Friday 22 January 2016

Retirement is not what you expect...

I'll be at the Gym every day!





Do you go to the gym every day now? If not then you wont when you retire. I'm sure that I was not alone in thinking, "once I quit work I'll have time to get fit." It turns out that time is not the problem, or not in the way you think it is.

My theory for why this happens is as follows...

When you are working, going to the gym, having a run or doing sport is a nice diversion. Sure you never do as much as you think you should but whenever the motivation strikes you (usually around January), you find time to get active.

The problem is that when you are retired, you have time to do whatever you want. So instead of working out being a pleasant diversion from the stresses of work, it becomes something that you should do when there are lots of other more pleasant alternatives. So instead of keeping fit you get stuck into one of your hobbies which somehow provide more immediate gratification.

I find that I need to set objectives to ensure that I get some exercise. You don't want to retire early and get more unhealthy than you were. Otherwise retirement could become unpleasant as you deal with illness bought on by a poor lifestyle, or at worse cut short abruptly!

I have enough money!


You probably don't. See my previous post. The problem is that things are more expensive than you think and you won't budget for everything. Stuff inevitably pops up. For my wife and I it has been maintenance. House, car and dogs mostly. I expect as we get older health costs will also make a dramatic entry. There is a number which is enough (in terms of savings), but it is bigger than you think.

Make sure you have some contingency stuck away. At some point you will probably want a new bathroom/kitchen/car/jet/etc.

The other issue is income. Investment yields never seem to be what you budget for, and the tax man always likes to get his cut.

The wife and I will get to travel!


Look this is a good thing - in moderation.

I need to be a bit circumspect in case the missus ever reads this. The original plan when we retired was to spend 6 months of the year up at Byron Bay. A spot we both love. It turns out that 4 weeks away together 24x7 is about our limit. After that we are ready to kill each other and are no longer enjoying the holiday as much as we should. Apparently I get annoying in large doses!

The other complications for us when travelling are the dogs and the fact that I can't carry all my hobby related stuff around with me. Like most blokes, my favourite hobbies involve a lot of stuff that you can buy. After a month or so, I start missing my stuff.

We now aim for shorter trips and we do some trips separately, either with other friends or solo. This works much better.

I think this phenomenon is associated with the next point.

You are driving me mad!





I have always maintained that frequent separation is the secret of a long marriage. My wife and I both travelled frequently for work. We love our time together now but we also appreciated time apart to do our own thing. Moderation seems to be the answer to a lot of questions!

Now that we are both in the same house, potentially all of the time, we had to come up with some new rules. We are fortunate in that our house is large enough for us to have a room each for our hobbies. This provides necessary separation. We also commit to each being out of the house at least one day a week. In practise, most weeks I'm out of the house at least 3 days.

I will be bored after the first week!


Pffft. Assuming that you have at least 3 hobbies or interests, this wont be the case. In fact you will wonder how you ever found time to go to work.

Another truism, everything takes longer than you expect. You wont be able to get as much done in a year as you think you will. But what a great problem. It means you don't get bored, but you do need to manage this so that you don't create stress. One of the few remaining areas of stress when you have 100% control of your time, is not meeting your productivity expectations. Make sure you set realistic objectives and review them frequently. The secret is finding activities which give your life purpose.

The people who do have a problem, are those whose only interest is their work. In which case, why would you retire? If you love work that much then steam on, your biggest danger is when you stop.


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