Retirement planning for some people seems to be starting just before retirement That is not a good practice. The sooner you work on retirement planning, the better off you will be. If you are 25 years old and you start the retirement planning process, you are better off than waiting to be 65 years old and then starting the process of planning for retirement. In short, the sooner the better. Retirement planning does not involve only financial planning for those golden years. In somewhat of a normal way of conversations, any time someone brings up the subject of retirement planning, everyone starts thinking of 401-K, IRA, annuities and the like. In my opinion, financial planning for the retirement years is only one aspect of retirement planning. We will deal with the financial aspects of retirement planning in a future post. For now let us consider something else – what is retirement? I am sure most of you that are still in the workforce have mentioned to your colleagues about how you cannot wait to stop working and retire Somehow, that seems to bring in thoughts and imagery of serene beaches, palm trees, the calming sound of the waves and relaxed atmosphere away from the wretches of the day to day job that you are in If the prime reason you want to retire is because you do not like your job, then simply work on finding a new job or changing your career. Retirement, the way most people define, is not a way of getting away from the boredom of your current job.
In my opinion, true retirement involves leaving your current major work activity to move on to another “less taxing” one. In other words, if you are a machinist working in a factory and have put in about twenty years, let’s say; you now are tired of swinging the wrench and working with mechanical machinery; you now decide to retire from the occupation of being a machinist and decide to become a computer programmer. You go to school, learn completely new skills and start off on a new career. You have technically retired from being a machinist and have started off on a new path. Of course, there is financial planning involved even in this career change process because how do you pay your bills while you are in the process of learning new skills? Retirement does not mean you quit your job, stay home all day and watch meaningless television shows and waste your time away. You may “retire” multiple times during the course of your life.
Do not underestimate the power of working and staying busy. An idle mind is the worst state to be in. When the mind does not have any problems to solve, the body starts to let go. I know of a lot of people that took the classic path of retirement – they worked like dogs all their life; then suddenly retired one morning and were dead after just a couple of years. Why? Because they did not fill their time with challenging activity. That is why part of the “retirement planning” process needs to be to plan as to what are you going to do with your time. What you are going to do with your time is as important as saying “Do you plan to live long or not.” In fact, some older people that have recovered from some serious illnesses, have gotten back in to the work force only to find that they are newly charged and end up living much longer than anyone thought. Hence eliminate the thought of sitting around and doing nothing because if you do so you may not be sitting around I am not saying that you should not take short breaks and small vacations and getaways to far off ( or nearby ) places and enjoy life also. But to make that a part of retirement, is a mistake, in my opinion. How many times have you come across someone that says, “Oh, I plan to retire and travel around the world.” That sounds good; but it is not a very healthy plan.
