Personal notes
I continue to share my retirement experience as a periodic event (experience defined as the mistakes of the past that we like to reminisce and chuckle about) with fellow and close colleagues of the same line of business. Because this business of the UN plucks us out of the African reality and we live in another level of comfort altogether. The system protects and inures, but we then return to reality on retirement. Then we realize it was dreamland compared with the day-to-day reality of our families, our relatives, our classmates etc.
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Fri 16/02/2024 17:15
Dear colleagues, shemeji zanguni (my in-laws - I consider all Tanzanians my in-laws as I married in their territory twice, but any national of any African country could as well have been my in-law, I am fully at ease anywhere South of the Sahara desert)
Happy New Year once more, already Happy Valentine na mengine yameishapita. Kabla hamjafumbua macho tena, Disemba inatuchungulia! (events have already happened. Before you open the eyes again, December will be upon us again)
Following my earlier sharing of retirement experiences, I want to insist on one, as my fourth communication to you: CASH AVAILABILITY for a retiree is very important, I would say vital to a good quality life after combat. waiting for the monthly retirement sum is not good enough. In fact for the retiree it arrives on the very last day (30 or 31) of the month. Here is what happened to me:Once I received my initial retirement monies, including the lumpsum, there was commotion in the family because we never saw so much money at one sitting available to us. So, we sat to plan. Except our planning did not consider that money runs out quickly. Anyway, we bought our comfortable cars, one for Mozambique and one for Tanzania, we gave some money to a few struggling cousins, so they can start their own business, we bought land to develop, etc.
EXCEPT: the cousins never managed to get their business past eleven months, they invariably failed and they were back on our door, and we continue carrying, including extended families (school fees here, health costs there because they have no health insurance and therefore we remain the strongest plank in a challenging environment). Theere are always those cousins that tend to come back from time to time with new bright business ideas...
EXCEPT: we put money into a new business because some bright chap saw us with promising amounts of money and came with a nice idea of second hand car importations. But the Dar-es-Salaam port, especially after the DP World saga, has been congested and the vehicles have been at high seas for the last 11 months. So, it really is not business that will bring us readily available cash. And now, our cash availability is just the monthly income, which we want to protect at all costs so we can live comfortably.
What is my message?
Message one: Relatives
Relatives are an African value and tradition (our great philosophy is: I am because we are, or without YOU, there is no ME), but let this tradition not punish you after retirement. A few of the relatives need to be helped to understand that there will be a limit to how much you can continue helping when you are running towards retirement.
The thought that you will give money to someone relatives to start a business is ruinous, chicken fat and fallacious: business always dies because they have not sweated for the money. Eti naomba hela nikaanze biashara ya kuuza kuku au kuuza mkaa! (if you give me money, I will start a business of chicken rearing or selling charcoal). Do not believe these nice Swahili songs designed to make a cow sleep, please.
Message two: Safe bets:
Safe bets depend very much, for each one of us. However, if you have not started a business, do not start it on retirement. You either have or are developing the experience now, otherwise, after that retirement date, please just drop any bright ideas. They eat into your money and slowly you end up digging deep into your retiree monthly income. I am instead selling the idea that in your country Tanzania you could consider bank investments, and you have several institutional advantages over Mozambique.
See below (deleted) what we are getting from an investment of a hundred million shillings in July last year. Today, only seven months later, we already have an interest of 7.6 million shillings. By September it will be more than double that amount because we opted for compounded interests as we decided not to touch it for a few years. And if we come across some more shillings, we intend to double or triple those savings. That is one safe bet that exists in your country. Consider it. Bear with me to repeat ad nauseam: Cash is more important in retirement than it was when we were working. We get sick and our insurance is not enough, especially for traditional medicines that are more effective but off the insurance list. Our parents tend to get sicker precisely when we are older... etc. Sorry for the repetition, but I will be sorrier if you do not learn from me.
Kama nimeweza kuwashawishi (if I can entice you), they have explanation sessions almost everyday at the Sukari House. The address: Sukari House, Dar-es-Salaam.
Visit https://uttamis.co.tz/ (Investment Management Company)
Message 3: Start today treating your food as your medicine if you do not want to treat your medicine as your food in retirement.
Let me here avoid long lectures on this topic. You know for instance that the tryptic lifestyle co-morbidities (diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol) are almost always permanent invitees into our lives after the age of sixty. I have these travel companions, and they cost me every day $4.8. You can say that with the retirement benefits I receive, that should be nothing. But for non-UN people, and we in Africa are a very tiny minority). A university teacher earning $800/month, on retirement should be getting around $600 (in dollar terms, in Mozambique). Spending that much money on drugs alone, and we are told by pharmaceutically-inclined doctors that this is for life, we are looking at expenditures of $144 on drugs alone on one individual in the family. Hoping there are no other morbidities to take care of. A professor does not have the wherewithal to buy him(her)self a house, so there is the rental, and other family expenses!
Again: start now changing food habits for more appetizing and healthier ones. There is no dearth of information on these.
And for medicine: switch (wisely and with proper advice) from pharmacy to forest. The Chinese and Indians have done it for ages. You could read my article below[1], but it is in Portuguese. If you have the time, ask google for a rough translation. With the caution that these medicines are not in your standard health insurance list for obvious cultural reasons, and they tend to be expensive.
Cheers
Jose,
Tete, Mozambique
20 April 2024
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