Want Less Stress?

One of the ways to reduce and even avoid stress is to have reserves. Having reserves means having space, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual space. It means having a little more than you usually need.

Here are a few scenarios where stress is dominant and there are little or no reserves.

Suzanne lives paycheck to paycheck. She rarely has enough money to buy extras and often cannot pay bills on time. She has only a few thousand dollars in savings and no retirement savings. She cannot buy a much needed replacement car, she cannot take vacations, she doesn't have the money to take night classes to improve her situation. She uses credit cards to buy things she wants and sometimes to pay bills, but this adds anxiety because she doesn't have the money to pay the credit card bills. She feels trapped, anxious, out of control.

James is lonely. He lives in a small apartment and works from there. He does have a couple of friends, but only sees them for lunch a couple of times a month. He is so busy with work that he doesn't have much time to make new friends or to start a love relationship. The more he is alone, the more he feels out of touch and as if he will always be alone. His self-esteem suffers which makes him even less likely to summon up the resources to meet someone new. His apartment is small and cluttered so he doesn't really want to have people over. He feels lonely, disgusted, angry and depressed.

Samantha is disorganized. She frequently loses things, and often cannot find information she needs for her business. She loses clients because of this. Her home and office are both messy, cluttered and chaotic. They mirror her own feelings. Each day she says to herself that she will start to get a handle on organizing and getting her space cleaned up, but feels overwhelmed at the thought of it. She feels confused, uneasy and overwhelmed.

In all these cases, there are little or no reserves to help, financial reserves, living space, time, energy and so on. To help ease stress, to add comfort and ease, reserves are a necessity. Reserves apply in all areas of your life, your finances, your home, your career, your relationships, your transportation, your spiritual life, and everywhere else.

Financial Reserves

The obvious financial reserves include having an emergency fund sufficient to cover 3 to 6 months of expenses in case of job loss, illness, burnout. But that is just the beginning. The first step to living stress free financially is to live below your means. No matter how little or how much you make, your expenses need to be less than what you make. At least 10% less, but 20% is better. This gives you a cushion and allows you to create an emergency fund, to save for a house, for vacations, for a new car, and to save for retirement. An additional reserve is that you have an organization for your bill paying activities. You know when bills are due, you pay them on time or early, envelopes, pens, addresses and contact information are all in one place to use when you pay bills. Another reserve is to have little or no debt. Best is to have no debt other than your home. One more is to pay close attention to being paid what you and your work are worth. Any two people in the same job or the same profession can make vastly different salaries. It is key for you to know what is fair and to be compensated fully. And the last area of reserve for your finances is to have knowledge about investing and to have a plan to reach financial independence and/or to retire to a comfortable living. If you are like Suzanne above, this may all seem a pipe dream. But all is achievable using small steps and starting now.

Health and Beauty

Nothing will cause more stress than being seriously ill. Illness can drag you down and make everything more difficult. Prevention is key. Health reserves include eating healthy foods in moderation, exercising, taking supplements, drinking water, and managing your stress through relaxation and meditation. But that is just the beginning. Of course, drugs, alcohol, caffeine and smoking add a great deal of stress, especially if in excess. Getting enough sleep is important as well. Regularly schedule doctor visits for screening tests will help catch any illnesses early. Knowing your blood test scores such as blood sugar, tryglicerides, choloesterol, and thyroid are essential. Dental health needs attention as well. Not only brushing and flossing daily, but regular cleanings and screenings at the dentist's office. Of course, you know all this, but have you ever related doing these things to reducing your stress? Can you connect how letting your teeth hygiene go by the wayside will cause you a great deal of stress when you have cavities and gum disease to deal with? To say nothing of cholesterol and heart disease, blood sugar and diabetes, etc. It all starts with the small things, what you put in your mouth each day and keeping up with your exercise regime. Start small, but start now.

Home

Having enough room to live in comfortably and to store your belongings will go a long way to providing you with needed reserves related to home. It can be very stressful to have too much stuff in too small a place. Either get rid of the stuff, organize it better or get more space. The result will be less stress. Do you have a space in your home to relax, to be free of noise and clutter? Is your home clean and uncluttered? Do all systems and mechanics work well? Is your home a comfortable temperature inside year round? All of these can add to or take away from your sense of comfort and well-being. Your home should be safe as well. Do you have smoke alarms throughout your home and adequate locks on all doors and windows? Even if you can't move to a bigger space, you can declutter and eliminate extra belongings. Start with one shelf or one drawer today.

Time and Energy

The biggest change you can make here is your attitude towards time. As a coach, the excuse I hear most often is, "I don't have enough time." There are two areas to consider here: first is how much time do you waste doing non-productive activities such as watching mindless television, playing computer games, being disorganized, talking on the phone, etc. And the second point is that we always manage to find time for what is important to us. Even when we are terribly busy, we end up spending the evening with friends if they call. Or we watch that television show (even when it is a rerun). I believe that everyone can manage to find the time to add a little exercise to their day or to prepare nutrition food. Everyone can find a few minutes a day to start organizing or cleaning. Look for the timewasters first and try to reduce or eliminate them. Second is to raise the priority of putting reserves in place to reduce your stress. This is an important life transformation that deserves your focused time and energy. You'll have more energy when you have more reserves and less stress.

My prescription is to focus on one area and to take small steps. Pretty soon one area will be under control and you can play with the next area.

Retire Early and Live, Retire Later and Die?

This article about retiring early is not only for mid-lifers. It is for everyone who works no matter the age. Young folks, listen well. You still have time to plan and save for an early retirement.

Here is a link to an article regarding early retirement and longevity. It's a compelling reason to look at retiring earlier than you may have considered previously.

http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/coe/gutub/english_misc/retire1.htm

In brief, the article cites studies that show a correlation between early retirement and longevity.

Here is a table.

Table 1 – Actuarial Study of life span vs. age at retirement.

Age at
Retirement Average Age At Death
49.9 86
51.2 85.3
52.5 84.6
53.8 83.9
55.1 83.2
56.4 82.5
57.2 81.4
58.3 80
59.2 78.5
60.1 76.8
61 74.5
62.1 71.8
63.1 69.3
64.1 67.9
65.2 66.8

I have no idea how well the studies were done or how big the population looked at. Apparently there were at least two studies done at Lockheed Martin and at Boeing. In Boeing's numbers, employees retiring at 65 typically received their pension checks for only 18 months. At Lockheed, employees retiring at 65 on average received their pension checks for 17 months. I think that these studies were done a couple of decades ago, so that may affect their results. People are generally healthier and more vital than in older times.

The supposed culprit in early death is work stress.

What can we take away from this? Obviously, not all of us are in a financial position to retire early. If you can't retire ahead of schedule, then what can you do?

Reduce job stress. This is very serious and can take as much as 20 years from your life span. Reduce job stress by taking breaks, changing jobs within a company or changing companies. Learn to take frequent breaks and meditate or do some deep breathing or take walks. This is not just to feel better, it is to save your life.

Take your vacation time every year without fail. No working while on vacation!

Do not take work home with you. Have a clear line between work and home to make it easier to relax when you are home.

Live your dreams. Changing to a career better suited to your lifestyle, your temperament and your desires and dreams, can literally add years to your life. It's worth the effort to figure out what you really want to do and start doing it.

Ask questions about your work life. Why are you working so hard? Whom does it serve? What do you gain from it? What do you lose? What underlying need are you fulfilling by striving and working so hard? Does this really serve you? In what ways? Do you still want the same things you wanted when you started your career (climbing the ladder, more money, prestige, a title, the corner office, your parent's approval, etc.). If not, what changes can you make right now? What do you like or not like about your current work? Your current job? Your current work environment?

Here is a link to another study of railroad workers that corroborates the above study, but not quite as dramatically. http://www.rrb.gov/opa/qa/pub_0702.asp

Here is a link to another study that shows a much smaller correlation between early retirement and longevity. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1273451 It does not seem to corroborate the above studies. I also have heard of (although can't find particulars) that working longer makes you live longer. I suspect that is for those who have no life outside work. Wonder if the environments had significantly different stress rates? I don't think they actually looked at stress in any of these studies, however, stress has long been mentioned as a factor in illnesses and diseases, some of which lead to early death. I know I have worked in both the oil and aerospace industries, both in responsible IT jobs, and there was no comparison of the stress levels. Aerospace was by far more stressful. But that may have been at that time period, at that office, just my job, or whatever else could have affected it.

Either way, reducing stress on the job can only help and may save your life. I hope this will encourage you to start planning for this major life change now.

LBYM

Do you know what LBYM means? It is an acronym for Living Below Your Means. The number one secret to being financially stable is to live below your means. Not very sexy, but really easy to understand.

So what does this mean in practical terms?

If you make (earnings or income) x dollars a month, and y dollars is your taxes, then you have z dollars (net) left to spend. That is x - y = z. Instead of spending z, to live below your means, you spend z - 10% or z - 20%. The extra 10 to 20% goes to savings or to investments. Your means is z and you spend less than z.

Living below your means will lead to:

• ever increasing wealth
• having emergency funds for the downtimes due to layoff, illness, etc.
• the possibility of becoming financially independent
• the possibility of retiring someday without being poverty stricken
• instilling financial discipline in both for you and your children
• less stress and chaos around money
• having enough money to buy all necessities plus a little for fun, pleasure, recreation and hobbies.
• feelings of security and a sense of satisfaction with your financial strategy
• stability

Some of my clients and students, friends and family are in precarious financial straits. Why? It's usually not because they don't make enough money to live on. By that, I mean they make the US average or better and could live on that amount. But they choose not to. In fact, I know several wealthy (in the top 10% of the country's wealthiest) who live from paycheck to paycheck and are deeply in debt.

What are some characteristics of those individuals and families who do not live below their means?

• They have large balances on their credit cards.
• They pay the minimum amount due on credit cards each month.
• They buy too much house, meaning the payments are too high and may be going up. Sometimes they buy using interest-only loans or variable rate loans with balloon payments after some number of years.
• They buy new cars every few years.
• They buy every desired consumer good including big screen TVs, the newest electronics, expensive toys, recreational vehicles such as RVs, boats, ATVs, scooters, etc.
• They do not have 3 to 6 months of emergency funds to support their families in times of layoffs, illness or other mishap.
• They have no retirement savings to speak of.
• They have no way to help their children through college except by taking out loans or charging it on the credit card.
• They often do not deny themselves or their children anything.
• They do not budget.
• They do not know for sure what their income and expenses are.
• They often juggle payments, expenses, buying and selling and cash flow.
• They are stressed out, unhappy, and depressed.

Of course, one can be living below your means and have a few of the above, such as lots of toys, but these are typical for those living above their means, especially when taking them as a group.

Living below your means is a simple concept. You take your salary, subtract your taxes, subtract your savings amount (10 or 20 or 30%) and what's left is yours to spend. But it also means being wise with your money. Oftentimes, it means doing the opposite of what is listed above under the characteristics of those who do not live below their means. Things such as never using a credit card unless you can pay it off in full each month; buying less house than you can "afford"; tracking your expenses and your income so you have a clear picture of your finances; driving your cars longer and buying used; and so on.

If you are interested in this concept, you may want to read the book Your Money Or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. It's a classic and an easy read.