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Retirement Planning – It’s Not All About Money

Last update on: Mar 15 2020

One point I make regularly in Retirement Watch is that retirement planning is about much more than money. Surveys of retirees indicate that money is important only up to a point. The money is to ensure you have the freedom and security to engage in the types of activities you want. Unfortunately, too many people don’t pay attention to the non-monetary factors of financial planning. The result is they have unhappy retirements, even when they’re financially comfortable. A good portion of them go back to work after retiring and have two or three false starts before finally retiring.

Here’s a piece that pulls these thoughts together and presents some steps to consider as part of your non-financial retirement planning.

Control, or the perception of control, is a key issue cited by many commentaries on happiness. Closely related to this is whether a person still feels relevant. When one works, one is needed. When one leaves the workforce, he or she can feel irrelevant and helplessness.

To counteract this, many advisors encourage their clients to create compelling visions of their retirement. We may have clients describe the perfect day or week. The more specific, the better. Really, what are they going to do when the alarm goes off (or doesn’t) and they are not required to be anywhere or do anything in particular. For couples, the “honey do” list is part comical cliché and part conflict-ridden truth. Now that both spouses are home and potentially together for an additional eight to ten hours a day, what will they expect of each other?

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