retirement worth the wait?

 Is retirement worth the wait?

Yes, if you can adapt, because it is a different world and a different life!

I am 68, a mere 3 months shy of 69 and I retired 10 years ago. I considered myself extremely fortunate for I did not prepare well financially for retirement. I kept postponing the actual work of preparing and implementing. I should have known better after all, I had the expertise and knowledge to do so, but it was knowledge and expertise I was paid to provide to my commercial clients. You get a warped perspective of the value of money when you earn shy of $100K yearly but manage hundreds of millions of other people’s money, It was no excuse but as I said, I was fortunate. All those people who answered that you need to plan for your financial future are absolutely right.

In my late fifties, my energy and concentration was no longer what it had been, and I was a passionate employee no more, short of patience and short of ambition, so when the company I worked for made cutbacks in personel, I was on that list. Several of the former companies which I worked for over the years were big multinationals and the secured pensions they provided for the employees made a difference, that and the early retirement package I settled for. So I had to seriously tighten my spending for about 6 years before the final pensions started to come in.

Also, I retired in Canada (I’m dual citizen) and the social benefits here were a godsend. I scraped by for a few years and figured out what I could occupy my time with and it wasn’t long before I did. You absolutely need to budget and cut the unnecessary expenses. Thankfully, I had good friends, a big deal if you’re single. I also started to date again and that has also made a big difference.

Worth the wait? Let me put it this way. After only two years , I knew full well I did not want to go back to full time work or even any work that required regular obligations. The freedom to do as you please, to change your mind on a dime and to not have to be accountable to anyone is the dream retirement is made of. If you did planned financially well, it’s an even more wonderful dream. I still got to travel, but far less than when I was in my 30’s and 40’s but I’m not stuck in a home or at home, I get out; it’s important.

Crucially, you must have or develop interests to occupy yourself. Being a couch potato will make you sick. I developed interests, some were simply a mere extension of activities I enjoyed before, just got more of it. Interests and hobbies to pass the time are crucial. Again I was fortunate to have had some technology experience so the blessing that provides in today’s world helps a great deal. There is a lot of free or nearly free stuff out there when you have time to go for it. Libraries, seniors discounts at the museums or theatre, many public events. The second year of my retirement I joined a carsharing group and that is awesome; you are not strapped with fixed financial obligation or cost of ownership for a car you use infrequently and it’s a worry free service.

If you do not have interests or hobbies to fill your days and evenings, you are screwed, you won’t enjoy retirement. I can think of no better interests then spending time with grandkids if you have some. I don’t but I made new friends on the web, some I got to meet in person traveling to the US and to Europe. A social life is what you gain from retirement, one you can tailor to your needs and capabilities.

I did not wait for retirement, it happened. It will happen to you too, whether you like it or not so you might as well make the best of it. If you can adapt, you are safe, if you don’t adapt or resist, it will not be pleasant. Resistance is futile, it will come for most of us.

There are the few people whose financial security and position in life afford them the possibility to never fully retire if they don’t want to; good for them, they may well be fulfilled that way and it’s okay, but those people are a rare breed.

I had dreamed of retiring at 55 and travel in retirement to the rest of the world I had not seen yet. That was when I was in my 20’s. Your dream may differ. That dream came and went. If you are in your 20’s or 30’s you can still live that dream of yours but don’t follow my example, act now. If you don’t have a dream, you’re not going to live one.