1. Colonoscopies aren't so bad.
Truth is, the colonoscopy procedure itself is a walk in the park. They give you drugs that send you off to Dreamland and when you wake up 30 minutes later, it's all over and you remember nothing. It's like being back in the '60s, but without the bell-bottoms or tie-dye.
What gives colonoscopies such a bad rap is the prep you have to go through for the 48 hours or so beforehand. You can only drink clear liquids -- and nobody considers vodka a clear liquid -- and then down a few gallons of uber-laxatives to clean out your intestines. If all products worked as effectively as the laxatives you take before your colonoscopy, we'd probably have world peace.
All that said, starting at age 50, people are supposed to get a cancer-screening colonoscopy done every 10 years unless they have conditions that put them at higher risk -- and then they should consult with their doctor about having the procedure more frequently. Bottom line: It will not be your favorite thing.
2. I'm so glad I bought long-term care insurance when I was 25.
While not the best insurance in the world -- premiums have been known to jump wildly -- LTC is also the insurance we love to hate. In part, this is because most of us don't have it. By the time we figured out what it was, we were too old to afford it anymore. LTC insurance helps offset the cost of a nursing home. Yes, the same nursing home we hope our kids will not put us in. A bed in one of them generally runs upward of $80,000 a year, which is why some people take out an insurance policy that would help pay for it. But most of us, don't. While 75 percent of people over age 65 will need to rely on long-term nursing home care, only 10 percent have LTC insurance.
3. I'm not worried about retirement. I've saved enough.
Retirement these days is kind of like a game of musical chairs. Where you are financially when the music stops is where you'll stay and at least some of us won't get a seat at the retirement table.
In the prettiest version of retirement, you will basically continue your lifestyle, but just do so on a bit less income. The catch is: How do you define "a bit?"
Very few can replicate the amount of their paycheck through Social Security, pensions and investments alone. If you are lucky, you'll reach 70 percent of what you once earned. And at that, your big ticket items like housing and health care aren't going to shrink with time. So you'll travel less, eat out less, shop less hoping to fill the gap. Plus there is an excellent chance that you are sitting there thinking "I should only be so lucky to have my retirement income add up to 70 percent of my former paycheck!"
Outliving your money is a real thing. Longevity may be a miracle, but it's also our greatest fear.
4. I regret that backpacking trip around Europe I made using Frommer's "Europe on $5 a Day."
Those iconic coming-of-age trips were popular in the early 1970s, where college kids armed only with this Bible of all guidebooks hitchhiked around Europe, sleeping in hostels for $3 a night and dining on three-course meals for under a $1. Many of us went on these adventures hoping to find ourselves only to learn that we were never lost in the first place.
Few have any regrets, except that $5 today won't even pay for the Starbuck's at the airport.
5. I can still eat whatever I want, can get by on zero sleep, and my knees don't hurt when I jog more than 5 miles.
Well, maybe they can say it but it wouldn't be true.
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