7 Saturdays - Are You Really Ready to Retire?

During a person’s later working years, people start to look at retirement as “reaching the finish line.” Some people even start to count down the days or cross them off on a calendar. Retirement is a major milestone that most people are looking forward to. But the reality is that retirement is also a major life transition that can turn out to be much more difficult than imagined. When you are not getting up to go to work each day, how are you going to fill your time? What will you do once you have completed all those “honey do” items that typically are done at the beginning of retirement? Has this been thought about?

One of the major drivers of success and fulfillment in retirement is to find your purpose away from your career. It is common that once someone stops working, they realize that not only their daily purpose but also the social life is gone as it was entirely tied to their working life. Many couples also find that being together 24/7 is not an ideal situation. Being away from each other for 40 or more hours a week because of work allowed them to connect and be closer when they were together.

So, in additional to be financially ready to retire, you must be emotionally ready to retire. Retirement should not be some arbitrary age or date (like turning 65), but when you are both mentally and financially ready. Preparation for retirement should include putting thought into what your purpose will be once the paychecks stop. This could mean an encore career, joining the gig economy (think driving for Uber), doing new activities or trying new hobbies, going back to school, volunteering or all the above.

One exercise to try before deciding to retire is: “How am I filling my Saturdays now?” Now think about “How will I fill seven Saturdays each week?” Because retirement really is like having seven weekend days each and every week.

At Sterling Wealth Partners, our holistic retirement planning approach is to assist with preparing both financially and emotionally for retirement. If you would like a complementary personal retirement readiness consultation, please contact us.