Money Is Not Everything in Retirement

Money Is Not Everything in Retirement

For most of us with entrepreneurial tendencies, the thought of making just enough income to cover our expenses, and no more, is totally ridiculous. When you are looking retirement in the face, it becomes a matter of priorities.

You have earned your dream lifestyle and now it is time for you to kick back and savor the results of your endeavors. While you no longer want to be consumed with worry over finances, neither are you of a mindset to conquer the world and get enormously rich anymore. The idea of ‘Making millions of dollars’ no longer is a top priority in our lives. You just do not want to have to worry about money any longer.

It seems that, once you get to thinking about your retirement years, you seem to want something better than just chasing a dream. Now it is time to think about living a dream – your dream.

The term ‘Retirement’ means so many different things to so many people. Some want to quit doing what they have been doing. Perhaps they want to get away from the routine that they have been living for decades. Maybe they feel that life is ‘closing in on them’ and it is time to move on and to try something else. If these kinds of things are motivating you toward retirement, you may have it all wrong!

Retiring as a way of getting away ‘from’ something will probably yield poor results for you. If you are so focused on getting ‘away’, you probably have not thought enough about the future. You have likely made few plans nor have you crystallized any ideas of your future, post-retirement life. It has been said that a person spends 90,000 hours working up to their retirement and less than 2 hours actually planning for it!

Just as though you were considering a new home or a career move, you should think of your retirement in the same light. By answering the ‘Magic Questions’ of Who, What, Where, Why, When and How, you can begin the retirement planning process. Then, by actually putting the answers on paper, you will start to develop a good retirement plan that is yours alone. Be sure to include your spouse in the planning process as they are an integral part of the picture. The written retirement plan will provide a great communication vehicle for you and your spouse to collaborate on your plan.

Providing the finances to support your dream retirement lifestyle is only one of the many issues that you have to consider. Until you have designed your dream retirement, there is no way you can begin to determine how much you must have saved for your plan to work.

In reality, this planning is an iterative process. You develop your ‘ultimate retirement plan’ which costs x dollars per month. When you then determine that you will only have y dollars per month, you go back and reevaluate the ‘ultimate’ plan, scaling it down, and create the ‘basic plan’ which will take z dollars per month. After going through this and considering various income alternatives and lifestyle choices, you will likely arrive at a compromise ‘wonderful plan’ which is affordable and has the majority of your desires accommodated.

For many people, their projected retirement income from the traditional sources such as Social Security, pensions, and investment income (normally no more than 5% per year of your investments) will not be enough to fund their desired retirement lifestyle. When this occurs, either the retirement must be delayed, scaled back or some new income sources found to supplement the basic funds.

The sources of supplemental retirement income are many and varied. They can be a part time job, income from buying and selling merchandise (locally or on eBay), proceeds of writing a book, among the many options. Almost everybody has a favorite topic about which they are passionate. Perhaps you can profit from providing others with information about your topic. Many retirees have been very successful in leveraging their career or life experience knowledge into a steady stream of retirement income.

This whole retirement planning process involves balancing your dreams with your income sources to ensure that you enjoy a wonderful future lifestyle. Start building your plan as early as possible. The sooner you get the plan underway, the sooner that you will be able to start enjoying your wonderful retirement!

Resources: Don Seibert is a retired business executive who, as an Expert Author, writes timely articles on many issues concerning sources of retirement income. Having retired three times, he now is the host of http://www.RetireToEasyStreet.com . Visit the site for a complete discussion of Retirement Income Options.