Deborah Jacobs is the quintessential baby boomer.
She's reinvented herself over the course of her career, starting out as an attorney, then becoming an author and self-employed writer, specializing in estate planning. She's just started a new venture, writing a blog about boomers for Forbes.com.
Rather than share her age, she writes in her debut column: "I am a member of this generation -- born between 1946 and 1964 -- although I prefer to describe my age in anecdotal terms, rather than getting too specific about the numbers. Suffice it to say that I had given up afternoon naps by the time Kennedy was assassinated."
In an interview with SecondAct, Jacobs talks about the basics of estate planning, her advice for frugal living and why boomers need to harness their entrepreneurial spirit as they work through this challenging economy.
SA: How did you get started covering money?DJ: I worked as a lawyer for six years -- that was my first career after college. While I was practicing law, I began freelancing for a variety of publications, and I took a week of vacation and tried a writing course at Columbia Journalism School. At the end of the course, the professor took me aside and said I should go to journalism school.
The natural thing for me to do was write about law and how it intersected with financial issues. I'm known as a bit of a wonk -- someone who reads the tax code and keeps up with these things and thinks the intricacies of Roth IRA conversions are fascinating.
I was writing on my own for 20-plus years, self-employed, and I had this specialty that I turned into a book called Estate Planning Smarts. Estate planning became an extremely important subject for baby boomers and their parents, and in the course of promoting the book I began to freelance for Forbes. Eventually they asked if I'd be willing to take the fact that I'm a baby boomer and talk to this audience about a wide range of concerns.
SA: So many people avoid estate planning. Are there estate planning essentials?
DJ: Rather than think about it as a morbid chore, think about it as taking care of the people you love. It can be an overwhelming subject. One way to get past the procrastinating is to break it down into bite-sized pieces, which is what I do in Estate Planning Smarts.
SA: What are your top estate-planning tips?
DJ: There are certainly some non-negotiable essentials. You have to have a durable power of attorney, not only for yourself, but your parents should have one. Everybody should have a will, because without one, state law determines what happens to your stuff.
SA: How can those who are 40-plus keep up with today's economic uncertainty?
DJ: I think they need to find ways to continue working, one way or another. Let's face it: They have to assume it's probably not going to be at a big company. If they're currently employed, they should start thinking about perhaps an avocation that they can turn into something that's income-producing at the next stage, even if it's not going to earn them as much as they're now earning.
They have to always be thinking one step ahead. I've always favored that people who had a steady job, if there's something (else) they love to do, they should pursue it. Doing what you love -- at least for me -- always morphed into something I can make a living at.
SA: Is there something special about boomers and the entrepreneurial spirit, or is it out of necessity?
DJ: I wish more boomers would think in those terms. I have a friend who is in his 60s. He was a real company guy for years and lost his job. He's doing well picking up piecework, but it's been a year since he lost his job, and he's very miserable. I keep saying, "You don't have to be miserable. Think of this as a new chapter in your career."
The problem for us as a generation -- for those of us who don't think of ourselves as entrepreneurs, it's like the contract changed. We entered the work force at a time when the expectation was that you could come on board at a company and spend your life there, and it would take care of you. The rules changed in the middle of the game, and it's a problem for some boomers making this adjustment.
And yet there is so much talent and so much energy. I think boomers need to learn to be more entrepreneurial and not be looking for Mother Big Company to take care of them. It's hard to learn that -- until you're suddenly there as a necessity. Instead of seeing the positive elements, many boomers are still wounded by the fact that they were expelled from what they see as the work force sooner than they wanted to be. It's an opportunity to do something you've always wanted to do and have more control over your lifestyle. There is a certain freedom.
SA: Even if people are secure in their jobs, what can they do to feel more confident about their own finances?
DJ: People need to become more frugal. I think people should try to use their credit cards less. Leave them home. If you have to pay for things in cash and you have to keep going to the cash machine, you're very aware of what things cost, and you spend less.
Cut back on online shopping. I do it myself. It's such a great time-saver, but your email pings every day with some offer from one place or another that has a sale. I think it's good to delete those messages without opening them, so you don't buy things you don't need just because it's a great buy.
There are also a lot of unnecessary expenditures around food. I bring my coffee to work in a Thermos because I don't want to take the time or money to buy coffee. I hardly ever eat out because every time I go into a restaurant -- say I ordered linguini with clam sauce and they give me four tiny clams, all I can think of is the cost difference if I made it at home.
This is especially true for people going to work in an office. There are so many wasteful expenditures, between the coffee and the lunch. I was really happy when I started working at Forbes. I brought my lunch, and I was hoping not everyone went out to lunch. On my first day, lunchtime came and I smelled food all over the place, and I was happy to see everyone brought their lunch. A friend of mine who is looking for a job still eats out every night. I think maybe it would be better to take cooking lessons and learn how to cook.
SA: So it's a change in mindset?
DJ: There was this expectation that they would retire at a certain age, but now I think most are concerned that they will have to work forever. One friend of mine said recently, "I'm just going to have to work till I die."
I was on business in Naples, Fla., and I had a business dinner in the hotel restaurant. I noticed the hostesses and a lot of people who were employed at this hotel looked like retirees who came back into the work force because they needed the money.
We feel that at this stage in life, it's too bad we're living in such crummy times. Of course, every generation is likely to live though a crummy period of history at some point. But in the past, things were always getting better, and now things are just crummy. We have to find our own pockets of happiness despite everything that's going on.
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