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First, retire as soon as you can because there is probably a nightmare somewhere down the line. Coping with a few less dollars or a smaller house or apartment for ten years is better than coping with alzheimers or widowhood shortly after you retire because you were afraid to pull the trigger. Secondly, be as active as you physically are able for as long as you can. Thirdly, develop a (live, not internet) social network and hobbies or some type of volunteer activity.
All great advice!
I have a relative (very overweight, several health issues) retiring at 70.5 to get the highest retirement income. They don't realize their health is the longevity issue/question not the money!
The closer I get to it, the more confused I become as to what to do with it. You get one, and don't want to blow it! Just when I think I've perfected that goal, some wrench in the works appears.
Has the plan you so carefully crafted and thought was so perfect turned out to be not so much and, if so, how could you have better foreseen this and avoided whatever pitfalls you encountered?
What advice would you have for me (and many others who are) approaching The Big Day?
Woody said, "He's not afraid of death. He just doesn't want to be there when it happens."
Retirement happens alright.
"TheShadow" is correct. Course correct your big retirement plan if things don't work out. I am a big believer in baby steps. Don't burn your bridges right away. Rent don't sell your house. If you move, rent, don't buy right away. Leave your job with grace. Don't "wee wee" in your inbox and tell off your boss.
Have plans "A", "B" and "C". Above all, do something. Be active. Old people hate to change their routine. Move or rust.
Make sure you have good health insurance, and live in close proximity to good, research hospitals where you can get the best of care. Life can change in an instant, your health can change in an instant (especially once you hit your older years), even if you are "perfectly healthy" when you plan to retire.
My parents grew up poor/struggling, and both worked hard their entire working lives (to 65+) while raising 3 kids. Saved, saved, saved... always worried about the future. Hoping one day they will be able to breathe, in retirement.
One month after my Dad turned 65 he was hit by a taxi while on vacation with my Mom and almost killed. Hospitalized 6 months, and now severely disabled for the rest of his life. Soon after they were able to move home, my Mom was diagnosed with an aggressive metastatic cancer, and suffered terribly before she passed away... psychologically even more than physically.
Everything can change in an instant.
To me, THAT is a retirement "dream" turned into a "nightmare"....
I retired without a "plan" - and things are going okay.
Just take it day by day. Well, I did have a pension and a house. But other than that - just que sera sera.
Pretty much similar for me, being a self-employed, owner driver of a licensed London "black cab", I worked past the retirement age in the U.K. and quit when I'd had enough of the daily grind, interminable London traffic, and then along came Uber, bending the rules, with Transport for London casting a blind eye on them.
What had been a really good vocation, gradually became 'just a job'.
I had a pension that I'd paid into, I had the State pension which I'd been receiving since I was 65, and which H.M.R.C., (our I.R.S.) ploughed into with steel talons, plus I had a sizeable chunk of change in the bank which I'd salted away over the years as I had a good work ethic.
If there was a $ to be made, I'd always gone out and earned it, be it digging ditches, driving 18 wheelers from London to the far reaches of the Continent, Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, Austria, anywhere, and then 30 years with my own taxi.
Our mortgage has been finished some 25 years back, my pensions pay all the utilities, car insurance, home insurances, etc., my wife's 3 days per week job takes care of the groceries with enough over to keep her happy.
I can take my wife out to a good restaurant at least once per week for dinner in central London.
We still manage a couple of weeks on the Gulf Coast of Florida every year, renting a house, sitting around the pool then out to dinner every night.
I have only nibbled into my savings, all I have to do is die before I run out of dough and I win.
Has the plan you so carefully crafted and thought was so perfect turned out to be not so much and, if so, how could you have better foreseen this and avoided whatever pitfalls you encountered?
I never was so naive as to think any plan I thought out and carefully crafted was perfect. That's how I managed to deal with the unforeseeable. There were things that came up I could never in a million years have foreseen. Then as now I had no access to a crystal ball. I did my best to determine what would work and what wouldn't and went from there. There is no way you're not going to have some bumps in the road, again; life offers no guarantees. You do the best you can with what you know now and make adjustments later on.
Make sure you have good health insurance, and live in close proximity to good, research hospitals where you can get the best of care. Life can change in an instant, your health can change in an instant (especially once you hit your older years), even if you are "perfectly healthy" when you plan to retire.
My parents grew up poor/struggling, and both worked hard their entire working lives (to 65+) while raising 3 kids. Saved, saved, saved... always worried about the future. Hoping one day they will be able to breathe, in retirement.
One month after my Dad turned 65 he was hit by a taxi while on vacation with my Mom and almost killed. Hospitalized 6 months, and now severely disabled for the rest of his life. Soon after they were able to move home, my Mom was diagnosed with an aggressive metastatic cancer, and suffered terribly before she passed away... psychologically even more than physically.
Everything can change in an instant.
To me, THAT is a retirement "dream" turned into a "nightmare"....
At one time I wanted to live " forever", so I was going to move right down the street from a major medical center.
Now I don't care. If I come down with some horrific disease I'll just let nature take its course!
Not for everybody, but I've been around too many sickly old old folks recently and that is not appealing at all.
Ok, I have two pensions and a mortgage free house. Lol
And how many people retiring today do you think have mortgage free homes and two pensions? I venture to say, not as many as did the generation before mine. My parents also had homes paid for, cash saved, pensions from jobs that lasted their entire working lives. My generation has often, unfortunately, not always been as fortunate in the face of layoffs, corporate "rightsizings", and NAFTA. By the way, what's a "pension"?
First, retire as soon as you can because there is probably a nightmare somewhere down the line. Coping with a few less dollars or a smaller house or apartment for ten years is better than coping with alzheimers or widowhood shortly after you retire because you were afraid to pull the trigger. Secondly, be as active as you physically are able for as long as you can. Thirdly, develop a (live, not internet) social network and hobbies or some type of volunteer activity.
THAT sounds like great advice and is exactly what I needed to read today. Thank you.
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Woody Allen said it best.
