What Retirement Means Today

I recently published an article on The Street dot Com (www.thestreet.com) talking about the changing definition of retirement and how we should start planning for it now. Below is an excerpt from the article highlighting some of the questions we use to help develop your definition of retirement.  Planning in advance is essential as your wishes and goals will change across time as your situation does. We need a plan now so we can optimize it later.

 

....In order to begin tackling this planning “problem,” it is imperative that you start the process long before your retirement date. Here is a sample of questions I use to guide clients along the initial stages of retirement planning:

1. What do you want retirement to look like? Do you need to retire at all? 
2. How does your spouse, partner or significant other view retirement? 
3. Will you take the time to try it out (whatever it may be) before you retire? 
4. Do you plan to continue working, start a new business, or do you want to take up a new hobby? 
5. If money were not an issue, what would you do with the remaining 20 years of your life? 
6. Can we make that (#5) happen on a less grand scale that fits your budget? 
7. Looking out 20–30 years from now, what would need to happen for you to consider retirement a success? 
8. Imagine reading your obituary (20–30 years hence) in the local paper. What would you want it to say that it doesn’t already?

The list can go on and on, but you get the idea. We need to ask hard questions now, while we have time, mental capacity and flexibility to change things, so that we can have the best chance at a retirement that is successful. The great news is that every one of us gets to determine what "successful" means.

Please click here to read the full article which was originally posted on The Street dot Com.  What Retirement Means Today