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Show By Thomas Collins PROBLEM WIVES WORRY OVER LIFE ON PENSION ,f.p0 wives customarily turn U into problems for men about to retire? "My wife has turned into one . . . probably the biggest single problem I have with retirement. "My company has me tabbed for April 1 six weeks after I reach 65. I'm not too concerned about it. I'll get $312 from my pension and Social Security, and I have our home paid for. That will De adequate, if what I have learned from other men at the company Is true. My wife doesn't see It this way. She thinks that we can't come down from $925 a month (my salary) to $312. She writes the checks at our house, and she says that if everything has to be cut to one-third (which is what my retirement will mean) she can't balance the check book. She gets somewhat frantic In telling tell-ing me that we may have to keep the furnace on only one day in three during the snows of January Jan-uary and that we can cut down on meals. If this sounds cracky you should hear her other ideas. "Be that as it may, she is frightened. Can you give me any advice that will reassure her or at least dispel some of her dismay?" dis-may?" Yes. You take over the check book. A wife who has leaned on the broad shoulder of a man for 40-odd 40-odd years will naturally feel some apprehension when, at 65, his shoulder evaporates to one-third one-third its size. So she's not necessarily nec-essarily cracky. To assure her that $312 a month and a home are sufficient for retirement re-tirement (most people who are retiring have much less) the simplest sim-plest step Is to broaden her knowledge. knowl-edge. To do this, a husband could borrow $1,000 on the home and take his wife to visit the smaller communities In Florida, Arizona, California and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. There she could see couples by the hundreds who are doing all right on $200 to $250 a month, and who own no real estate. It often is not enough to tell a wife. You have to show her. And a husband must realize that retirement requires a new perspective per-spective on a standard of living. You can't live on a $925 life on $312 pay. You just can't. Moving may be the best way to get the j new perspective. Wives are not the least of pensioned man's problems. Sometimes Some-times they are the most. And when they are the most, it is usually in these areas: . PRESTIGE The wife who has civic and social connections, and who is bucking the presidency of the West End Ladies Society or an Invitation to a dinner at the Plushboltom house, is afflicted The best treatment is to move, but to a place where you can get a snob postmark on letters back home. Something like Palm Beach or Monterey, even if you live in a tent at the city limits There is no cure for the affliction., but you can transplant it to an environment you can afford. For a topy "I the Srvr Ooldrn Vfr; booklet by Thomas Collins. sen S.i culls In coin (no stumps! ts Dfpl. "NVV.NS", Box 1117'!. (irnnd Central Station, New York 17, N. V. |