Don't Be Shocked

(Image from Financial Review)

A wealth shock in your 50's can shorten your life, according to a recent study: [bold added]

Overall, wealth shock was tied with a 50 percent greater risk of dying....About 1 in 4 people in the study had a wealth shock, which researchers defined as a loss of 75 percent or more in net worth over two years. The average loss was about $100,000.

A wealth shock can arise from different, albeit related, reasons, for example, job loss, a family breakup, foreclosure, or illness. The undaunted may try to get a job and work their way out of the financial hole, but there are medical perils from working, too.

Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer says "The Workplace Is Killing People and Nobody Cares". His argument is simple:

1) "A large fraction — some estimates are 75 percent — of the disease burden in the U.S. is from chronic diseases."
2) "diabetes, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome — and many health-relevant individual behaviors such as overeating and underexercising and drug and alcohol abuse — come from stress.'
3) "the biggest source of stress is the workplace."

Dr. Pfeffer (hey, it was there, so I took it) cautions that in working long hours "we have come to normalize the unacceptable."

The only easy paths to wealth and a stress-free life, IMHO, are the time-honored: being born, or marrying, into riches.

The rest of us need to save our pennies from an early age and live a lifestyle below our income. Social status may suffer, but there will be a cushion that will help weather life's shocks.