Retirement Etc.

There are lots of books and information for the young about saving for retirement. I am reading another just published called Rule of 30 By Frederick Vettese. However, I feel people are missing a really big point and that is how do you want to live your life considering you can live a long time, especially after our current retirement age of 65.

Personally, I think we should do away with “Retirement”. I do not think that it makes sense anymore because we are living so much longer. So, you work from 20 or 25 to 65 and save to retire at 65. Then, what do you do? I want to travel is what a lot of people say.

I think what people need to ask themselves is how are you still going to be a productive member of your society all your life. I have talked to a number of retirees that got bored with retirement and so they get a part-time job or do charity work. Although, I must admit a number of people had planned on doing charity work after retirement.

Never before in history has there been so many older people in a society. Nor have so many people collected so much in savings. In the past the dependent population has always been the young, but not anymore. Now we potentially have large portion of the population of retired old people and some have large savings, mostly in pension vehicles. But are they going to continue to contribute to society? I hope so.

If you look at statistic of retirees that retire and do nothing, they are in very poor physical and mental health after 5 years. What they need to do is walk, exercise, socialize and find some way to contribute to society. I must admit I stopped working at a traditional job when I was 54 as I had enough savings that I did not need to have a job.

What I do is try to walk 1 to 2 hours a day, exercise 5 days a week, and socialize. I socialize by belonging to a few clubs and meetup groups. I belong to a Probus group Probus group and UKC. I have also joined a number of groups in Meetup. Probus has an annual fee around $40 to $60 a year. UKC charges nothing to join but charges $5 for each event you go to. Meetup is free to join as are most group, but most group charge $2 to $5 per event as the organizers have to pay meetup.

Hopefully I do contribute to society. I think that blogging does contribute to society. I do not monetize my site, but people that do are still contributing to society. I also organize events and parties for people I know.

Another thing about getting older is keeping in touch with friends and family. You also have to be open to making new friends. A good book to read about this subject is You Could Live a Long Time, Are You Ready by Lyndsay Green.

People who retire sometimes believe they have friends at work. However, if you have not socialized outside of work with your work friends, you really do not have work friends. The other thing is that as you get older you lose both friends and family. People die, move away, or become incapacitated somehow so they cannot really socialize or go out much.

Now getting back to the topic of “Retirement”. We are going to live a long time. We need to restructure our lives so that we take time out for traveling, retraining, re-education during our lives. To save all your life to get to a set age and then stop no longer makes sense. I think that this is just old fashion thinking. We need to have full and meaningful living as long as we live.

On my other blog I wrote yesterday about Rogers Sugar Inc (TSX-RSI, OTC-RSGUF) ... learn more. Next, I will write about Calian Group Ltd (TSX-CGY, OTC-CLNFF) ... learn more on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 around 5 pm.

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