Gabriel Lewit: Sorry.

Steve Lewit: What is the proper word?

Gabriel Lewit: Navigation system I think is what it is.

Steve Lewit: Navigation system. Well, that’s like a navigator.

Gabriel Lewit: She does speak to you in a kind voice. “Turn left.”

Steve Lewit: I’m calling the number on line one.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, my goodness. All right, well, technological costs, increasing car costs, a variety of reasons for increasing car costs. The second one was more accidents. Well, can you really prevent that you, yourself, other than not getting into a car accident on your side? No, you really can’t control that, so that’s going to get passed along to you as well. And then the last one of course is more frequency of auto theft.

Steve Lewit: Well, wait, let’s back up. So there are things… Excuse me. There are little things you can do. Here’s an example. I’m in Whole Foods parking lot, and I squeezed my car between two other cars because the parking space fit. I had a little room on either side. And two cars away the guy pulled out and caught the fender. Well, you know when you turn to pull out, you kind of turn. Well, he didn’t give enough room and he caught the fender of the car that was there. You can avoid those kinds of small accidents by parking in a parking lot where there are very few cars around you. There are little things you can do, like not squeezing in spaces.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, and I think where I was getting with that, is even if you managed to do that… I would like to say I do that, I haven’t gotten any fender benders, and my car insurance is still going up. So it can feel powerless in your own ability to control the reasons for this, so we’ve got to look at other options of how to lower your costs.

Steve Lewit: Yes.

Gabriel Lewit: So that’s what we’re going to explore here. We’re going to give you a couple of quick ways. Now, one of the ways that is most common is shopping around for other car insurance.

Steve Lewit: So, what I did last year, I did that last year.

Gabriel Lewit: This does not involve what is not usually recommended, which is lowering your limits and deductibles.

Steve Lewit: Nope.

Gabriel Lewit: Or, sorry, not lowering your deductible.

Steve Lewit: Raising your deductible.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, raising your deductible to save money. We’ll talk about that in a second. You could also lower your deductible, that would increase your cost. But yeah, shopping around, looking for the same coverage with Geico, with… I don’t know, who are the other big ones? State Farm.

Steve Lewit: Progressive.

Gabriel Lewit: Progressive. United Auto Insurance, they got the jingle. I won’t sing it. No. Nope.

Steve Lewit: Nope.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s catchy as it is, it’s going through my head right now.

Steve Lewit: No, no, I couldn’t sing a song, you cannot sing the jingle.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, lots of different choices out there. I’ve got USAA. Now, part of why it’s always frustrating to shop around, I think, is let’s say you do bundle all your insurance together, you lose your bundles. And then you’ve got multiple places to call for different things. It starts becoming kind of a pain, but it might be really your major go-to option to start to save some bucks on the car insurance.

Steve Lewit: That’s exactly what happened to me. I started shopping just for car insurance, and then I realized, well, I can’t shop just for car insurance because I got my home insurance. And then I have my umbrella insurance. And I got-

Gabriel Lewit: You got your bundle discount.

Steve Lewit: And I got my bundle discount and there’s no way to figure it out. So I had to shop the whole thing instead of just the car insurance.

Gabriel Lewit: And then it feels like a big job-

Steve Lewit: It was a big job.

Gabriel Lewit: … all that stuff.

Steve Lewit: Because they don’t quote exactly the way you put it in, there’s so many little things you have to read that are not accurate. It’s really hard.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And if you do decide to shop around here, we’re going to give you just a very quick recap of the different parts.

Steve Lewit: I’m going to give up driving. That’s the answer. I’m going to Uber.

Gabriel Lewit: I could have made a joke. I didn’t do that.

Steve Lewit: No, you weren’t. You weren’t going to say that. I’m a very good driver. You cannot tell our clientele listening in that I’m a bad driver.

Gabriel Lewit: No, of course not.

Steve Lewit: No, you can’t.

Gabriel Lewit: Although, I’m very happy you stopped your little period where you were reversing into every parking spot.

Steve Lewit: No, I’m doing that still.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, you haven’t with me fortunately in a while. It’s quite frustrating.

Steve Lewit: Well, you put up such a fuss that-

Gabriel Lewit: Folks-

Steve Lewit: It’s so easy.

Gabriel Lewit: … do you know some… We get controversial on the show sometimes.

Steve Lewit: You might be talking about Tootsie Rolls here, so you be careful.

Gabriel Lewit: Does anybody here, if you do, I would love to hear.

Steve Lewit: You’re in for it.

Gabriel Lewit: Do you reverse into parking spots?

Steve Lewit: Of course they do.

Gabriel Lewit: Versus pull in front and then reverse when you leave?

Steve Lewit: Folk, write him in as much as you did about the Tootsie Rolls that he hates. He had a hate campaign against Tootsie Rolls, which was really… It was terrible, Gabriel, that you went down that road.

Gabriel Lewit: I think it was just a single comment.

Steve Lewit: You hurt a lot of people’s feelings, and now you’re doing it again.

Gabriel Lewit: I just am curious the people out there that reverse into parking spots, it seems very difficult to me. The cars are honking at you, it’s very high pressure.

Steve Lewit: Nobody honks.

Gabriel Lewit: Everybody wants you to not reverse in. It’s a fraught situation.

Steve Lewit: It’s a disaster in the parking lot. They call the police on you too if you’re backing in.

Gabriel Lewit: And if there are no cars, it’s impossible to get into the lines. If there are cars you can reverse in.

Steve Lewit: Are you like this at home?

Gabriel Lewit: I’m just saying, it’s [inaudible 00:14:03]-

Steve Lewit: Are you sharing a part of your personality that I don’t know?

Gabriel Lewit: The other ways to save money, we talked about it, raising your deductible. We’ll get to that in a second, not generally the best recommended idea. Or also changing some of your other limits. Let’s talk about the different parts of car insurance briefly. And just so you’re aware, if you start shopping around to try to save some money, these are the things that you’re going to come into. Which you may not have looked at in a while, so this might be a helpful refresher.

So you’ve got what’s called an amount for bodily injury liability. This coverage will pay you essentially to cover injuries to other drivers or their passengers if you are at fault. Okay? So that’s called bodily injury liability. You’ve got property damage liability. Basically, it’s going to pay when you cause damage to someone else’s property, usually meaning their car. Most people hit other people’s cars. Personal injury protection. No surprise, personal means it’s going to cover cost related to the injuries you or your passengers sustain in an accident. You’ve got collision, which is usually a separate deductible, which is paying out to cover the damage to your car when you collide with either another car or another object. And then you’ve got comprehensive, which covers damage to your car from pretty much anything else, fire, earthquakes, hail, animals. There are animals that I guess scratch up cars or attack cars. I don’t know.

Steve Lewit: Well, no, if you are going at a high speed and you crash into a deer or something.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think that’s collision. I think if you just randomly hurt your-

Steve Lewit: Let’s say you hit a deer-

Gabriel Lewit: … hurt your car.

Steve Lewit: … on a road.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, we’re talking about the comprehensive, not the collision. Yeah, if you collide with an animal. I’m just curious what kind of animal damage there might be to a sitting car.

Steve Lewit: Oh, to a sitting car.

Gabriel Lewit: Squirrel?

Steve Lewit: Only from other people.

Gabriel Lewit: A squirrel chewing the tire? I don’t know. Interesting there. Okay. And then you’ve got uninsured motorist coverage, which is coverage if somebody else hits you or is at fault, they are uninsured. It helps cover you from having to pay out of pocket.

Steve Lewit: Now-

Gabriel Lewit: That’s a long list, huh?

Steve Lewit: It’s a long list. And Illinois is a no-fault state, I believe.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, wow, you’re testing me there.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know-

Steve Lewit: I think it’s-

Gabriel Lewit: … off the top of my head.

Steve Lewit: Could you look that up, my dear Katie, director? Is Illinois a no-fault collision state?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that’s a good question.

Steve Lewit: I’m just curious folks, whether it is.

Gabriel Lewit: It is not. It is an at at-fault state. The driver responsible for an accident pays for the injured victim’s damages.

Steve Lewit: In some states there are no-fault states, and I don’t know if that affects the premium.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah, good question. Well, ultimately, what can you do when you buy a car insurance policy? You can choose your levels of protection for these different amounts. So you can very much tweak these to save money on your premiums. But be careful of using that approach to lower your cost, because you’re just putting yourself at greater risk if you do end up needing, of course, the coverage.

Steve Lewit: And it’s reached the point now where when you’re buying a new car, you really have to consider the cost of the insurance. Because if you buy a more expensive car, the insurance is going to be higher. And a lot higher than you might think.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, we’re seeing that sticker shock not only on the prices of new cars, but the amount of the interest on the financing, and the additional amount of the insurance on the price of your car. All while people are often taking longer loans, six years instead of five years. And quite frankly, cars are just becoming a more expensive item.

Steve Lewit: Well, like everything else. Look, we talked last week about lunch being… I think it was last week. You go out for lunch now and it’s 20 $30, where it used to be 10, $15 for two people.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Sure is. All right, so if you’ve got questions or if you’d like to let us know if you reverse into parking spots, please email us info@sglfinancial.com, or you can call us, (847) 499-3330. And of course if you do give us your feedback, we will share it on our next show.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Our email is going to be inundated with people who are going to put you in your place.

Gabriel Lewit: We’ll see.

Steve Lewit: We’ll see. No-

Gabriel Lewit: I would be gladly proven wrong. If I had a hat, I would eat it.

Steve Lewit: Folks, you know your job.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. All right let’s get to our more interesting story. I think it’s more interesting. I hope I built this up the right way. Okay. We’re going to tell you a story here, and then we’ll talk a little bit about it. It’s a story about a 101-year-old Ohio woman.

Steve Lewit: Imagine.

Gabriel Lewit: Her name is Jayne Burns. And she is cutting up fabric at a local craft store. Actually, it’s not so much a local as it is a chain, JOANN Fabrics, which I’ll talk about that in a second. Cutting up fabric at a local craft store, even though she doesn’t need the money. And she has recently become viral on TikTok for-

Steve Lewit: The video, not her.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, no, I think… I mean, I don’t go on TikTok so-

Steve Lewit: The fact, when you say somebody is viral, it means they have an illness they’re spreading.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I don’t think you’re-

Steve Lewit: She’s spreading a young-

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know if you’re using that-

Steve Lewit: … you see this picture of her.

Gabriel Lewit: I think you’re showing your age by using viral improperly.

Steve Lewit: Well-

Gabriel Lewit: That’s not what it means.

Steve Lewit: Well, I’m 101 too.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, gosh.

Steve Lewit: She looks great for 101, doesn’t she?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. If you look her up, at least the picture we’re looking at, assuming that’s now and not 20 years ago.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Well, yeah, that’s a good point. But she looks great, man.

Gabriel Lewit: Maybe she used AI to younger herself.

Steve Lewit: She should be an ad for young skin or something.

Gabriel Lewit: But not only is she 101 years old, she’s out there working, she’s crafting, she’s doing… In her words, she told CNBC, “I enjoy what I do, so I want to keep doing it. I’ll work for as long as I can or as long as they’ll have me.” Well, to that point, I just was going to mention a side note because I thought it was ironically, unfortunately, a little bit sad. But JOANN Fabric just recently filed for bankruptcy.

Steve Lewit: Oh, my gosh.

Gabriel Lewit: Now, they’re not closing the stores yet, but they may not have her for long because they might be out of business.

Steve Lewit: But I bet she finds another place. There’s no doubt in my mind somebody like that somebody is going to hire, just because she is who she is.

Gabriel Lewit: Now, we could get off topic and talk about yet another example of a giant chain that was in a heyday that then went out of business. JOANN Fabric, of course. That’s not the point of this topic here today. But what was really interesting is talking about when you retire, we always talk about the money side of things, we just talked about saving money on car insurance, options there. We talk about income planning. But here’s someone that doesn’t need the money that’s working, 101 years old. And you said something very interesting at a recent workshop, which is one of the now, percentage-wise, highest or fastest growing population age bands out there is centennials.

Steve Lewit: Which means, us normal people, that means people over 100 years old.

Gabriel Lewit: It does. Yes. Yes. Which Jayne Burns here is a part of that group. Right?

Steve Lewit: This is phenomenon in the US is that 100-year-olds are growing at a higher percentage of any other age group. And to be 80-years-old for many people is not old anymore. And it’s just fantastic. And a lot of that has to do with people staying active. People always ask me, they say, “Steve, love you man, but when are you going to retire? And what happens after?” I’m not going to retire. I have no desire to retire. I love coming in, I love doing what I do. I love the people, I love talking to clients. Why should I retire?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And I think this is going to echo that sentiment. Burns told CNBC, she apparently was a bookkeeper and she tried to retire multiple times in her 70s, even her 80s. But she said it never stuck. She missed her lunch with her co-workers, meeting new people. And she said without a real active social life, she felt a lot more lonely. And there’s a research piece here from Pennsylvania State University, found that when 70 to 90 year olds have more frequent, pleasant social interactions, that their cognition tends to improve over the next few days. So if you’re doing that daily and your cognition is improving, rolling every few days, then you’re keeping your cognition sharp.

Steve Lewit: And I’ve noticed as I get older that my driving gets better because I have social interactions with you and the other people in the office.

Gabriel Lewit: You know, when you’re reversing into your parking spots, you are using your cognition.

Steve Lewit: See, I can do that-

Gabriel Lewit: There you go.

Steve Lewit: See, I can do that better than you.

Gabriel Lewit: With your button that does it for you automatically on the car, right?

Steve Lewit: Pretty much.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. And it’s not just work. There is a University of Massachusetts, Boston… University of Massachusetts, Boston, sorry, that was a long name there. Professor gerontology research found that volunteering also gives older adults a sense of purpose, and is a powerful way to improve their well-being. And similarly, on days that the participants volunteered, they reported less stress, depression, and anxiety.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. This is so important to stay healthy is to stay active. Not only active in body, like working out or taking long walks or getting on the treadmill, it’s active in mind. Do word games, participate in things that are challenging, get over you… Play pickleball. Well, that would be physical. Do crosswords. The mind is recreating itself, the brain is recreating itself all the time. It develops new pathways. And if you don’t exercise it, it actually starts to dull.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, and exercise in general is one of the things that she says she likes to get up, she likes to move around, she likes to be moving about at work. And she says it helps her from focusing on any aches and pains, makes it easier to keep going, as well as helps to stave off… Exercise in general has been proven to show that it staves off poor health, dementia, and other ailments in old age. Which, guess what? Can save you money.

Steve Lewit: Oh.

Gabriel Lewit: Did you know that?

Steve Lewit: Well, just healthcare costs alone. I was reading an article, Gabriel, this must have been… I think I was doing a stint on WGN, and they asked me about loneliness in older people. It might not have… I don’t remember exactly when. But I was reading this article that the number one problem for older people is loneliness.

Gabriel Lewit: I wouldn’t doubt it.

Steve Lewit: And loneliness, it just takes your health away. It takes all your life energy out of you. We all feel lonely at times, that always happens. But if that’s an ongoing thing, you’ve got to get into, like you said, volunteering, into a group. You can go on the web and find small conversation groups, you can find a theater group, you can find a dinner group. There’s so many things to do, and they do keep you young.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think especially as I would imagine many of Mrs. Burns’ friends may or may not have also made it to 101. I think if you are reaching an age where people around you are passing away, spouses, family members pass away, you start to lose some of those social connections, and you got to continue to find ways of regaining those. Recreating those to help your body and mind and your energy stay young.

Steve Lewit: Well said. Because not everybody lives to 100.

Gabriel Lewit: No. No. Very-

Steve Lewit: Well said.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, more and more these days, but still a good achievement to accomplish. Now, as far as learning new things, what could you learn? Well, like Mrs. Burns, she of course learned TikTok.

Steve Lewit: Did she?

Gabriel Lewit: Here’s what’s interesting.

Steve Lewit: Now she can’t watch it anymore.

Gabriel Lewit: I’ll talk about my mom. She hates technology, let’s put it that way. She would never learn something like TikTok. But Mrs. Burns says that she “wasn’t daunted the task of learning the social media platform.” And she works with a younger co-worker who is a senior in college, and the two make TikToks together that have amassed millions of views and tons of fans for Burns.

Steve Lewit: That’s great.

Gabriel Lewit: And so she has gone viral, Mr. Lewit.

Steve Lewit: Oh, that kind of viral.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes, that kind of viral.

Steve Lewit: Oh, I understand.

Gabriel Lewit: And actually, I might tune into something. I haven’t watched one yet. I probably should though.

Steve Lewit: Do you watch TikTok?

Gabriel Lewit: No. No, definitely not. I don’t even have the app on my phone, actually.

Steve Lewit: I have a buddy that lives on. It’s… What is it? It’s habituating. It’s like once you get on it, you can’t get off because there’s always another interesting video to watch.

Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm.

Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm. What does that mean, mm-hmm?

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know.

Steve Lewit: I don’t know.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, last thing that we were going to mention here, and this is right up your alley, Mr. Lewit. It does say here that studies have shown, a recent Australian study found that when adults over 70 participate in literacy activities, like journaling or writing, it can help reduce their risk of dementia for up to 10 years.

Steve Lewit: I don’t know where to go with… I’m not sure what that really, really means. How shall I take that folks?

Gabriel Lewit: I meant it in a good way. My point is-

Steve Lewit: Well, that’s for people over 70, right?

Gabriel Lewit: My point is, I know you write extensively.

Steve Lewit: Extensively.

Gabriel Lewit: You work, you have social-

Steve Lewit: I will have a book eventually.

Gabriel Lewit: You have social interactions, you have relationships, you keep your mind active, and you’re as young as a 60-year-old.

Steve Lewit: Thank you, I really do appreciate that.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I really do mean that. Yeah.

Steve Lewit: I appreciate it. But I’ll tell you-

Gabriel Lewit: And I think all those things add up, and they’re important for people out there to stay busy, stay active.

Steve Lewit: As I get older, I can see little parts of me getting more forgetful. Just the little things like, “Hey, that never happened to me before.” And I can’t imagine if I didn’t have all of this activity around me and participation, I could see that really growing at a much faster rate than the negligibility I have of it now. It’s just kind of here and there.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I think this is an interesting topic. For a podcast like this, for anyone out there listening still on our show, because when we talk money and finances and retirement plans, we do check in and we say, “How’s retirement going?” I just had a couple in today that just retired late last year. I said, “How’s retirement going?” They said, “It’s great. We’re doing this, we’re doing that. We’re moving around.” But we don’t always necessarily getting into the nitty-gritty details of how you’re spending your time, your social life, your interactions, what you’re doing to stay busy. And I think it’s just really important to reference how powerful those things are to help you stay healthy, happy, and live a long-lasting retirement.

Steve Lewit: I would just say, because I think loneliness is the worst of all of them, other than ill health. If you have those feelings of being lonely, you got to find somebody to talk to about it, or a group. Don’t let that fester in you, because I think that’ll sap your life energy and age you quicker than anything else, other than ill health.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Well, that’s really what we wanted to share on that. I don’t know if you would have questions on that, but certainly if there’s anything there that you’d like to talk through or share with us, or give us any feedback. But of course, if you want any help with your finances, if your planning needs have changed or shifted. Anything we can do to help you out, we’re here for you here at SGL Financial. Give us a call, (847) 499-3330. Or go to our website, sglfinancial.com. And if you would like to email us, you can email us info@sglfinancial.com.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t filled out your bracket yet, you hopefully will have done so by the time you read or listen to this show.

Steve Lewit: I did mine this morning.

Gabriel Lewit: Because the March Madness is about to begin.

Steve Lewit: But I have the winner, you don’t.

Gabriel Lewit: You think so, huh?

Steve Lewit: Oh, definitely.

Gabriel Lewit: Are you going to bet on that?

Steve Lewit: How much? Well, yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: 20 bucks?

Steve Lewit: No, I’ll bet you a week of you parking your car backwards. If I win, you park your car backwards, or forwards.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, there’s no equal bet there because if I win-

Steve Lewit: I’ll park my car like you do.

Gabriel Lewit: What you’re doing anyways half the time these days.

Steve Lewit: No, I don’t, I always back in.

Gabriel Lewit: 20 bucks.

Steve Lewit: It’s a deal.

Gabriel Lewit: Here, shake hands.

Steve Lewit: Okay, I’m shaking hands.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Producer Katie can verify and voucher.

Steve Lewit: What if we both don’t have the winner?

Gabriel Lewit: It’s whoever has the most points.

Steve Lewit: Oh, the most points. Okay.

Gabriel Lewit: Yep.

Steve Lewit: Katie, you got that?

Gabriel Lewit: Which will be me.

Steve Lewit: And we have it in verbal.

Gabriel Lewit: And in the world has heard us.

Steve Lewit: Gabriel doesn’t pay his debts though.

Gabriel Lewit: Always pay. Okay. Well, we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Steve Lewit: He does.

Gabriel Lewit: Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being our valued listeners, we love having you on the show. And you have a wonderful rest of your day, week, or evening. Or morning. And we’ll see you on the next show.

Steve Lewit: Stay well everybody. See you soon.

Gabriel Lewit: Bye-bye.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at (847) 499-3330. Or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com. And be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.

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