Do you get to retire when you are 62? Perhaps you will wait until 65 before you enter that “third life.” Maybe you’ll even defer until 70 to get the higher payments. But ask yourself this one simple question: Is retirement really all about your age, or is there more to it than that?
So many people are focused on retirement age they get stuck in the rut of doing the same thing every day for 40 or so years. Fresh out of college, work is fun, new and exciting. As you get more educated on the hard life of the workforce, you begin to count up the years you have been with the company. Soon you are over the midway point and can start the countdown to retirement.
As you continue your work journey, you soon have one year left, then it is replaced by a couple months and finally you only have double-digit days left. You have reached the age where you are entitled to sit back, relax, and enjoy the rest of your life. After all, you have been a productive member of society for long enough that you deserve everything your retirement has to offer.
But here’s the scenario many of us face. Sure, you retire, take a couple months off, then start looking for another job to help you get by financially from month-to-month. Your retirement was short lived and you keep telling yourself and others that you got tired of sleeping in and got bored with doing nothing. That may be the case, truly, as anyone would get bored if they didn’t have the funds to go out and pursue the things they dreamed about for the last 40 years.
You have just come to the harsh realization that retirement really isn’t about age at all. Retirement is all about how much money you have in the bank to continue to survive on. If you had enough money to go do what you love, would you get bored not going to a job? You can even look at it the other way; if you had enough money to do what you loved when you were 40, would you have stopped working then?
Retirement is not about age. Retirement is about what you want to do with your life and how much money you need to do it. This is why it is so important to look at your life and projected lifestyle way before you plan on retiring. This will allow you to plan to have the amount of money you need, saved up before you plan to retire.
Having everything you need in order to live the life you want will make retirement much more enjoyable. Not only will you stay busy, but also you will be able to do what you love and still have the option to do nothing if you so choose. Take a look now, before it is too late. Get an investment manager to help you plan out your retirement at least 20 years before you plan on retiring. It will make all the difference in the world.
Comments
2 responses to “Age for Retirement”
Like so many other retirees, I chose to do a bit of part-time work (in my case, consulting) because I had been missing the intellectual challenge. Seems to me that many would-be retirees underestimate the degree of mental stimulation which their work provides. Bill
Retirement is mostly about expanding your options, as you said, to work at something different or to work at nothing at all. In order to have those options we need to prepare decades in advance.
A lot of people may decide to continue working after “retirement”, either as a way of giving life meaning, or as a way to stretch retirement assets. But the more you have saved the greater your options will be.