BETTE LONGDEN
Portland, Oregon
Age: 67 Year Retired: 2006
IF YOU THINK you’ll need a lot of money to
enjoy retirement, visit Bette Longden. Living
in a HUD-assisted housing unit on just her
Social Security check, Longden has used
retirement to flex her creative side: she
has developed a one-woman dramatic play
and performs it at local senior centers on
open-mike nights.
Before Longden retired in 2006, after a
career that included secretarial work mixed
in with some globetrotting nanny assign-
ments, she had dabbled in small-theater
groups. “But when
I retired,” she says,
“I finally had plenty
of time to dive in.”
So Longden—
her mother named
her for Bette Davis—
took acting classes at a local college and
wrote a 12-minute play that drew, in part,
on her life.
; Favorite worry repellent “I’ve got a
little cash reserve, and I spend a lot of time
counting my blessings, like my wonderful
son and grandchildren. I have a full tummy
and a warm bed. Compared to many people,
I’m lucky.”
; What I wish someone had told me
“How great it feels to sleep until 9:00 A.M.
every day—I had been getting up at 6:00
A.M. for 45 years!”
; My secret to happiness “If I feel down,
I do something for someone else.”
“I simplify,
and I’m
content”
Kickdr
From
top:Ecte dit
ip euipsum
dunt dui eui
KATHY AND BOB POHLY
Pagosa Springs, Colorado
Ages: 57, 61 Year Retired: 2010 (July), 2008
FOR THE POHLYS, retirement
was supposed to be one seamless
schuss off a ski slope. Married for
ten years, with six kids between
them from previous marriages, the
two scrupulously followed advice
from financial planners. “We saved
the maximum in our IRAs and
401(k)s,” says Bob. “I retired from
a telecommunications company
with a small pension in 2001, then
took a job as a VP at a nonprofit.
And we built our dream house
here in the San Juan Mountains. I
fully retired in January 2008—we
thought we were all set.”
That fall, it all changed. “Over-
night our retirement nest egg
dropped by 40 percent,” he adds.
Bob and Kathy spent the next
months in shock. But then came
some perspective: thanks to their
preparations, even with the down-
turn “we realized we’ll be okay,”
says Bob. “We check with our
financial planner regularly. He
assures us we’ll be fine through our
80s.” For Bob, the local opportuni-
ties to ski, fish, and golf are limit-
less. Kathy looks forward to more
exercise and volunteer time when
she retires from her work-at-home
Wells Fargo job in July.
