I frequently joke about my wife telling me that I can retire 3 days after I'm dead - kinda like Weekend At Bernie's where Bernie is sitting in a lawn chair and the guys are spraying aerosol deodorant to kill the smell of Bernie decaying in the sun.

In reality, there will soon come a day when I'll have to retire. Not because I want to retire, but as many of you already know, the equipment tends to gain weight exponentially as we get beyond age 65. At 72 I still keep up a pretty good schedule, usually 4 to 5 days a week, but I no longer do doubles and the occasional triple - it's just too much loading and unloading. This, despite the fact that the gear load has been lightened by at least 70 percent over the past two decades.

Additionally, the crowds that many of us perform for are in the same age category. Yep, they're getting old, have health problems that preclude them from dancing the night away, some are on a fixed income and no longer have the finances to party every weekend, etc... Those audiences are slowly dying away, too.

In the past decade, at least a dozen fellow musician/entertainers I personally knew have passed away, often leaving their spouses and families with a mountain of debt. Only one of them had sufficient life insurance, and he was the same one that had a retirement plan. All the others did not.

The others pretty much considered the music business as a cash and carry deal, rarely claimed any job on their income taxes, didn't write checks for any purchases, didn't keep receipts, paid cash for just about everything and never took the time to document business related expenses. I was awestruck at many of the viewings when these individuals passed away when their spouses said "We didn't have any insurance, and John didn't have a retirement plan. I had to make a loan just to pay the funeral expenses." This, unfortunately, is not at all uncommon.

With the exception of Captain Russ, Don Mason, myself, and a few others, I wonder how many individuals on this forum have actually looked into the future and planned their eventual retirement? How many of you use programs such as Quick Books, Quicken, Turbo Tax, etc... to manage your music income and expenses? Have you ever thought about setting up a simple IRA, SEP, Roth IRA, or similar retirement plan? How much of your music income goes into retirement?

Just food for thought,

Gary