Your Retirement Age Will
Impact Your Lifestyle
Your retirement age determines a lot about the lifestyle you have in your later years. Unless you’re wealthy and without money concerns, the earlier you retire will usually mean a potentially smaller income than someone who waits a few years and puts in the extra time earning a salary.
As you can probably tell from the different articles on this website, I absolutely love retirement and wish I had been able to do it years ago. I’m a huge advocate of early retirement and there are ways that you can supplement your income if you need to. Careful planning is essential and analyzing your budget is an important first step. Seek professional help with your investments but realize that you're the one in control. A good financial advisor will start by asking you questions you should already have answers for. How much are spending now and how do you anticipate your income needs changing?
More than income, your retirement age also has an impact on your activity level. The younger you retire, generally, the more active you can be and that will obviously have a direct relationship on your retirement pursuits. Retirement at the age of 60 makes taking up golf as a hobby an exciting possibility while retiring at 85 may mean that the golf you undertake might be on the smaller par three courses although anything is possible. I’ve met ninety-year-old men who hit the ball better than me.
If travel is part of what you would like to do, your retirement age is also a consideration. As you age your body will be the first to tell you what it cannot do anymore so schedule your more strenuous journeys for your younger years. My wife and I were very ambitious on our first two winter "escapes" from the cold weather. The first year we went all across the southeastern United States from Key West to the gulf coast in Texas and enjoyed every minute of it. The second year we went to the deserts of the southwest and then to the pacific coast of California and saw some spectacular scenery. We drove every from our home in New York and back and racked up 700 miles on some days. After eight years of glorious retirement trips, we now limit ourselves to no more than 400 miles if possible. You'll find out the same thing to be true: your retirement age matters.
Maximizing Enjoyment
Should Be Your Goal At Any Retirement Age
The main consideration concerning your retirement age is the mix of activity and leisure time with the amount of time you may need to supplement your income. That may mean a job or a business or a hobby that generates a profit. These are good problems to have and there are many way to approach these issues but you should spend some time developing a plan of attack.
If money is an issue, why not find something enjoyable to do that will generate the extra income you need? It will be a way to bring new purpose to your activities and the extra money coming in will be something that can supplement your true retirement purpose and that is to maximize the enjoyment from each day.
I absolutely hated working for a living because I wasn’t doing the things that I liked to do. In my working career I managed departments, budgets and people and brought the problems home with me every day. In retirement, I manage only myself and my wife and I have a wonderful time managing our time together. It’s so different from my work experience I can’t even begin to compare the two. As I write this article, I’m enjoying our wonderful home, taking coffee breaks whenever I want and keeping up with the news, correspondence with friends and watching the ups and downs of the stock market just to give me a dose of reality. This is the type of work I enjoy doing and I would do it if I wasn’t making any money. I know that’s true because, as I was getting this website off the ground, I wasn’t making a single dime, but I enjoyed adding to these pages every day. Fortunately, there was no huge investment or overhead and I was totally in charge of what I wrote and when I wrote it. Writing is something you can do at almost any retirement age so keep that in mind if starting a business is at all attractive to you. And, if you don't think you have the technical expertise to start a website, think again because there is one company that will walk you through the process step by step.
If I had chosen 80 as my retirement age (and made it through the agony of another fifteen years of work), I would probably be doing the same thing. This work is easy and fun and it might be something you consider no matter what your retirement age. I’ve made it my goal: Enjoy Retired Life.
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