Planning to Retire in your 50’s and 60’s
A quick Google search shows preparing for retirement is again, making sure you have enough savings and financial plans to manage retirement. But what about the transition from your career or job into the days of retirement? This article has a look at what you need to start thinking about and organising before you retire so that you’re prepared to actually retire and enjoy it.
Day to Day
What are your days going to look like? While we’re at work our days are pretty much mapped out. We get to work, do our thing, have lunch, do some more of our thing, and then go home. The commute is either driving or public transport and then we have our own time to get ready to do it all again the next day.
Suddenly having that routine taken away with retirement is not an easy transition as we dream it’s going to be. We all want those days to end, but when they do, it’s a huge hole in our life that unless you’ve put some plans in place, may be difficult to fill up again with meaningful activities.
I read once that you should start out where you want to retire, because that way you have a good community around you and you’re familiar with the surroundings. If you move to a new location in retirement, it can be quite isolating and without work in the mix to create a pseudo-social life, loneliness becomes a larger concern.
The lack of routine can be a nice change at first, just like being on holiday. But the ongoing lack of a routine is not a healthy habit to form. It’s important to keep a good sleep schedule, exercise routine and eating habits in your early days of retirement. These habits only contribute good things to your overall health and well being but it is easy to slip into a devil may care attitude and party too hard once you realise you don’t have to get up in the morning. Make sure to maintain a balance in your lifestyle to help maintain your overall health.
Travel
This is a shared dream amongst many who want to retire but planning ahead of time can make this more enjoyable, especially if you plan it to coincide close to your date of retirement. This makes the transition from one lifestyle to another more staggered. Leaving work and taking off on a longish trip gives you time to decompress and create a new routine for yourself and it eases you into the new day-to-day lifestyle that awaits when you get home.
Wardrobe
All those work clothes will no longer be needed. Now is the time to do a big cull and clean and start looking more towards the types of clothes you need to feel comfy in while also being able to be social in. Losing your work clothes is a cathartic experience and one that helps your mind wrap around the idea that you’re done with working and no longer need those clothes anymore. You may find this step more challenging that you think in terms of the emotions it may stir, but it is a good step to undertake to really concrete the idea of leaving the workforce behind.
Spending Money and Living Budget
Losing your regular payday can be daunting because you realise that the safety net of always having dollars enter your bank account at the same time each week or fortnight is gone and it’s all on you to manage the income and budget accordingly.
There are many services around to help with this, but a good idea is to create a pseudo-payday from your retirement savings so you still feel like this is my pay and this is my budget and live accordingly. This will help your savings last for hopefully as long as they need to, if you’ve planned your retirement nest egg to suit your lifestyle.
In my view it doesn’t hurt to also save some of this stipend and keep some sort of investment and savings strategies in place. If nothing else it gives you an interest in current events and keeps your mind active. It also helps your nest egg grow instead of depleting and for me it’s about leaving more or as much as I can, to my kids.
Partner Retirement
If you’re in a relationship and only one of you retires, this will create a whole different dynamic in the relationship. Many couples try to work it so they retire together, but again, unless there are some strong ideas about how you’ll spend your day-to-day, couples who have been together for a longer amount of time, can find this transition especially challenging. Where there was work to provide a buffer, there are suddenly no day-to-day distractions or entertainments available. Conversation can fade away as there is nothing to talk about from the days events that you experienced separately.
Strong communication within the relationship will be required throughout this transition phase. Try to work out something you both want to achieve and start planning towards that goal.
Here are some great articles about some of the social difficulties encountered by people in retirement communities or those who failed to understand isolation.
Employment and Social Networks in Retirement
Stay In Touch
