How To Plan For Retirement

We will have to find another word for retirement soon. The image of the long final snooze ramping up to the long sleep just doesn't apply...or, at least, shouldn't apply. Wrapping up full-time scheduled work has a whole new meaning now, with the progress made in wellness, healthcare, travel, and work alternatives. It really is a chance to reinvent life...to have some low risk adventures in both mental and physical exploration. But, all this good stuff will not happen without a bit of planning. Remember, leaving something that you had been a part of for many years is a major change. Change is often a break-away horse: you're either on its back or under its hooves. The long, slow, slide...or the great adventure....the choice is yours. But the chance to make the choice is well before gold watch time!

1. Establish your goals. Don't make this an obsession. Goals may change as your situation and life experiences change, but start somewhere. Write them down...and if you're heading into retirement with a companion, share the goals as early as possible. Negotiate...adjust...or your dream may be their nightmare -- what a horrible surprise!
2. Plan early. You should do this at least a decade before your bail-out date...20 years is better. Don't wait until you get that last pay. This will include your career development plan, investment plan and personal development plan. Just because you are dealing with mortgages and car loans, raising a family, and other wants and needs of a younger and more exciting age, this does not mean you push aside your retirement planning. Make this a conscious consideration when you make decisions around current demands and obligations.
3. Get a fitness plan. All the votes are in for this area. A little care over your mid years means you have a decent chance of living a longer life. Don't let the apple tummy develop. Right now, manage your sugar and salt and every day, without turning into a food crazy, make good, small choices. You've already stopped smoking...now start walking. None of this is rocket science....but you have to do it NOW if you want to have a blast later.
4. See your doctor NOW. Don't wait till you're sick. You are into wellness, NOT health care. Get a baseline done on the old body and its various fluids...the full poke and prod! When you move, take the file....it's the changes in this that often send up a red flag before you hit the wall. You have a choice to be a participant or a spectator in retirement ...but you have to make the choice now.
5. Get a financial plan. If you tuck away a bit each month, automatically out of your pay, you can change woulda, coulda, shoulda, into a fantastic future. See an investment professional or your bank. Get all the information you can find about investment and money management. Ask them to help you start an investment portfolio. Don't worry if it starts small; they want to help because they know how quickly it will grow...and how much they can make from this. Big trees grow from little acorns and all that stuff.
6. Be informed. Talk to a lawyer and an accountant or, if that's not likely, hit the Web. Know the current rules around investments, real estate, banking, taxation and estate planning. Talk to your HR officer at work. If you're in a Union, check there too. Find out about your insurance, pension and other benefits...and how to extend these into retirement.
7. List your interests. Like most of us, you made your career choice....or life made choices for you. When that happened, you put aside other things that you also wanted to do. Now put them in a list. The idea is, you will have a chance to develop these interests over the next 10 years or so. Diving?...Yes. Build a small airplane and learn to fly?...Much cheaper than you think. Build a sailboat for the great cruise? Yes you can.
8. Develop a strategy. Outline activities in your interest areas that you can start doing now. The Web is the greatest dream gate of all time! If travel is a biggie, check destinations for the future. Look at cruise ships, trains, freighters...wow! If it's collecting or history or art or movies or sports teams or painting, get a book or find a local club where nuts like you congregate.
9. Invest in self-development. You don't need a truckload of dollars for this. Go to your HR department. They can always help you assess your personality and suggest some steps to develop other areas of your personality. The more skills you have, the better are your opportunities for retirement. Even if you plan to play golf all the time, you still have to improve those scores. You don't want to be the designated loser in your games. Investment is not always dollars. Time is what most of us don't put into our own development. Many of the activities in self-improvement are free. The library is full of things you can read.
10. Build skills and experiences. Volunteer for things in your workplace or in your community. The more experiences you have, the better your chances are for a whole new adventure once you decide to leave the workplace. Go to a church, mosque, synagogue or temple. Explore a whole side of life that may be hidden in you under the noises of daily life. Record the experiences with dates, actual work you did, the organization or company you did it for, and the duration of the work. Build your itinerary for the future when you have the time. Unless of course you just want to watch television in your rocking chair and smell bad.

So, the key to all of this is: start now. If you want retirement to be another great adventure, you need to get your ducks in a row. And if you have fun planning and doing something for your retirement now, the odds are you will have a blast when the time comes.