In the wake of the all-consuming
Coronavirus, there is plenty of advice floating around for how to keep yourself
calm and occupied at home.

I personally liked Margaret’s list of things to do if you’re stuck at home. In addition to the usual ideas of crafting and exercising at home, Margaret also had some great suggestions like virtual travel, watching Ted Talks, and doing a “life review.”

But there’s another way to occupy
your time right now that will also help make you calmer and happier: virtual
volunteering. At a time when we’re getting daily reminders to be mindful of the
most vulnerable, volunteering online is not only good for the community, it’s
also good for you.

The Value of Volunteering as You Age

There’s plenty of evidence out
there to suggest that volunteering is good for your physical and mental
health, particularly as you age. As one author wrote long before the
Coronavirus set in, volunteering – by allowing her a place to deposit her
abundant, mid-life energy – became
her personal “chill pill.”

Volunteering also taps into a larger sense of purpose. In his book, The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, Jonathan Rauch explores the science behind the so-called “Happiness U-curve.” The U-curve, a statistically robust finding which cuts across countries, shows that life satisfaction falls in our 20s and 30s, hits a nadir in our late 40s, and then increases steadily until our 80s.

But that upwards curve, Rauch
suggests, is not only the product of greater personal acceptance and adjusting
of expectations as we age. It also derives from a greater ability to re-direct
our focus away from ourselves and towards our community.

The numbers back this up. As Marc Freedman notes in his book, How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations, fully a third of older adults in the United States already exhibit “purpose beyond the self,” i.e., they identify, prioritise, and actively pursue goals that are both personally meaningful and contribute to the greater good.

That’s 34 million people over the
age of 50 who are willing and able to tutor children, clean neighbourhood
parks, or work for world peace.

Virtual Mentoring

Obviously, in an age of social
distancing, we need to move all of that good spirit and energy online. One of
the easiest ways to do that is by becoming a mentor. The beauty of being a
mentor is that you don’t need to work inside a large company – or even a
formal hierarchy – to make a difference.

All you need is a transferable
skill set, a bit of empathy, and the ability to help someone break down their
work, life, or education challenges into tractable, bite-sized chunks. Writers,
scholars, artists, social workers – not to mention you corporates out there –
can and should mentor.

Nor, in this globally connected
world, do we need to work or live down the hall or street from our mentees.
When I worked at the BBC, I mentored a young journalist via Skype who lived and
worked 5,000 miles away from me.

I gave this young woman tips for
how she might communicate better with her introverted boss. I advised her on
stress-management when she got stopped and questioned by her government for having
taken photos of a taboo region in the country.

We even discussed how she might
navigate societal expectations that – as a single, unmarried woman in her early
30s – she was long overdue to have a baby, even though she didn’t feel ready.

Online Campaigning

You can also get involved with
online campaigning for a cause you’re passionate about. An American artist
friend of mine who lives in London recently launched a Kick-starter campaign to
support a beautiful Haggadah collage she was making for the upcoming Passover
holiday.

Unfortunately, she launched this
fundraising drive about a week before Coronavirus awareness hit “red”
on the dial in the UK and the US. So, she abruptly cancelled her own campaign
to support a friend in Texas who was raising money to build a safety net for
the restaurant workers she was going to need to lay off.

This is also a good time to get
involved in political campaigning. It’s sometimes hard to remember that there’s
a major set of elections in the US approaching us in November.

Going door to door in swing states
is ill-advised in the current moment. But there is plenty to be done online to
support your political party/candidate.

I personally plan to re-direct the
volunteering time I normally spend teaching creative writing to children into
depolying online tools to mobilise the
large and occasionally pivotal swath of American voters living abroad.

Ageing and Wisdom

One of the concepts Rauch talks
about in his book about aging and happiness is “wisdom.” His argument
is that wisdom is not only, or even primarily, about knowledge and expertise.
It’s also about cultivating self-interest in order to promote the common good.

I, for one, feel wiser for knowing
this. And I can’t wait to spread my wisdom online.

Where do you usually volunteer?
Can you continue those activities in the current situation? Is it possible to
volunteer online? In what ways? Please share with our community!

You’ve no doubt heard about the recent market volatility
related to Coronavirus and the reaction to this unexpected pandemic.

Nobody likes sitting on their hands when it feels like they
should be doing something, but acting without thinking has never been the wiser
path to choose. The challenge quickly turns into identifying the things you
should think about doing, and the things you shouldn’t.

While it’s not hard to see that there will be an economic
impact, it is important to remember that the financial markets are not the
economy. It’s even more important to remember that time in the market usually
works better than timing the market.

According to Blackrock, 24 of the 25 worst trading days happened
within one month of the 25 best trading days over the last 20 years. Missing
those “best trading days” can have a drastic negative impact on your overall
return.

By trying to time the market in volatile times like these,
you run the risk that you miss those days, thereby doing more harm than good.

Investments

If you shouldn’t sell your investments and try to time the
market, what can you do? The first strategy is to rebalance.

Rebalancing your portfolio means to sell investments that
have gone up to purchase more of the investments that have gone down. This allows
you to buy low and sell high on a relative basis. It also maintains your
overall allocation you decided on when you created your financial plan.

Rebalancing assumes you had the right overall stock/bond
allocation in the first place. If the markets have genuinely spooked you to the
point you are considering selling out of the market, or already have, then you
probably didn’t have the right allocation to begin with.

Now is the time to revisit your “risk tolerance” since it is no longer a hypothetical scenario.

Time horizon is another component that determines your
asset allocation. If you need money from your portfolio in the next 5–10 years,
that portion shouldn’t have been in stocks to begin with because of how quickly
stocks can go down.

A proper asset allocation requires that you coordinate
your financial plan, risk tolerance (aka volatility tolerance), and your time
horizon. It’s never too late to get this part right, but make sure you read the
next section.

Beware the
Salespeople

Much like the media uses fear to generate eyeballs and
clicks, so too do annuity salespeople use fear to sell annuities.

They can play on your fear and tout the ability to “never
lose money” and will have their charts to convince you an annuity is the
greatest thing since sliced bread. We all know guarantees like that must come
with some serious tradeoffs.

An annuity may or may not make sense for you, but don’t
let the recent market performance make that decision for you. Annuity
salespeople do not have to act in your best interest the same way a full time Fiduciary does.

A Fee-Only advisor has a legal obligation to act in your
best interest at all times and can be a thinking partner in times like these,
especially if you are navigating retirement
solo.

You can learn more about the difference between Fee-Only
advisors and “fee-based” here.

Tax Strategies
Before Tax Day

There are a few strategies you can pursue before you file
your 2019 taxes. If you have earned income, you can still contribute to an IRA
or Roth IRA for the 2019 tax year.

Also, you can make Health Savings Account contributions if
you are covered by a qualifying health plan. Other than the Roth IRA, these
strategies can lower the amount of tax due on your 2019 tax return.

Refinance Debt

Interest rates usually drop when stocks do, and this
episode has been no different. This means it may be a good time to refinance some
of your debt, and here are the two reasons why you should consider it:

The first is to lower your monthly payment in times of a
cash flow crunch, but this can mean you’ll pay more in interest overall.

The other reason to refinance is to pay less interest
overall. Depending on your unique circumstances, a refinance may be able to do
both. This short video discusses refinancing in more detail.

Whatever your retirement portfolio
and financial goals, times of crisis should never be taken lightly. Consider
your options before acting.

Download Robert’s ebook, 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Retiring Solo, if you’re on the path to
retirement and need guidance.

What financial actions did you take in the past week? How
did they impact your retirement portfolio? Now that you thought things through,
would you act differently? How? Please share with our community!