A Poster Child for Retirement Angst
A pension, a big nest egg, that would have been nice. But after a 33-year career in advertising, Dale Tangeman’s retirement plan hinges on selling movie posters.
Chaplin, Garbo and Orson Welles posters cover his pingpong table. More are stacked around his living room and studio. The math is simple and a bit scary: Sell enough posters and the 60-year-old retiree and his wife, 59, can live comfortably. With no pension and limited savings, Tangeman recently launched Film Poster Archive on the Web as his entrepreneurial attempt at retirement security.
“I certainly don’t want to work at Sam’s Club and greet you at the door when you walk in,” said Tangeman, who is slim with a full head of long, gray hair. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
Call it retiring in an age of anxiety.
The old “three-legged stool” of retirement income -- employer-funded pensions, Social Security and personal savings -- is looking rickety as baby boomers prepare to retire en masse. Already, about 7 million retirees are working, a third of them returning to a job because they “had to,” according to a recent survey sponsored by Putnam Investments. David Tyrie, Putnam’s director of retirement services, expects more cases like the Tangemans’ in the coming years.
“It’s the biggest oxymoron out there: working in retirement,” Tyrie said. “But they have to do it.”
Tangeman fits neatly into the Woodstock Generation, from his earring to the black electric guitar in his studio. He even lives in Woodstock, in a charming house on a mountainside.
Although there is no such thing as a typical retiree, Tangeman’s story will strike a chord with many boomers.
In more than three decades in advertising, Tangeman helped design campaigns for everything from tires to phone service. His career took him from Ohio to New York City, where he was a senior art director at Saatchi & Saatchi, then a freelancer. In 1994, he became a partner in an Ohio firm.
Tangeman never became vested in a pension plan amid his job hopping, though he had a 401(k) for a time. He figured he would fill the gap through savings. Despite occasionally earning six figures a year while freelancing, he found that his earnings were devoured by taxes, living in New York, putting a son through college and the vagaries of the stock market.
The couple has a retirement nest egg of less than $200,000 -- a sum that becomes less impressive when figured against the average life expectancy of 78.
The Tangemans have a lot of company on the nest egg front. Americans are notoriously poor savers. For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans’ personal savings last year fell below zero, meaning people spent more than their after-tax income.
Meanwhile, companies are phasing out pensions in favor of 401(k) plans, putting the onus on employees to save. Even healthy companies like IBM have taken steps to freeze their pensions.
That leaves Social Security, which is not expected to exhaust its reserves until 2042. But Social Security benefits replace, on average, about 44% of income, and retirees generally need 65% to 75% of their pre-retirement income to maintain their lifestyle, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
Regardless, Tangeman cannot draw benefits for another two years. He retired at 60 after getting a four-year buyout at his last ad industry job.
Tangeman tried to find work in those four years. He attempted to parlay his artistic ability with love of motorcycles into a series of bike paintings. He worked at an art gallery part time. He applied for a sales job. He didn’t get it.
“You always think opportunity opens doors to you,” he said. “When you get to my age, they don’t open up to you.”
So he jumped when he had a chance to buy the 5,000-plus poster cache from a retiring Manhattan art dealer for a price in the low six figures. Like so many homeowners recently, the Tangemans cashed in on the equity in their home.
Now Tangeman spends his days photographing his stock and posting it on his website. Posters go from $15 to about $3,500, so a big sale a week could pay the bills.
Tangeman reports some sales as he tries to get the business off the ground, but “not enough to make a living” just yet.
How can boomers avoid this sort of insecurity?
Experts agree it’s important to make a retirement plan and stick to it. Think about the age at which you want to retire, expected revenue streams and expenses.
And save. Studies have found even a modest boost in contributions to a 401(k) can make a big difference over time. For instance, Putnam found that saving 4% instead of 2% in a defined contribution plan over 15 years doubled retirement wealth. Tax-sheltered IRAs also are recommended.
“People should plan carefully, think about saving more and plan to work somewhat longer,” said Andrew Eschtruth of the Center for Retirement Research.
Film Poster Archive: https://www.filmposterarchive.com
