Senior Community

An 18 year old walking with his girlfriend in a Modesto California park, a 23 year old volleyball player sitting in her Volkswagen in St. Louis, and a 26 year old chef leaving work in Riverdale, NY. These are all crime scenes and victims who were murdered for one reason…their cell phone. According to Plateau, a telecommunications company in New Mexico, 113 cell phones are stolen in the U.S every minute which amounts to about $7 million dollars a day. With 96% of the country using a cell phone it creates more targets for thieves to get their hands on the devices.

Typical smart phones range from $400-$800 market value. While that amount alone is high, thieves are also looking to steal what they contain such as personal information like bank accounts, emails, or anything else requiring a login and password. The reason is simple, the black-market resale value of the devices, like car radios two decades ago, is high. “Your mobile phone is probably the most expensive thing you carry around with you,” says Kevin Mahaffey, a co-founder of Lookout, a mobile-security company. “It’s like holding $400 up to your head.”

District Attorney George Gascon is calling on major companies in nearby Silicon Valley to create new technology such as a “kill switch” to permanently and quickly disable stolen smart phones, making them worthless to thieves”. While technology is being developed there are some things that consumers can to do stay protected. Some ways include recording the make, model, and pin, registering the phone with authorities, and backing up all personal files. Remember that cell phones can be snatched at any time. Avoid texting and walking, don’t keep personal information on the phone, use anti theft software, and be aware of all surroundings.

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’re only young once. Live it up while you can”. This is typical advice given from middle age, settled, and older people to their younger counterparts. While these words are true, it is important to appreciate the present, most twenty some year olds don’t realize that planning for the future is something to do today, not tomorrow. And I really mean today. Here’s why. “It is possible, if we continue to make progress in reducing mortality, that most children born since the year 2000 will live to see their 100th birthday — in the 22nd century”. Who said that you ask? Those were words from James Vaupel who is the head of Duke University’s Center on the Demography of Aging and holds academic appointments at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, and the institute of Public Health at the University of Southern Denmark.

What James is saying is that if you are in your twenties now, you would most likely be living to be eighty or even ninety something years old. Ninety! Nine- zero! Those numbers together in that order is probably nowhere near your radar right now. You’re only twenty-two, so the most responsibility you’ve seen thus far is hanging onto that entry level job, paying rent, avoiding student loan bills like the plague, and making sure you always have a fridge full of Sam Adams on the weekend for game day. To you thirty is the time for you to maybe, just maybe, consider putting any thought into retirement.

If you want to retire by the age of sixty five you will need to earn money now that could possibly last you thirty more years of your life. Do you really want to be a Walmart greeter when you should be sitting at home watching old episodes of FRIENDS on syndication and reminiscing about the glory days of when technology didn’t make people as stupid and lazy as they are now? Don’t you feel bad for that disgruntled Walmart worker who really doesn’t care if you shoplift, let alone get a smiley sticker? Don’t put yourself in that position.

It is in your best interest, and your future family’s best interest to get yourself in check and get out your retirement calculator. Look into basics of investing in stocks. “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” (2000) by Robert Kiyosaki is a popular starter book. Look into an IRA, 401k, bonds, even a savings accounts with the highest interest. Consider holding off on your dream vacation to Cabo or that lavish wedding for a potentially failed marriage (sorry but statistics don’t lie) and instead invest in real estate.

Vaupel’s other words of wisdom are “If young people realize they might live past 100 and be in good shape to 90 or 95, it might make more sense to mix education, work and child-rearing across more years of life instead of devoting the first two decades exclusively to education, the next three or four decades to career and parenting, and the last four solely to leisure.” Don’t wait, think now. Instead of using your future to plan, start planning for your future.