When I opened my RRSP I had to consider when I wanted to retire, and how I envisioned my lifestyle to be after retirement. Do I want to maintain my existing lifestyle? Do I want to travel? Will I work part-time?
When I closed my eyes and thought about retirement, I pictured volunteering. I pictured travelling. I pictured being able to camp with my grandchildren and try surfing in Hawaii. That’s an ideal, and I’m sure everyone wants something close to this type of life. I also pictured myself retiring earlier than the standard age of 65.
I know that things will change as I get older, move into my career, buy a house, have kids, and generally live life a little more than my 20 something years have allowed me. But I think that, by now, I know myself. I don’t want to be working until I’m 65, at least not a full time nine to five.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always want to work. I’m a worker. I don’t just sit around, ever. Like, ever. Even right now, I work full time, go to school, and blog, which is a job in itself (albeit a fun and relaxing one).
When I retire, I doubt I’ll be able to just relax. I’ll want to volunteer or work part time. Knowing myself, if I don’t keep busy, I’ll end up being the crazy dog lady.
But do I want to have to work for the majority of my life? No.
If you think about it, we spend a third of our time in life doing something that we don’t really want to be doing. No matter how much you love your job, there’s (usually) always something you’d rather be doing.
Another one third of our time is spent sleeping. Lacking consciousness isn’t exactly conducive to living life to the fullest.
We spend another chunk of our time getting ready for work, or getting ourselves to work. Our waking, free hours are diminished by work, sleep, or work and sleep related activities. Oh, and trying to keep ourselves alive by eating and exercising.
So to me, it’s unfathomable to have to work for almost my entire life.
You could argue that when we’re children, we don’t work. True, but we go to school. Anything before school aged, we don’t remember.
You could argue that after retirement we have more free time. Definitely! But in our retirement years, there are only a few years after 65 where we are physically able to do everything that we could have when we are younger.
So to me, retiring early is the only way. Vacation time from work is great, but all of my dreams won’t fit into three weeks annually, and I doubt yours will either. Living life to the fullest less than 1/3 of the time isn’t feasible. And we only get one life – we need to choose how to use it very wisely.
What about you – do you plan to achieve early retirement? Late? Never?
I’m hoping I’ll retire early! At least by 55, but hopefully sooner. And like you, I want to stay busy in retirement still.
Staying busy is key – but I feel like I’d be soo busy with everything even if I didn’t work! I’d probably go back to school for something out of pure interest.
I’m a high school math teacher who retired 4 years ago at age 56 as part of a state early retirement incentive plan. Much as I loved my job and my students, it was fiscally the right decision to make.
Now I am a consultant and travel around the country (one or two times a month is what works best for me) to work with teachers to offer them professional development in making math more accessible to our students. In addition, I volunteer to speak at education conferences when they are being held in cities I’ve always wanted to visit.
My point in sharing…look at all options concerning retirement. But don’t be afraid to venture out like I’ve been able to do.
That’s awesome! See that sounds like fun. I wonder why there is an early retirement incentive – it’s counterintuitive to me haha.
Incentive was for the state to get out the low % contributors to the retirement system (we contributed 5% to it) and get in new teachers who have to contribute 11% and up).
Ohhh, interesting! Well, who doesn’t want to retire early, right?
I’m not sure I’d want to retire early. It’s hard to see that far into the future but one thing is for sure, I’d like to HAVE THE OPTION of retiring early. I.e. I want to save up enough money, and fill my life with substance so that I could retire early and be comfortable in all aspects. Whether I’d do it? I’m not sure.
btw, loving these smiley faces you have made available for the comments section 😀
I agree – having the option is what is really important. I’ll probably change my mind 1000 times, but at least I want to be able to change my mind because I want to, not out of necessity becuase I cant retire early.
Retirement honestly isn’t something I think about often. I contribute to my RRSPs diligently, though that’s probably more as a down payment fund than anything else. 🙂
I guess it just comes with working a less traditional job. I’m freelancing now. I don’t know if I’ll always freelance, but I’ll always have the ability to freelance, and I can’t really imagine wanting to stop working entirely. I’d get bored! I guess I imagine when it comes time to “retire,” I’ll just work a lot less.
I think I’m in the same boat Melissa. My RRSP contributions in my mind are more about saving for a downpayment. Retirement still seems so far away. I’d probably still want something to keep busy. I wouldn’t want to be one of those old people who is so bored that they go to the grocery store every single day just to chat.
I think the best option might to transition into retirement rather than suddenly stop working completely. I like Carol’s route of doing consulting for a while first.
We don’t specifically want to retire early, we want to have the ability to, once our kids are in college, to love to a new place that we’d always wanted to move to and work there. My husband’s profession may allow him to get positions in crazy places – there are job postings in the Maldives, in Dubai, in the Bahamas.
I used to read Early Retirement Extreme – still do sometimes – but their idea of early retirement isn’t what I want to do in my retirement. I want to travel, see the world, eat good food and drink great wine. If it takes us until 65 to be able to do that, that’s fine with us.
That’s so awesome! I guess you’re right – I’d like to know that I am able to, even if I don’t want to. I’m in my early 20s and I’m sure I’ll change my mind several times throughout my life, but having my options open is the main thing
I will not yet give up on finding a career path that makes me happy enough that the option of retirement, when it comes, is financially viable but _I just won’t want to do it._
Maybe I will adjust my expectations in time, but forty years is too much for me to spend feeling like I am spending a third of my life doing things I don’t want to do.
I picture my retirement exactly like you do! I was like to travel and volunteer and … work. But when it comes to work, I would like to work at home, doing what I love the most – writing. I think it is a dream at this point but you have to admit, it is a good one! 🙂
I’ve been actually thinking about this a lot. Kind of in a “what is the point” crisis in my personal finance journey. 😯 I’d like to have enough money so that I don’t have to work, but knowing me I’d want to work or do something to earn money. Unless I win the mega-lotto. Then all bets are off!
I like to have the financial security to retire early if I want to, but not necessarily just retired. I want to enjoy the now as well as saving a bit for retirement. I think I am okay to work longer (ie no early retirement) as long as my life is balance between fun and work.