Hey everybody it’s Victor Medina and welcome back to another Five Fact Friday. Before I get to the links for this week, I wanna share some great news. I’ve just published my fourth book and it’s called “Make it Last: Empowering Women in Retirement”. Now, I know this is the most recent book that I’ve published but I really think it is the best book that I have ever published and I’m happy to announce that we are going to be launching this on November 14th at Amalfis in Lawrenceville from 4:30 to 6:30 PM. We’re holding a book launch party where I will be underwriting all of the food, all of the drink and in fact, all of the copies of the book that will be available. And what we’re gonna be doing is we’re going to be exchanging a book for a $10 donation that we will be giving to Womanspace, which is a local organization that champions and fends the rights of women and what they need that is local here in Mercer County. I’ve been a long time supporter of the organization, different formats, whether it’s taking out advertising in their fundraising activities or supporting them in other ways. But I am happy that we’re gonna have a representative from Womanspace who will be there to talk about their mission. So I really would like you to come and support us that evening. 100% of the donations that you’ll be giving, we’re gonna ask for about $10 a book, if you don’t mind, but 100% of those are gonna be going to Womanspace. So do us a favor and help us celebrate the release of this fourth book. I am totally excited that we’re gonna make this available to everyone because I tell ya, in the course of my career, what we’ve learned is first of all, that women are an incredibly powerful source of great decision making when it comes to managing their finances and putting in place great legal plans. At the same time, we’ve experienced that there is some information that they wish that they had along the way. So I took all of that together and put together what I think is a great book helping guide women who will either become in charge of their finances sometime in their life or they’re there right now. So maybe they’re suddenly single because they’re divorced or widowed or a caregiver for somebody in their family. Either way, we think that this book will serve as a great guide to helping them make good decisions as they enter retirement, both on the legal and the financial side. So again, I hope you will come and support us on November 14th at Amalfis from 4:30 to 6:30 PM. That’s Amalfis in Lawrenceville as we launch “Make it Last: Empowering Women in Retirement” where we’re going to donate 100% of the proceeds from that evening to Womanspace and hope you can join us. You should be on the lookout for an invitation and if not, there may be a link here that you can register for that event. Of course, space is limited because we take over the entire bar for that area. The whole evening is just taken up with all of our guests and so we do have a limited amount of space before the fire marshal comes and takes us away. So anyway, really excited about the book, hope we’ll see you on November 14th. Let’s actually get to the links for this week. And the first thing that I wanna share with you is after years of planning they are opening the American Dream mall in northern New Jersey. This thing has got everything. It’s got a skiing area, it’s got a waterpark, it’s got a roller coaster. It has a whole bunch of stuff to do and what I just learned is that they’re actually charging for parking in the area. So if you just kinda wanna go to the mall, you actually have to pay to park. I think that’s sort of a violation of fundamental American rights. You should be able to go to the mall whenever you want and pay nothing for that. You’re gonna be spending money there. In any event, it looks like it’s a spectacle and you may wanna check that out. The next thing is Apple has released another gadget, which you know means I have to talk about it. They are releasing a new pair of their AirPods Pro and what makes these different is that they include noise canceling in them and they are a little bit longer battery life with a little bit better ear fits. They’re including a silicone earbud. For a lot of people that’s going to be a game changer because they love the concept of the AirPods, it’s just the hard plastic didn’t fit in their ears and so this one’s got a different format. Here’s the nice thing about that, they will be available for you to try on at a local Apple store before you make a decision about it. So if you’re interested in maybe checking those out. If you do a fair amount of flying but you don’t like the big headphones that you have to wear over, these might be a good solution. The link after that deals with mindfulness, you know I have been a big proponent of mindfulness for a long time. I have a friend of mine to thank for that practice that I have. It really has served and rewarded me. As a reminder, mindfulness is really the ability to take in information and respond rather than react. I kind of think about it like a capacitor to deal with a lot of the junk that happens in your life. You might just explode if you have no ability to deal with it. Mindfulness actually gives you a great way of responding to the world instead of reacting to the world. So there’s another app that has been released and you may wanna check it out. Mindfulness can be practiced any number of ways. The most important thing is that you actually do take the time to sit and work on this skill because that’s the only way that we develop the muscle. So whatever app works for you, I think it will be great. Check out this one, see if that one works for you. The two last links are gonna be dealing with first out in the legal realm, there has been the adoption of the Electronic Wills Act. And what that does is allows people to create wills electronically rather than the old-fashioned way dealing with both paper and a notary and wet signatures. And so look, I think that there is good things and bad things about what they’re trying to do. I think the bad thing is that they’re encouraging people to create wills without a lawyer and that’s really the same thing as sort of do-it-yourself open heart surgery. Just because I give you a scalpel doesn’t mean that you should be doing it. And in fact, even if I gave you a robot to do it, doesn’t mean that you should be doing it either. That’s sort of the equivalent of doing it the paper way and doing it the electronic way. But I do think that it is important for us to keep pace with the advances in technology where we can do signatures electronically and store documents and validate them where we don’t necessarily need the paper to do that. We do a lot of financial transactions with all kinds of sites, security and privacy around that. Couldn’t we do that also in the new world? So check that link out and see what you think, in fact, drop a link back in the comments or send us an email and tell us what you think about that. And finally, there’s a link about how much time you’ll be spending with your spouse in retirement and here’s a spoiler, it’s actually a lot more than what ya think. It reminds me of the story that when my parents retired, they kinda retired really close to one another and they had a property in Florida and it was a one bedroom in a large tower down in the West Palm area. They only lasted about a winter when my mom said, “We’re actually selling that property “and we’re buying a three bedroom property “a little further north, actually closer to Orlando.” And I said, “Hey Orlando, that makes a lot of sense, kids, the grandkids, we’ll go to Disney.” She said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s okay “but here’s the real story. “If I had to spend another winter in a one bedroom apartment “with your father, we weren’t both gonna make retirement.” And anyway, they started their lives into a little bit more space and I think it served them well. You might be surprised to learn that you’re gonna spend a lot more time with your spouse and it might be worth thinking about that as you enter retirement. Have a great foundation for your relationship before you start spending 16 hours a day or more with them. All right listen, before we go, a reminder. We’re launching the newest book “Make it Last: Empowering Women in Retirement”. I wanna talk to you about two things in that. First, there is the book launch party November 14th. We hope that you’ll be our guest and come support Womanspace. The second thing is that book, it’s actually a great resource to use as a book talk. So if you are a member of another organization where educating women about retirement is something that you think would be valuable, we wanna remind you that we will offer up the opportunity for me to come and give a book talk and also give away copies of the book. I’m so passionate about spreading this information that I’m willing to travel wherever. I can show up and speak in front of a group and help more people understand why it’s so important for women to become knowledgeable and empowered as they enter retirement both on their legal and their financial planning. Anyway, that’s it. Enjoy the five links, hope to see you on November 14th. And we’ll catch you soon, bye-bye.
Five Fact Friday is a bi-weekly newsletter produced by Medina Law Group containing 5 interesting or fun links. For more information, visit medinalawgroup.com or call 609-818-0068.
Reading: http://bit.ly/2BXZiNm
Watching: http://bit.ly/2Nputq8
Home Screen: http://bit.ly/2N2NsaT
Legal: nyti.ms/2JQtZIH
Retirement: http://bit.ly/2JBNlky