Retirement Planning
Retirement is an idea that stemmed from a long ago economy where the belief was that you would work for one employer for your entire working life and in return you would be rewarded with a large sum of money that had been saved for you over your lifetime. You would now be free to spend your twilight years as you wished, having served your prime years in labour or service.
Coming into 2020, retirement is a whole different thing, albeit there are still some from that generational ideology ‘retiring’.
But for those of us who have seen so much change and face the probability that the aged pension will not be available by the time we retire, face a new terrifying reality, that we may not actually be able to retire at all in the understanding of what the meant to our parents.
How to plan for retirement? This is a question that only the individual asking can truly answer. What is it that you want to be able to do once you ‘retire’ from the workforce? How much money do you think you will need? Do you want to travel? Do you want to downsize or have a garden? Do you want pets or not? Do you want to be surrounded by others the same as you or go your own path?
Hand in hand with retirement comes ageing, and like it or not, those in our fifties get a glimpse of what this may possibility mean as we had towards ‘retirement age’. So we need to think forward as to how our bodies will be in 20 or 30 years and the different needs we may have in terms of stairs, household layouts, communication, assistance.
We want to enjoy some form of relaxation and ‘our’ time. We want to feel the reward of our labours by doing the thing that we always wanted to do and have put off until retirement. We may plan to do those things as we retire, but without careful planning now, we may not get the opportunity to do so.
The first thing to do is work out for yourself what type of lifestyle you want to lead, the activities you want to undertake and the community in which you want to live, and then work out how much money you’re going to need. There’s some help with this here. See the links at the end of this post for more resources.
Then make the plan on how you are going to get there. From our fifties it feels daunting an unachievable, but this also depends on what you think your retirement age is going to be. In Australia this is now a soft 72. So with that in mind I have a solid 20 years to accumulate the wealth I think I will need.
To make it more enjoyable, I am looking after myself more, trying to keep my body in peak condition to make it to my age destination. I want to be at least 86. Anything over that is a bonus. That is another 32 delicious years to learn and grow on the planet and in my mind, I don’t think I will ever retire from that.
ASIC Money Smart Retirement Planner
Industry Super Funds Retirement Planning
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