The event flier shows a pair of rolled dice and asks the question, “Are you gambling with your financial future?”

Adults who don’t want to leave their financial affairs to chance are being given an opportunity (for a nominal fee) to hearing from the experts during the month of October. The Calvert County Office on Aging began its “Elder Law and Finance Series” Thursday, Oct. 6 at Calvert Pines Senior Center in Prince Frederick. The series will continue for the next three Thursdays. For a nominal fee residents may sign up for one or all sessions. The registration cost per session is $10.

Mary J. Stephenson PH.D of Solomons, a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, discussed organizing legal and financial resources.

Stephenson said these are daunting times for older Americans. “Consumer costs are rising dramatically on everything the elderly family needs to survive,” said Stephenson. Among the staples with rising costs are food, gasoline, housing and, especially, healthcare.

She indicated the challenge to make ends meet has some people who to hope to retire less focused on their strategy to attain that vision. “A lot of people aren’t even calculating what they will need in retirement,” said Dr. Stephenson. She presented the series participants with an outline of steps one should take to attain financial security.

 Making a good financial plan involves keeping financial records in an organized system, setting financial goals, evaluating cash flow, calculating one’s net worth, analyzing insurance coverage and adopting a financial strategy.

Stephenson also included making “assumptions” about the future in the checklist. The assumptions include longer life span, younger or older retirement, loss of a spouse, rising healthcare costs, fluctuating inflation rate, lack of pension stability and Social Security instability.

Stephenson called insurance “a necessary evil and added that it was more important to have “disability insurance” than “life insurance.”

The other speaker for the session, Jeffery P. Quesenberry of Edward Jones Investment Services, added that evaluating life insurance policies was crucial to anyone approaching the retirement age. “It’s real important you do it right now,” said Quesenberry, who explain