Is Over 50 Too Old?

I recently turned 54.

When I was young, 54 years old was ancient, nearly a Grandpa.

Now that I’m 54, I don’t feel any different than I did at 20; in fact, I feel even more pumped up than I did back then.

Every year I set my goals that I want to accomplish. The last few years I have upped the game and focused on fewer goals, but ones that are more impactful.

This year was no exception. My big goals focused on relationships, side income and fitness. I feel good about the other areas of my life; career, spiritual and emotional.

1. Relationships

I have an introverted side that is harmful to my relationships with others, especially my wife and daughters and closest friends. I am making a conscious effort in 2015 to spend more time with those I care about.

It means less time on projects and I have to estimate that they will take longer than they have in the past. So what. People are more important.

My conversation skills leave a lot to be desired, so when I want to hang with a friend, I invite two or more and that makes things easy for me to keep the talk going.

Time with my family can be as little as watching a TV show once a week, or going out to dinner and talking. I have also made an effort to be more thoughtful on occasions like Valentine’s Day and leaving notes to tell my wife and daughters I love them.

2. Fitness

I ate like a pig over the holidays, and I gained a few pounds.

I fasted one day and lost it all. My body fat percentage is still high; I want it to be 10% and I’m at 12.5%, but I don’t want my weight to drop too. I want to keep the muscle I’ve gained over the past year.

Mapping out my progress on my monthly basis has been great. My monthly goals are small enough to be achievable. For example, in February I need to maintain my weight but reduce my body fat percentage to 12%. I can do that easily.

I have also been motivated this year to accomplish feats of strength; 25 pull ups and 25 hand-stand push ups, for example.

I listened to a podcast where a guy was in the gym and watched “an old guy over 50” do 22 hand-stand push ups. The guy speaking on the podcast was motivated by the old guy and decided to become a personal trainer. It motivated me to want to break that guy’s record, and I did it last month. I am up to 26 hand-stand push ups, whereas a year ago I couldn’t do one.

3. Side Incomes

I believe that a person should never fully retire.

What I mean is to never sit around the house and watch TV, living off of social security.

I want to have side incomes (several) that will provide enough income that I don’t have to drain my savings when I quit my job. I also want these side incomes to involve activities that I love doing.

If I make $10K per year off of five activities, that is $50K of income that I won’t have to pull out of my savings and it will last longer. Plus I will enjoy doing them.

Last year, I took a course on trading stock options. I really enjoy trading and can see myself doing this until the day I die. I paper traded for months, but moved to trading real money and made a profit in January. I also started trading options from my IRA account, a few months ago, and I’m about even despite getting into some oil stocks (these are making a nice come-back).

I decided to try and market my personal finance knowledge in a product I call Visual Money Pilot. This is an Excel spreadsheet that provides a simple method to budget, save, payoff debt and monitor your net worth in a nice time-efficient manner.

It has worked for me and I want to show others how to do it.

It took almost a year to put together the spreadsheets, write the ebook and record the training videos. I went online this month. I am hoping to sell several of these per month and that it will lead to some personal finance coaching clients.

I have taken several writing classes with the hopes to one day write a book. It is a ten year plan for me. I know I don’t have the skill level right now, but improving a little bit each year will get me there.

Later in the year, I will brainstorm what I try next.

SUMMARY

Hopefully you are like me; over 50 and still feel like you have more to learn and give. I personally am looking forward to the rest of my fifties and my sixties and what I will do with my time.

Thank you for reading this post. I appreciate you doing so.

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