The gray tsunami is here, and baby boomers are reaching 65 at a pace of 10,000 a day. By 2030, a mere nine years from now, all baby boomers will have retired. If you are part of this wave of retirees, have you thought about what you will do for the next 20 to 30 years? It’s pretty daunting! You’ve been working for the past 40 some odd years, and now you have another three decades to fill, but with what?
SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AND HEALTH
Financial planning for retirement has been your focus, but since you have enough money to live on, now what? Many retirees have a hard time transitioning to retirement. You go from spending your days living with a purpose of going to work, having business lunches and meetings, and interacting with co-workers to being at home with your spouse or just being alone. The CDC website cites that social isolation increases the risk of dementia by 50%, as well as an increased risk for heart disease and stroke. Social interactions matter, and so does a sense of purpose.
YOUR NEXT PHASE It’s not all about vacations and sleeping in the hammock in the backyard. Take an assessment of your skills. Your purpose doesn’t end at retirement! There are plenty of skills tests that can match your interest, personality type, and abilities to the perfect post-retirement career. Even if it’s part-time consulting, if you’re feeling trepidatious about boredom in retirement, then make the transition slowly.
FIND MEANING
Volunteering is a great way to keep active, make social connections, and exercise
the mind. For example, you can tutor young kids in math and reading or college
students in accounting or marketing. There are plenty of students that need extra
help. You can use idealist.org to find volunteer projects such as tutoring students. If
you wanted to share your skills more widely, you could use wyzant.com and charge a fee. In addition, catchafire.org matches people and nonprofits for professional services such as marketing consulting, website design, and copywriting for pro bono work.
ASK FOR HELP There are also retirement coaches that can help you plan out the rest of your life if you don’t want to go it alone. To find the right coach for you, interview a few, ask for references and get familiar with their process.
THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE The best years of your life are yet to come, but while we spend the first 25 years of our lives trying to figure out what to do with the next 40, it makes sense that you should take some time to plan and figure out the next 30 years. There are wide open spaces to concur, and it’s yours for the taking. So get to it!
THE VALUE OF WORKING WITH A FINANCIAL PLANNER
Financial planning is not just about managing investment portfolios. More importantly, it is about having someone you trust to guide you when the unexpected occurs and to make sure your family has a trusted resource to rely on. At Abel Financial Management, we are local, family-oriented, and truly independent financial planners with a mission to help you make smart decisions with your money. If you or someone you know has questions like these, we invite you to have a conversation with us.
Email or call us at 410-307-1202