Is Your Retirement Plan Missing the Most Important Investment?
Tomorrow morning I'll be up early and take my grandson to school. I enjoy our chats on the journey. Back home, it will be a quick breakfast and then off to meet some older friends for a few hours of pickleball and a bit of craic. I should be back to base by early afternoon for a catch-up with my wife Suzie while we plan what to buy for dinner that evening. My daughter and granddaughter will be joining us for the meal... they can be fussy!
The day after, I plan on focusing the majority of my time on our large garden. I'm still working to tame it after spending the summer at our vacation home. A reasonably busy few days, a fairly typical snapshot of my retirement lifestyle. Nothing out of the ordinary. But I'd contest that if you don't have something similar to retire into, you're probably not going to have a great retirement, no matter how large your portfolio happens to be.
Obviously I don't mean the exact same formula that's evolved within my retirement but the general idea of a blueprint for a well-lived retirement, social connection, exercise and a continuation of purpose at the end of your working life. I would go so far as to say if you haven't thought and taken steps to develop this, you probably should delay retirement until you've addressed the situation.
This I do know, the normal response when asked what you will do when retired "relax and travel" aren't going to cut it for the majority of people. Research definitely backs this up. Studies have shown that maintaining meaningful social roles after retirement is closely linked to positive health and wellbeing outcomes, and social interaction often predicts health in retirement more strongly than financial security. (https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/...)
While retirement may increase happiness, it can decrease your sense of purpose if you haven't prepared for that more human side of the transition. Maybe you should study some of this research on purpose in retirement(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...) , or this overview on how retirement affects health and behaviour, and make your own mind up. It could possibly be a better investment than tweaking your retirement spreadsheet before pulling the trigger.
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