Financial Aging

I was really surprised by the financial calculator.  I really hadn't given this topic much concern.  I hadn't thought about setting aside a significant amount of money each month for retirement.  Right now I am currently working on managing my finances for grad school and have been contrasting different loan options including varied interest and repayment times.  After graduating from grad school I intend to focus on repaying my loans, I hadn't considered needing to set money aside for retirement at the beginning of my career-however I can understand where this would be important.  If you set aside money early it can begin to accumulate interest and over time increase your investment.  I also remember hearing on the news recently that each child generally costs around 200,000 to raise-not including the cost of college.  I enjoy kids and I had anticipated saving money to begin a family, but I didn't realize how many different things would need my money at the same time. 

Throughout our discussions I feel that we have determined that it is beneficial for longevity to minimize stress and live a simple lifestyle.  However, I am confused at how to make this happen when we have so many stresses in our lives-including planning financially for the rest of our lives starting now.  Financial planning for the long term future is definitely an interesting aspect of aging that I had not seriously considered until now.

Centenarian Study

Throughout this seminar, I've been very intrigued by the different centenarians and the variety of lifestyles they've maintained.  I think especially of the woman that smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol regularly and others that ate a diet consisting of southern soul food-including fried chicken.  I think it is obvious that several factors influence the issue of aging, but I am even more perplexed and interested in finding just how they are intertwined.  We've seen examples where genetics and lifestyle choices seem to make a difference, but we've also witnessed exceptions.  Are these examples strictly exceptions, or is there more behind these cases?

In applying this information to my own life I have found myself thinking I should do this because it is 'good for me'.  After seeing the wide variety of healthy aging individuals that didn't necessarily follow these guidelines, I wonder if it's really that important that I follow them myself.  I think this drives my insatiable curiosity  to determine  what  has the largest influence on aging and aging well.  If we can find what causes us to age especially well or poorly perhaps we can emphasize following or avoiding these qualities.  I guess for now we will have to be content in continuing our search since no obvious break throughs  have been made thus far.