Who Will Remember You?

Hey Rick,

I’ve got all I really need to continue with the “good life” during the time I have left on this planet.  Although I’m happy, I’ve started to wonder why I’m here and what have I done for mankind.  I can’t leave a huge trust fund to my grandkids so will they even remember me when they get older?

Olsen

First of all, Olsen, congratulations!! I love to hear about success.  It is not at all unusual for a hardworking, driven person to reach all of his/her personal goals and still feel that something is missing.  Many feel unfulfilled or simply want to know that their life had “meaning”.  Your grand kids are the perfect place to start.  Create memories for them by teaching them what you know, be a mentor, help them think through tough situations.  Don’t be the grumpy old man they visit in a nursing home.  Be the “superstar” that taught them how to fish, ride a horse, use a library, draw a cartoon character or appreciate a museum.  Teach them the one magic trick you know or how to make a paper airplane.  Show them the value of learning from “old people”, about personal responsibility, how the “bad guys” try to control people with fear tactics.  You are financially successful.  What if someone had taught you about the stock market, compound interest and taxes when you were fifteen?  You don’t have to have grand kids or money to do this.  The best way to be remembered is to pass on a piece of yourself.  In the member’s area, I have two good sources for many more ideas on being a mentor and leaving a legacy.  (Under Mental health in “Free Products for Members” area)

Good luck and have fun.

Rick


Cinnamon

“Advice of medical specialists should be considered before trying cinnamon supplements and other forms of alternative medicine. Side effects and interaction with other drugs may take place.”

Confession

For a long-time, a shortcut breakfast for me consisted of toast with a heavy coating of peanut butter.  It was fast and always held me over ’til lunch.  (I am NOT recommending peanut butter to anyone).  As I got older, I noticed that even after brushing my teeth, I might have “peanut butter breath”.  And then, my wife hears that cinnamon lowers bad cholesterol so she started adding  a 1/4 teaspoonful of cinnamon to her applesauce.  She had a big container of cinnamon sitting on the countertop so one day I sprinkled some on my toast.  Voila! No more burping peanut butter or peanut butter breath.  I decided to look up the benefits of cinnamon which appears to be quite a list.  Add a little honey and the list of claimed benefits grows even longer.

This spice is now being heralded in the long line of herbal medicine wonders.  It’s benefits may include:

Lowering LDL cholesterol

Regulatory effect on blood sugar (great for people with Type 2 diabetes)

Ability to stop medication-resistant yeast infections

Anti-clotting effect on the blood

Relief in arthritis pain

Fights the E. coli bacteria in unpasteurized juices

Curbs cravings

Supports digestive function

Relieves congestion

Constricts and tones tissues

Boosts brain function by boosting cognitive function and memory

Relieves menstrual discomfort

Improves circulation by thinning blood

Provides calcium and fiber protect against heart disease

Improves colon health, by removing bile salts from the body

Prevents urinary tract infections and irritable bowel syndrome

Helps address tooth decay and gum disease

Now you noticed that the beginning of this list said “benefits MAY include”… I saw mention of several studies and lots of undocumented claims.  As a non-medical specialist and a natural skeptic, I don’t see how many of these claims could be true.  However, it seems generally accepted that cinnamon contains manganese, fiber, iron and calcium.  If I had high LDL (bad) cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes or peanut butter breath, I’d be eating more cinnamon right now.  If I had any of the other problems in the list above, I would be doing more research on the studies of that illness and cinnamon.  I saw a reference that might be relevant to many of us Baby Boomers:

In a study at Copenhagen University, patients given half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder combined with one tablespoon of honey every morning before breakfast had significant relief in arthritis pain after one week and could walk without pain within one month.  (This could be the result of the anti-clotting properties that makes cinnamon and “anti-inflammatory food”)

Warning:  Do not inhale cinnamon dust.  It irritates the airway, which could trigger a bronchospasm and stop your breathing.  And of course check with your doctor before trying any dietary supplement.

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, “Remedies and Cures – The Natural Way” is a seventy-five page book available for free to paid members of www.addedyears.com

Rick

Get even more help and practical advice as a member of www.addedyears.com (Please, tell all your ‘over 40’ friends about us.)

Women Over 40 – The No. 1 Way To Improve The Years To Come

We all have made compromises to create a “comfortable” life for ourselves.  Will you settle for “comfortable” in your Second Adult Life?You have worked hard for many years, perhaps raised a family, built a career or both. Your life has become fairly routine. Whether this is good or bad, you have recently begun to realize that you may live another thirty to fifty years or more. That is another entire adult life! The next thought that crosses many minds is, “I can’t go through all this again.”

So what does it take to get out of a rut and make the coming years the very best of your life?

YOU MUST MAKE TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF YOUR TOP PRIORITY.

There seems to be a lot of resistance to this concept. Women have sacrificed their well being “for the sake of their spouse, their children, their parents and even their career or their company.” For whatever reason, many women never realized that they could have “served” everyone around them even better if they had taken care of their own needs first. There is a good reason that the airlines say, “put your emergency oxygen mask on first, before helping anyone else.”

Trying to convince the doubters of this concept takes more words than I have today. So I’m going to concentrate on the one area that almost all agree. “The freedoms and comforts available from having money will help me live a happier, healthier and more fulfilling “second adult life.”

Money is just a tool; a way to make bartering easier. It has no qualities of good or evil. The sole purpose of collecting it now is to help you take care of yourself in the future and make it easier for you to share the very best of yourself with the rest of the world.

So what steps can you take now to ensure this future happiness?

• Personal Savings – You must have a place to accumulate money.

• Retirement Fund – An IRA or 401K or other plan if you work outside the home

• Savings Mindset – “Sock-It-Away” either by habit or auto-withdraw

• Question spending – Do you really need a new __________?

• Avoid & Eliminate Debt – The future is unpredictable but “Cash is always king”

• Avoid having to say, “No” by not telling your friends and relatives about your nest egg.

There are hundreds of excuses not to save. Eliminate them from your mind and replace them with ways and reasons to save. Use your positive thoughts to find ways to add to your account. If it helps, make it a game and add some incentives. Calculate how much the ten dollars you deposited this week will be worth in twenty years. If you want singing lessons, your own apartment, a trip to Tahiti, imagine what that will be like. Remember, this is not a savings account for auto repairs or a birthday gift for your spouse or bail for your sad-sack brother. This is for your future.

Where to save. You want your “pot of gold” to be safe, earn interest if possible and not so easily accessible that you are tempted to dip into it for daily living expenses. Online banks can offer such a place but do your homework and avoid any “hidden” fees, minimum deposits or charges for holding your money. Don’t look for just the highest interest rate. Unless you have a substantial initial deposit, fees and charges can be a lot more that any interest income you might make. Ask questions; call the institution and tell them what you plan to deposit and how you plan to add to it. Specifically ask if there will be any charges or fees. Take notes on each institution you call including who you talk with and when. If you have a few thousand dollars to start with or you have an IRA, you can open multiple accounts with an online broker like E*Trade who will recognize your brokerage account, retirement account, savings and checking accounts as one balance, making it easier to eliminate minimum fees and monthly charges.

You can do this and should DO IT NOW! I’ll let you come up with more reasons to save for your better future years. Here are some ideas for finding and making more deposits to your savings:

• The coins collecting dust around the house

• Cash rebates from product purchases

• Cash birthday or Christmas gifts

• Make sure to use employer matching funds to your retirement account if available

• Automatic deposits from your pay check

• Every time you choose to “brown bag it” instead of eating out, put aside $5 for a deposit

• Sell any “junk” that has been in your storage area for years.

When you start feeling good about doing this for your future you may be ready to start doing more things for yourself. In the years to come, you can keep growing as a productive, happy individual, benefiting everyone around you. If this is a new idea for you, it may take some time to sink in but it is true. It is time to take care of yourself. Remember the oxygen mask…

I’m here to inform and encourage.

Rick Perkins

Your Body – You Can’t Trade It In

Most of us love the look and feel and smell of a new vehicle.  And all we have to do is make enough money to buy a new one.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do the same with our aging bodies?  Sorry, its not going to happen.

The best we can do is take care of the one we have.  The sooner you start, the better.  Every year you wait makes it harder to maintain the level of mobility and good feelings we would all like to have in our second adult life.

  • EXERCISE                     Mature adults must strive to maintain balance, strength and a good circulatory system to stay active.
  • NUTRITION                Weight control may actually get easier but watching sodium and sugar levels are more important than ever.
  • SLEEP                            I thought I could avoid the consequences of sleep deprivation but everyone was right; my memory went first…
  • REGULAR CHECKUPS    Avoid hospital stays whenever possible so practice preventative medicine and go to the doctor regularly.

Of course, you already know this so tomorrow will probably be a lot like today.  If you need some incentive, volunteer at a senior center for a few days.  You may see ninety year olds dancing and having a great time and sixty year olds in wheelchairs or just too fat or creaky to move away from the tv.  If this doesn’t wake you up, nothing I can say will.

There is plenty of practical “anti-aging” information in the main membership site and more on the way.  Here are a few of my “101 Tips for Losing Ten Pounds” :Join Us Now

#6  Include in your diet things that contain more water like tomatoes and watermelons. These things contain 90 to 95 % water so that there is nothing that you have to lose by feasting on them. They fill you up without adding to the pounds.

#19  Go easy on tea and coffee. Tea and coffee are harmless by themselves. It’s when you add the cream and sugar that they become fattening. Did you know that having a cup of tea or coffee that has cream and at least two cubes of sugar is as bad as having a big piece of rich chocolate cake?

#44  Instead of frying things try baking them without fat. Baking is by far a healthier method of preparing food than frying. Baking requires lesser oil or fat.

#47  Carry parsley with you. Parsley is an excellent thing to munch on in between meals. Not just is it good for you in terms of vitamins, but it is also a perfect way of making your breath fresher.

Join with us to make the next thirty years the very best of your life.

Rick

Found Money and Cheapest Gasoline

When you have multiple streams of passive income, it is easy to be a little “loose” with your money.  You might pay full retail because it is more convenient at the time or buy things you know you will never use because it is for a good cause.  For some of us, the frugal traits of yesteryear never go away no matter how much money we have in the bank.    Here are two fun sites that are very “frugal friendly”…

Sites for finding the cheapest gasoline in your area have been around for a long time.  You can always find a few by entering “cheapest gasoline” in a Google search.  However, MSN has a new site that is very professional, up-to-date and show maps to the lowest priced retailers.  The MSN site is:  http://autos.msn.com/everyday/GasStationsBeta.aspx

You may have seen ads on tv for books about finding lost money.  They want you to pay them for telling you where to find government listings of money left in bank accounts or deposits never claimed or benefits checks never cashed.  Even a frugal person can forget a utility deposit or may not even know about a refund that was made but never claimed.  I think these things happen more frequently to people who have moved many times during their life.  I’m giving you one of these sites for free.  If you have an unusual name, it will pop right out, for more common names, you will have to scroll through and look at the addresses.  If you have lived in several states, try your name in each one. http://www.missingmoney.com

Good luck!

Basic Computer Tips

tip
I have a large list on the main membership site for basic computer tips.

Casual computer users can sometimes be amazed how much easier a task can be when they are shown a basic tip.  Here is an example:

Enlarge Your View

When you are browsing the Internet, you may want to take a closer look at a particular page.  While that page is on the screen, hold down the Ctrl key and press the plus key (+).   Each time you press the + key the image will get larger.  While holding down the Ctrl key, press the minus key (-) and the image will get smaller.

Hold Ctrl key  press +         Enlarges

Hold  Ctrl key   press –        Shrinks

**************************************

If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you can try this:   Hold down the Ctrl Key while you roll the wheel forward or backward.

Try it.

Rick Perkins

Happy Browsing!  Send me your questions    rick@addedyears.com

7 Steps to Thinking Better

 

How often do you hear, “When you reach a certain age, that’s what happens”. Don’t fall for that line!? That can be a self-fulfilling mindset.

If you are having doubts about your aging brain, make sure you are following these seven steps to boosting your brain power.

1. Engage yourself in a Regular Exercise

Do simple exercises like a simple walk or jog. It may not be as intense as a full-blown work-out. You just have to keep your body physically fit and active.

Simple work-outs may trigger the release of neurochemicals known as endorphins. These chemicals are responsible for making us feel happy and by feeling happier, a more positive effect on the brain can be observed.

2. Supplement your Diet

Natural supplements are believed to have a good effect on the brain. These supplements not only keep your body healthier, they also maintain the fitness of your brain; thus resulting to better brain power! These supplements are so popular that they can be found anywhere, from your local health and food store up to the web pages of the internet. We pass along any natural remedies that grab our attention in the member’s site.

3. Use your Brain

If you are to exercise your body, you should exercise your brain as well. Use your brain muscles more often ? think and learn. You may read, talk with other people or even play educational games. Any activity that can keep your brain working effectively may be tried out.

4. Play Games

Choose games that will definitely have a good effect on your brain. Refrain from playing games which are “no-brainers.” Nowadays, most computer games are designed to exercise your brain, so all you have to do is to choose well the games that you will play. Gaming consoles are also following the fad into increasing brain function. So, do your part in boosting your brain power, play games that will increase your brain power.

5. Enjoy an Educational Hobby

Choose a hobby that will give you some lessons at the end of the activity. This will not be such a difficult task since most of the time, we learn something from our experiences. Just be sure to do things that are not monotonous. Your hobby should be something that will help you learn new things every time you perform it. This way, you will be able to use some parts of your brain which are left unused before.

6. Sleep Well

Sleeping is the time when your body rebuilds and recharges itself. Most professionals believe that you should sleep for at least six to eight hours a day. Aside from these hours, you should also try to take ten-to-thirty minute power naps. After these refreshing sleeps and naps, you will surely feel energized to take on more activities for the day. From personal experience, I have found that sleep deprivation has a long list of bad side-effects. Memory loss is one of the first to appear.? Do not deprive yourself of sleep, and you will then realize that your brain will function better with more hours of sleep.

7. Relax

Because of the complexities of our society today, your brain is exhausted just as much as your body. Thus, you should take the time to relax and cleanse your mind of the worries and stresses that might overwhelm your thoughts. You may want to try on spas or meditations to give your mind a break from all the hassle. After the relaxation, you will feel that you are prepared to take on another complex day! This is how you make better your brain’s health and performance.
Rick
Get even more help and practical advice as a member of www.addedyears.com (Please, tell all your ‘over 40’ friends about us.)




“The only difference between a Rut and a Grave is the depth”

I don’t know about you, but some days I feel less than great.

Low, grouchy, fed-up, and bored are all words you could use to describe what I’m like on those days and I’m probably not the best company. The thing is, days like those are part of the deal with being human it’s not an elective. There will always be off days, and that’s okay.

But what happens when you get a whole string of those off-days, maybe lasting weeks, months or even years? Too many of us say that we’re in a rut, feel stuck, fed-up, or bored and admit that we don’t want things to be that way, but we don’t know what to do to change. That’s the problem, when you’re in a rut, you don’t have the energy or motivation to change things for the better, and it’s tough to find the insight or resources you need to make that jump.

Here are five fun and easy ways you can use right now to climb, or better yet, leap, out of the rut and start to get something better for yourself.

1. Do Something Differently

Life tends to run smoothly when we establish systems and routines for things, but the problem comes when things run too smoothly and we become blinded to any ideas or choices that sit outside of our routine. All the stuff we do every day becomes the norm, running on auto-pilot, and it becomes our whole world.

Start with making one or two simple changes to your day – be it at breakfast time, your radio station, gym routine, route to work, lunch routine, etc. Don?t worry about what the changes are or whether they?re right or wrong, just make a couple of simple choices that will serve you well.

Doing something differently or changing parts of your routine, instantly takes you out of the norm and allows you to shake off the things that make you feel confined. Step out of your routine and you?ll be in a position where you?re able to make different choices, see things differently and get a different result.

2. Use your Intuition

Your intuition is a powerful ally, and we all have it even though you might not recognize it. The dictionary says that intuition is:

1.a. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.

1.b. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight.

2. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression.

One of the best friends you’ll ever have in life is your intuition, and tuning in to it and learning to trust it is something that can have some truly remarkable effects. Accessing your intuition is a bit like working and developing a muscle, but unfortunately it can be harder to locate than a bicep or quadricep, which tend to stay in the same place. Here are some quick tips for accessing and trusting it:

* Practice maintaining an open-minded, playful, experimental, non-judgmental attitude. This is the most fertile ground to tap into your intuition.

* Practice making wild guesses in your everyday life. Guess what a salesperson’s name is, what a new person or place will look like or who’s calling on the phone. Don’t worry about getting it wrong, you’re just working that muscle.

* Try a few simple observation exercises in your daily life. Whether you’re in a restaurant, on a train, in a bar, or out shopping, practice noticing non-verbal behavior in others. Look for shifts in posture, eye movements, vocal tone or tempo, etc. Guess how they’re feeling or what they’re talking about.

3. Nourishment

Imagine you’re walking home from the supermarket with a couple of bags of groceries, but those bags have holes in them. You?re walking along merrily leaving a trail of your things behind you, but when you get home you unpack what?s left and ask, “Didn’t I have more than this?”

Nourishment is about plugging those holes in your life and making sure you have things that keep you feeling nourished ? nourished in your head, nourished in your heart, and nourished in your stomach. Remember that you can’t give away what you don’t have, and can’t spend energy you’ve already spent.

It doesn’t have to be the big things in life that nourish you and it’s often the simplest little thing that strikes a chord, makes you feel like yourself again, or makes you smile from ear to ear.  Calling a friend, talking a walk in the park, or listening to your favorite song, are all examples. So what keeps you balanced? What relaxes you or makes you feel peaceful? What makes you feel like you again?

The fact is that you’re important enough to spend time taking care of yourself and it doesn’t matter what it is, just take the time to do it. If necessary, go as far as booking time in your diary. You’re the only one of you there is, so it’s your responsibility to make sure you’re okay.

4. Perfect Day

Here’s something to play with: your Perfect Day. This idea came to me a few years ago when a good friend suddenly asked me “What would be your perfect day?” I’d never been asked that before and I found myself spontaneously making up a story, telling her about my Perfect Day from the moment my eyes flickered open to the moment my head hit the pillow.

I went through each part of the day telling her what I was doing, who I was with, where we were, how it felt and what happened next. Bit by bit and without even thinking about it, I’d put together a rich, colorful, exciting, and comforting day, which still holds true as my Perfect Day. The best part is that you can start introducing little bits of your Perfect Day into your real life or working to make some of it happen. For example, in part of my Perfect Day I help an individual find a special gift or talent they might have been overlooking for years. I’m Mr. FixIt, so I have to fix at least one thing in my perfect day. 🙂  That always puts a smile on someone’s face. My Perfect Day has now become like a good friend of mine whom I can call on whenever I want to.

So what’s your Perfect Day? Don’t think too much about it and don’t worry about it sounding silly or too grand. Just shoot from the hip and see what comes out naturally for you. Write down words, ideas, themes or a whole narrative, even draw pictures if you want to. Have fun with it, play with it, it’s your Perfect Day.

5. Get Some Fun, Fulfillment and Freedom

The Three F’s:  Fun, Fulfillment, and Freedom – encompass a lot of what people are looking for in life, and also contain the solutions to having, doing and being those things. Here are some definitions,

Fun, n. – A source of enjoyment or pleasure; playful activity.

Ful-fill’ment, n. – To bring into actuality; to complete; a feeling of satisfaction at having achieved your desires.

Free-dom, n. – The capacity to exercise choice, free will; frankness or boldness; the absence of constraint in choice or action.

Read those again. Those things are huge, deep, and broad, and are a lot simpler than we make them.

Where are you in relation to each of the Three F’s? How much of each do you have right now? How much of each do you want? Whatever gap there is, recognize that it can be closed, and that you can close it. What would things be like if you were to close that gap? What would happen if you climbed a point or two on the Fun scale? What if you could add a point to your level of Fulfillment or Freedom? How would that feel? Pretty good, right? So what one thing can you do right now to help you get more?

By themselves each of the Three F’s are a powerful thing, and can really help to move you forward, enjoy where you are, and feel alive. But when the Three F’s come together . . .well, just hold on to your hat and keys.

Rut? What rut?    Good Luck,  Rick

My Time – My Space

 

 

A Baby Boomers’ Dilemma😕 When is it my turn to enjoy MY life?? I hear this sentiment more and more from my peers who write to me about being bogged down with responsibilities and wanting to “Reclaim their life”.

A very interesting new friend inspired me to write this post.? Please add your comments.

“For years, I have been spending my “non-work” time helping and waiting on others, my husband, my kids and now my parents.  How can I get some private time and space for me?”

The bold move is to simply announce: “Every other Saturday is my day and you will all have to take care of yourselves on my day.”  Your older kids will think you’ve gone nuts, your husband will think you are having an affair and your parents will think you are being “selfish”.  So this is not the ideal approach.

I assume you have noticed that no one says a word when your husband leaves regularly to spend five hours at the golf course. Don’t want to take up golf?  Look at your local recreation or senior center and see if anything looks interesting. If your family gets used to you going away at regular times for yoga sessions, knitting lessons or volunteer work, it becomes “your time” and soon, they will quit asking “Where are you going?” and when will you be back?”

My wife can easily spend five hours running errands and going to the grocery store on a Saturday.  When her father moved in with us, he was ready to call the police after she had been gone for three hours.  “How could she possibly still be shopping?” he would ask.  He now accepts “her time” or at worst thinks she is a really slow shopper.  The point is, over time, people get used to routines.  Start with a regular class or two that everyone understands.  They get used to you being gone and when the classes end that time slot has become “your time”.

You may not even want to leave the house but you still want some private time.  That will require that you have some private space.If the kids are gone, claim a bedroom and make it your study.  Immediately, start locking it so everyone realizes it is off limits. If you don’t have an extra room, look at the closets, a utility room or even a corner of your bedroom.  Buy a locking fold down or roll-top desk big enough to hold a computer.  You may want to start a family tree or catalog all of your recipes so you will have an answer when they ask what you are always doing on the computer.  Again, your time away will soon become part of their routine and they will lose interest.  So whether you are chatting with friends, playing solitaire or starting a new business, it has become Your Time ?  Your Space.

Rick