Market Drops, Biological Age, and FIRE any Time (EP.88)

Welcome back to the Rational Reminder Podcast everybody. Today we are using the opportunity to have a bit of a philosophical discussion about a bunch of things related to your retirement and the financial planning that goes into it. We touch on the all too obvious topics of the coronavirus and last week's market fluctuations before we scan the last ten years for any notable data points on fluctuations and the years with the biggest dips. We look at life expectancy and how this affects a retirement planning strategy. In British Columbia, drug use among younger generations has brought down life expectancy estimates, while improved health care has extended them in some regards. This leads to a few comments on biological age and how knowledge of yours should play a big role in your personal strategy for the end of your life. The last part of the episode is spent considering the current state of the discourse around the FIRE movement and what has grown out of it. We can see that it is not uncommon for large portions of the aging population to be happy to carry on working, and that the idea of getting out of the workforce as soon as possible may only be attractive to certain kinds of professions. For all this and a whole more from Cameron and Ben, be sure to tune in!

Key Points From This Episode:

• The amazing new documentary on Herbalife called Betting on Zero. [0:02:54.5]
• Market drops last week and the story that accompanied the volatility. [0:06:14.9]
• Biggest and average drawdowns in recent calendar years. [0:10:03.3]
• Coronavirus impacts and questions about buying stocks now when they are low. [0:14:20.2]
• Conversations about the market drop and aggressive response strategies. [0:20:06.8]
• Data findings for historic cases of market timing from the last century. [0:25:12.3]
• Historic relations between the market and health pandemics. [0:30:22.1]
• Life expectancy's huge role in long term financial plans and retirement. [0:32:31.8]
• Changes in average life expectancies in British Columbia due to drug use. [0:37:40.7]
• The importance of biological age when making sound financial decisions! [0:41:02.5]
• Working longer into old age as a means to make retirement easier. [0:44:31.5]
• The five-factor model for happiness and what it means for your retirement. [0:49:50.5]
• Bad advice of the week! The last time we will talk about deferred sales charges! [0:54:57.5]