Almost everyone has retirement plans of some kind but most of them deal with the financial requirements associated with this time of a person’s life. Although we will touch on finances and money and other critical factors, the main purpose of this site is to focus on enjoying this period of your life rather than financing it. If you’ve reached this stage in life and do not have the money you need, it does not mean you can’t enjoy retirement. Although it may be too late for retirement planning from a financial perspective, it’s never too late to start enjoying life.
Many people arrive at this point in their life like the person who arrives at Disney World without a plan. It’s overwhelming and it becomes unpleasant very quickly and you start to think what all the hype was about. This is very sad because I have found retirement to be one of the few things in life to live up to all my expectations. Many have retirement plans that deal with money but very few have plans that deal with enjoyment.
In this section we’ll discuss your situation no matter where you are on the Retirement Path. If you’re retired and having the time of your life that’s great. But it’s also quite possible that the best is yet to come if you’re willing to explore some possibilities and do a little self-exploration.
Don’t worry, there’s no “heavy lifting” here. This will be fun and worthwhile, and you might even learn a few things about yourself that you didn’t know. You'll find serious topics about health and assisted living options, but you'll also find intriguing articles about travel, hobbies, food, wine and almost everything in between.
If you’re not retired yet, it’s even better because we'll give you a few things to consider that you may not have thought about. Watch how exciting it is as your new retirement plans take shape. And let’s be clear, you can skip around from page to page and find out what’s best for you. They’ll be suggestions and sources for other information, of course, but this is YOUR retirement and nobody else’s. It’s important to keep that in mind. The best retirement plan is the one you create yourself and is designed around your dreams.
As we discuss different possibilities, you may find yourself thinking about things or people and places you hadn’t thought about in a long time. You may be surprised at what else you start remembering and how it can seem to take you back in time. Only you can know what’s going through your head and your past and your feelings about what happened can be deeply personal. The goal here is to get you to stop and think about what brings a smile to your face and to see how you can make those memories come alive. If possible, forget the darker ones and send the unpleasant thoughts on their way. The goal here is enjoy life and enjoy the time that you have doing the things you want to do. These are your retirement plans, no one else's.
For so much of our lives we were told what to do. Our parents had their rules and, when we went to school, we were given a whole new list of expectations. We started work and had to report every day and do certain tasks if we wanted to keep our job. If we had children, they required certain care and we worked to provide for them. Now, for the first time for many people, there are no expectations put upon us. We have more options than we know what to do with. The days are all ours and, sadly, many people feel quite lost in trying to figure out what to do when there is no one to give them direction. Their work life balance needs to be reset and there's a lot of fun ahead when you do it correctly.
This site is designed to suggest that the person best equipped to give you direction is YOU! Your retirement experience can be so much richer with just a little bit of motivation. You have more skills, talents and memories than you know what to do with. You’ve lived for years with desires that crossed your mind that you never had time to pursue. As a new, old or prospective retiree, now is the time!
Keep an open mind and throw away all your excuses. Phrases like “I don’t have the money” or “I don’t know how to do that” or “I have no one to do it with” or "it doesn't fit into my budget" should be taken out of your vocabulary as we look for ways to get you on the path of making the most of all those retirement plans and to start to truly enjoy your retirement years.