It’s been said that you should never retire from something, but always retire to something. I like that piece of advice, but what seems to be more common is the situation where people retire and don’t know what they’re going to do with their time.
Retirement planning entails more than just the financial aspect of retirement – it can be thought of as life planning. This can be even more important when retirement involves a couple.
One spouse for example may be thinking of retirement as an extended vacation while the other spouse would rather have an active lifestyle. The reality is that most of us are so busy that we never take the time plan how we’re going to live during our retirement years.
It is common knowledge that people are living longer now than they have in the past. In fact, for a 65-year-old couple, there is about a 50-50 chance that one of them will survive into their mid-90s. That’s a long time, and we may as well plan on enjoying it!
I read an interesting article this morning – http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goodbye-tension-hello-pension-2013-04-29 that addresses this subject in a lighthearted but thought-provoking way.