Retirement Checklist (What colour is your Parachute)

Retirement “Retirement offers the check list greatest oportunity we’ll ever have to follow our own path and find our own freedom.”

DON’T SEE IT AS A LONG HOLIDAY

It’s a mistake, says John Nelson to treat retirement as one long vacation. “People move to the beach or the countryside and they think about tivities that are holiday-like – watching the sunset,
gardening or golfing. But a holiday only works, of course, because it counterbalances work. Typically, the holiday-like activities can’t sustain people for 10 or 20 years.” For greater enjoyment we need “meaningful activities that can provide decades of interaction”.

KEEP ON FINDING FRIENDS

In early life, schools and workplaces are automatic relationship generators. That easy flow of new friends can dry up in retirement and result on social isolation. Solution? “Live in a neighbourhood that makes social interaction easier, move to a well-designed community, or make social choices in terms of joining
organizations or volunteering or taking on a job that puts you in contact with other people.”

TAKE CARE OF FINANCES

Some people enjoy handling their retirement nest-egg, but not everyone’s a natural. It’s critical to keep a handle on things, says Nelson. “The financial side of retirement is more complex than it’s ever been. And even those of us are who money enthusiasts in the prime of life sooner or later get to a time we’re unable to continue doing it carefully, or we just lose that
interest. So we need someone in the family who’s ready to take over at some stage, or a trusted financial advisor. You need to do a very careful job about deciding who that will be. Choose your financial relationships as if they’re going to be permanent. As you age, you may not have the ability to change them. It may literally be a 10- or 20-year relationship.”

REBUILD YOUR HOME LIFE

Some spouses aren’t used to being around each other all the time and it is sometimes hard to adjust. When Nelson talked to a group of construction workers recently, this was the topic that hit nerves. “When I said that for most people, marriages in retirement are just like they now, only more so, there was quite a bit
of laughter. They were realising they might have to give more time to their marital relationship because it was going to take a bigger role in their lives than they’d realised. Some were resolving to invest more of themselves in communication, and some of them were saying, ‘Well, it just might be easier to give up and throw in the towel’.” z

PASS ON YOUR WISDOM

Everyone has something to contribute, says Nelson, even in a world where young heads may know stuff their elders can barely comprehend. “It’s true that the faster society changes, the less relevant older people’s knowledge seem to be. At the same time there are elements of the human experience that are timeless. All of us can draw on our own experiences, knowledge and wisdom in ways that are useful for the people we would most like to help.”

WATCH OUT FOR HOGWASH

As a retiree you’re the target of many businesses keen for your custom. “You absolutely, positively will want to buy some of the retirement industry is selling,” Nelson concedes. “The modern economic reality is that we are all swimming in this commercial sea – that’s how we navigate. I would never suggest it’s a bad system. I’d just suggest that having awareness of how the system works is to everyone’s benefit.” Many product pitches, he says, “are designed to make you
feel inadequate, dissatisfied with your life, or fearful that you’ll be in pain if you don’t buy the product. That’s hogwash!”

Reprinted by permission. Copyright 2007 Plenty magazine Winter 2007 published for Hanover Group. Subscribe to Plenty today.