The Perfect Day

Today is my idea of a perfect day.  First of all the weather is exceptionally mild for the end of March and it's also sunny.  I had a leisurely breakfast, a ten o'clock appointment for a facial, met a close friend for lunch, spent a half hour at my local library, dropped by to visit a friend  who had offered me some plants from her garden (we had tea sitting on her front porch in the sun), returned home to do a little gardening of my own, to be followed by a light supper with my husband and a wide open agenda for the evening.

What is your idea of the perfect day?  It is a great way to think about what you want to do when you retire.  Play around with the answer.  Not everyone has a clear idea of what their retirement is going to look like and some people think that planning is a waste of time.  It really isn't; if you really aren't sure how you feel about retirement and you can't quite imagine what you'll be doing when you retire, take my question to heart.  Come up with as many perfect day ideas as you can.  Maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised to discover that there are perfect days waiting for you in retirement.

Friends from the Past

Last night I had dinner with 6 friends, all of whom I went to high school with.  This is just a subset of a group of "girls" that were all in the same high school program.  Many still live close by, but we also have a number we have tracked down who live far away.  Through the wonderful efforts of a couple of girls in the group, we have managed to stay in touch over all these years (the email system sure has helped!) - and it's been a lot of years, given that we graduated from Grade 13 in 1967!  As we all approached our 60th birthdays, we decided to meet to celebrate them.  Over a period of about a year and a half we had several memorable get togethers.

Some people find that once they retire, their social network shrinks.  Sometimes people do remain in contact with their work friends, but there is research that suggests that many of us lose touch over time with these individuals.  Social isolation can be one of the challenges that some retirees face.  As we retire and as we age, it is important to maintain and to strengthen our social network.  One way to do this is to reconnect with friends from the past, even people as far back as high school.

Retire When You are Ready

This week I was in Toronto to deliver part of a retirement seminar.  One of the issues we discussed had to do with when a person should retire.  Some people retire at a specific age because they meet the ideal pension requirements.  This isn't a particularly good reason to retire.  You should retire because you feel ready to do so and because you have a strong desire to get on with this next stage of your life.

I once encountered someone who said he would retire at 55 because he could afford to.  When I asked him what he was going to do in retirement, he said he was going to read and watch TV - that's it!  He was single, had no family nearby and few friends.  He really liked his work, had good social contacts at work, and really couldn't give me any other reason to retire other than that he could afford it!

Some people should retire early and some should retire late or maybe even never.  Retirement, at least classic retirement, is not for everyone, .  So give it careful thought, plan for it, and make sure that your reasons for retiring are the right ones.

Life Planning Tools

It struck me that I haven't touched on how one goes about planning for the future.  Whether it's retirement or some other life transition, taking steps to prepare for the transition is just common sense.  Researchers also support this notion; in the case of retirement, people who plan for it, are more likely to have a smooth transition and to enjoy retirement more.

So, here are a few tools to assist you in the planning process.

• Book Reviews:  Check out my reviews of the retirement/aging related books I like the most.  If you don't find what you want, there are tons of other choices; just do a search on amazon.
• Hire a Retirement/Life Coach:  If you are worrying about what you are going to do in retirement, hire a retirement coach.  They will normally charge you a flat fee, can be very helpful in uncovering your options and helping you to put in place an action plan. 
• LifeScape:  You can also visit my commercial retirement planning tool, LifeScape, for a small fee.  Check out the Demo.  It covers all of the financial, health and psychological issues of importance and there are lots of great calculators

Spring is here; the garden awaits

We are having an early spring; almost all the snow in our yard is gone and the tulips are coming up.  Because we are cooped up somewhat during the winter months, I find that I am dying to get outside once spring arrives.  Luckily for us, it's happening earlier than usual.  I was out yesterday cleaning up the walkways and also the garden.  I attended a garden seminar last year and the expert had an interesting take on gardening.  He suggested that you just leave all that plant material and leaves on the ground in the fall, don't clean it up in the spring, and it will become mulch for the garden. Everything will basically grow up through it, and eventually it will decompose and improve the soil.  Seemed to make alot of sense to me.  He was also big on adding more mulch to the garden on top of last year's stuff.

This is where I link the topic to retirement.  I have gardened for a long time and every spring I can't wait to clean up my garden.  It is very satisfying work.  It's good physical activity; it's great to see what is coming up under last year's leaves and plant material, and once the garden has been cleaned up, it looks great.  Old habits are hard to kick though.  If you are a gardener who has gardened a long time, you too have your rituals.  I promised myself that I wouldn't clean up this spring but yesterday I couldn't seem to stop myself from raking just a little way into the beds.  I also felt I should at least chop down some of the taller perennials, like the phlox, that look pretty awful this time of the year.  Once you retire, you claim back your time and many of you will probably devote a good chunk of that time to your garden.  If you are retiring in the spring, it will be very tempting to get out there and clean up.  Larry Hodgson, the expert I mentionned above, would suggest that rather than doing that, you should dust off a lawn chair, put it out in the back yard, grab a tea or coffee, and just sit and watch your garden grow.  The question is, can you do that?

How much is enough?

This is one of the most asked questions about retirement.  Of course, the answer differs for every individual.  It has a great deal to do with how much financial security you require to feel safe and what your requirements for money are.  I have never been one to worry about financial security, always believing that I will find a way to survive.  I have also had times in my life when I had very little money and still managed to live a pretty happy life.

For example, in 1994, I quit my very high paying government job with its wonderful defined benefit pension plan, and went back to university; I then started my own business.  During the next five years, I lived on less than $20,000 a year.  I continued to pay for a good share of our basic living expenses, I built up more debt than I was comfortable with, but my quality of life during that five years was much higher than when I was working in the public service.  I had a flexible schedule, could visit my elderly parents whenever I felt like it, had more time for the other important people in my life, and could work in my home office when I felt like working.  I actually put in pretty long hours but just didn't seem to be as tired as I used to be.  This degree of personal control over my time helped me to become much healthier because I wasn't feeling exhausted all the time, and I found that I enjoyed the challenge of living a happy life without alot of money.

So...when I listen to people who are still working worrying sometimes endlessly about whether they will have enough money in retirement (alot of this worry  fuelled by every newspaper article ever written by those in the financial services industry), I really wonder how carefully these pre-retirees have considered what is really important to them, if they realize that as we age we'll spend more time trying to get rid of things, than to accumulate them, that people will take on an importance like never before and that it is possible to live a healthy and happy life, without having huge sums of money socked away.

Need Versus Want

I was sorting through our slides of Malawi yesterday.  And I also had a conversation with a friend about the issue of how much money you need to be able to retire.  Here is a photo of a very typical village in Malawi.  Most Malawians probably earn less than $1 a day, that is, if they have a job.  Many are very small scale farmers, growing and harvesting mostly maize, but also mangoes, tomatoes, and other vegetables.  They are a very industrious people who seem to be in constant motion, on the way to or from market, working in the fields, selling their produce and wares all along the highway and in the local markets.  What struck me was how much they seemed to smile.

So....when I listen to someone here who is contemplating how much money they will need in retirement, and who is really worried about "having enough", I wonder what they really mean.  In Malawi, having enough money means being able to feed yourself and your family day by day, it means having enough for a small mud hut or perhaps a brick one, perhaps earning enough to buy a bicycle.  Hardly anyone in the countryside owns a car.  In fact in one B&B the owner (white) told us that he was in fact the ambulence service for the small community nearby since no one owns a vehicle of any kind.

When you are thinking about your own retirement and how much money you are going to have, and especially if you would love to claim back your time for yourself, take a hard look at what you actually need and then consider what you want and how badly you want it.  I believe that many Canadians could manage on less than they think and still have a very happy life.  But more on that in another post.

What they don't tell you about aging

I'm starting to get really annoyed about the impact of aging on my body. Just as I've been inspired by the Olympics to get fit, I develop a very sore spot in the ball of my right foot after walking or standing for any length of time. The good news is that these days you can diagnose your own health issues, at least to some degree. I've determined that I've got Morton's neuroma. Morton's what?, you ask. Well, its a nerve in the ball of your foot that may start to thicken with age (they don't really know why) and as it does and as you walk on it, it hurts.

Now, I'm always reading about heart disease, stroke, cancer and dementia as health issues to be concerned about as we age - and well we should. BUT, no one ever tells you about all the little weird things that may go wrong with your body as you hit your 50s, 60s and beyond. Here's my list:

Teeth: I've had two teeth pulled out (after having had root canals and/or crowns put on them); both teeth had developed fine hairline hard-to-see cracks that led my dentist to say, out with the teeth!

Skin: My skin has started sprouting tag moles, especially anywhere that my clothes rub against my skin, like around my neck. Hardly life threatening but really not all that nice to look at. I've also started getting little flat moles on my face. I'm not really a big fan of plastic surgery and don't intend to ever have anything major ever done, but these moles really bug me.

Tongue: About 2 years ago, I noticed that after eating anything with a vinaigrette on it or drinking wine, especially red wine, my tongue would be quite sensitive. A specialist diagnosed it as geographic tongue! They don't know why you get it and they don't really know how to treat it.

Are you getting the picture? Now I could go on and on about my lower back aches, and the twinge in my knee, etc. but enough is enough.

I have to say I feel most grateful that I haven't had to cope with the acute health issues, at least not yet, that strike some of our age, but I would like someone out there to spend a little more research money on all of these minor, aggravating, chronic little problems that can really affect the quality of our day to day lives. I'm sure many of us suffer in silence since these minor health issues are really just that, minor; thanks for letting me get it off my chest!

No Dog Yet

Another spring has rolled around and I haven't done much to acquire that cute little daschund I said that I wanted to get in one of my earlier posts. It struck me this week that my indecision is based on a phenomenon that is probably quite common to retirees. I know that once I have the dog, I will adapt quickly and I'm sure would fall in love with having a dog in no time. However, my mind keeps chalking up the downsides as well. In particular, I'm concerned about how it would tie us down. If we went to a dinner party, we'd have to hurry home to let the dog out; if we wanted to get away for a weekend, we'd either have to find someone to look after it or take it with us. But if we did the latter, then who'd keep an eye on it when we went out. And which hotels would let us have a dog in our room. And then what if we wanted to take a longer vacation. And then I think about the huge veterinary bills that most of my friends with pets always seem to be talking about. See what I mean?

You can see my dilemma. Having a dog involves commitment and so too does getting involved in a volunteer or part time job, registering in a university course, just to name a few. In retirement, many people crave the freedom of no schedule, no feelings of being tied down, having flexibility. And herein lies the challenge. Once we do decide to commit, our options to do other things may narrow. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a reason not to get a dog or to take on interesting and rewarding commitments. But it is one of the issues that retirees do have to address as they implement their vision for retirement.

I wouldn't mind hearing from those of you who have bitten the bullet and gone ahead and picked out that cute pet. What's your secret for getting the job done?

Going for Gold

WOW!! I just spent the last two weeks watching the Olympics and boy do I feel inspired! When I think about how hard and dedicated all of the athletes have to be, not just to win gold, but to even make it to the Olympics, I'm astounded. As a semi-retiree, I have a tendency, as I've noted in an earlier post, to let my time slip away. Dont' get me wrong, living life at a relaxed pace can be a very healthy option. But here are two things you will always see if you read books on how to have a succesful retirement. One is to keep as healthy as possible and the other is to lead a meaningful life.

I think we boomers in the retirement zone could all learn a great deal from these (mostly) young athletes about how to do just that. Perhaps my new motto will be "Going for Gold", and I'm not talking about medals here. I'm talking about living my life in such a way that I'm always striving to learn, keep fit, participate, connect, challenge myself and essentially live a life that is full and satisfying. If this leads to even a little bit of that JOY that poured out of the TV screen during the past two weeks, I'd be a happy woman.