In the newspaper business, when a reporter wants to find out all about a case, they always ask the big five questions which are who, what, when, where and why. If the reporter can get these basic questions answered about any story, that is considered good research.
We can use the same approach as we begin to process the idea of retirement planning. It would be a mistake to only look at retirement planning as strictly a financial step. If all retirement consisted of was a change to where you get your money, that would be one level of change. But retirement also brings with it big lifestyle changes and changes to your priorities and how you use your time. So it’s a good idea to prepare for all of the changes retirement brings by asking the big five questions.
Who will you be retiring with is a very important question because your mode of living is going to change in every way imaginable. That man or woman who has been part of your life for so many decades will now become central to every move you make when retirement puts you together every day all day. So you should think that through and decide how you want to arrange your time so both of you still have your own interests, activities and friends but you can also enjoy a new closeness that retirement affords you.
What you will be doing with your time is a huge question as you walk away from the working world. Retirement is a great time to start enjoying those hobbies that never got enough time. You can catch up on your reading, write the great American novel or take classes to learn to paint or do woodworking. See retirement as a time when the sky is the limit for you to explore your creative side.
When you retire is a big factor on how much of your retirement savings you have to have ready by a certain time. For many, dipping into the retirement savings can be postponed for years. If you get to the point that you can collect Social Security and still make a fair amount of money part time or performing some cottage industry job, you might be able to keep your retirement savings growing even for the first five to ten years of retirement. And that means a longer more prosperous retirement time frame for you and your spouse as well.
Where will you live once you settle into the place you want to call your retirement bungalow. If you plan to sell the house and buy a condo or move into an assisted living center, there is a lot of preparation for both of those steps. There isn't time like the present to begin that retirement planning by getting the house ready to sell and by getting out and researching the best retirement living options for you to consider.
Why retire is more than just a philosophical question. You may be retiring because you got to a certain age and it is required of you. But to enter retirement with a good attitude, it’s good to find your own motivations for wanting to scale back your responsibilities and enjoy some leisure time as a senior citizen. And if retirement means more time for hobbies, chances to travel or enjoy time with your spouse or greater access to those sweet grandbabies, those are great reasons to enter the life of a retired person.
But the one question we did not list that may be more than all the rest is the “how” of retirement. How you go about moving from a life of working, selling the house and getting settled in a completely new world, perhaps with new friends and new objectives for living is a major challenge for anyone especially if you have been a productive member of the business or working world for many decades.
There are a lot of levels to the “how question”. That is why in a lot of ways the period of time leading up to retirement and doing retirement planning can be as active as retirement itself. But it’s good you are getting started now because by being prepared, your transition to retirement will be smooth and as painless as possible for such a big change of life.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Avoiding Retirement Shock
Have ever talked to someone who when speaking on the subject of retirement acts like it is a death sentence? For many the idea of not working and stepping down into the life of retirement with fewer daily duties is frightening and something to dread. That is why a big part of retirement planning involves getting emotionally ready for retirement so there isn’t a huge shock when all of a sudden you are a man or woman of leisure.
There is a term from the world of scuba diving that refers to a medical problem that happens when a diver returns to the surface to fast and the shift from high pressure to lower pressure of the world above the water is too fast. It’s called “the bends” and it’s a serious medical moment. Well, we don’t want to get “the bends” when we leave the high pressure world of work and achievement for the low pressure world of retirement and a life of ease.
So to avoid retirement shock, you should start well ahead of you retirement party getting ready for that lifestyle. The worst thing you can do is wake up on the first day of your retired life with nothing to do and that feeling of emptiness and loneliness because you miss your old life and have no plans for how to fill the hours and days that lay ahead in your life as a retired person.
One way to avoid retirement shock is to do a bit of daydreaming about all the things you want to do once you are retired. Many of us put off creative interests and adventures we might have pursued except as a member of the working world, a parent an active participant in school, church and civic groups, there is just no time for that before retirement. But now that you have laid down so many of those responsibilities, give yourself permission to throw yourself into a creative hobby to let that side of you out to grow and mature.
Another great coping mechanism so the shock of moving into retirement isn’t so severe is to continue to work at a reduced pace. If your employer values your decades of experience and devotion to duty, they may put you on in a part time capacity to come in and help the young people learn the ropes and learn the lay of the land of the business world. You know that landscape well so you can be of real value to make that transition a success.
Retirement is also a time when you can travel and spend more time with family and friends. If you always wished you could be available to baby-sit the grandchildren, now is the time. Your kids not only will love having free child care while they go about dealing with their busy lives but you will enjoy getting to know your grandkids and maybe being a kid with them for an afternoon as well.
Volunteering is another great way to fill all of that extra time you now have on your hands. By keeping busy helping worthy causes, you keep your self esteem because you are making a real difference in the lives of others and for your community. You can meet so many wonderful people while volunteering and the social side of it keeps you young and overcomes loneliness which is a big problem when you first enter your retirement years.
By laying out plans to enjoy a hobby, continue to work part time or volunteer when retirement starts, you can get rid of that sense of dread that you may have about your upcoming retirement. Instead start to get excited about this new phase of life and the new life that lies ahead of you in retirement.
There is a term from the world of scuba diving that refers to a medical problem that happens when a diver returns to the surface to fast and the shift from high pressure to lower pressure of the world above the water is too fast. It’s called “the bends” and it’s a serious medical moment. Well, we don’t want to get “the bends” when we leave the high pressure world of work and achievement for the low pressure world of retirement and a life of ease.
So to avoid retirement shock, you should start well ahead of you retirement party getting ready for that lifestyle. The worst thing you can do is wake up on the first day of your retired life with nothing to do and that feeling of emptiness and loneliness because you miss your old life and have no plans for how to fill the hours and days that lay ahead in your life as a retired person.
One way to avoid retirement shock is to do a bit of daydreaming about all the things you want to do once you are retired. Many of us put off creative interests and adventures we might have pursued except as a member of the working world, a parent an active participant in school, church and civic groups, there is just no time for that before retirement. But now that you have laid down so many of those responsibilities, give yourself permission to throw yourself into a creative hobby to let that side of you out to grow and mature.
Another great coping mechanism so the shock of moving into retirement isn’t so severe is to continue to work at a reduced pace. If your employer values your decades of experience and devotion to duty, they may put you on in a part time capacity to come in and help the young people learn the ropes and learn the lay of the land of the business world. You know that landscape well so you can be of real value to make that transition a success.
Retirement is also a time when you can travel and spend more time with family and friends. If you always wished you could be available to baby-sit the grandchildren, now is the time. Your kids not only will love having free child care while they go about dealing with their busy lives but you will enjoy getting to know your grandkids and maybe being a kid with them for an afternoon as well.
Volunteering is another great way to fill all of that extra time you now have on your hands. By keeping busy helping worthy causes, you keep your self esteem because you are making a real difference in the lives of others and for your community. You can meet so many wonderful people while volunteering and the social side of it keeps you young and overcomes loneliness which is a big problem when you first enter your retirement years.
By laying out plans to enjoy a hobby, continue to work part time or volunteer when retirement starts, you can get rid of that sense of dread that you may have about your upcoming retirement. Instead start to get excited about this new phase of life and the new life that lies ahead of you in retirement.
Turning that Mortgage Around
Your house that you bought so many years ago represents one of the biggest investments of your life. By the time you approach retirement, if you have stuck with it, you may well have that house paid off. And with appreciation, that home may be worth twice or three times what you paid for it and you have all the equity from those years of house payments. Therefore, in addition to the joy you have had living in that house and raising your family there, that house is also can be a big part of your retirement planning as well.
It used to be that to take advantage of that equity when you enter retirement, you either had to sell the house and go live in a nursing home or retirement community or you took out a new mortgage borrowing against the equity and you find yourself paying huge interest payments all over again.
But a new kind of mortgage called the “reverse mortgage” is now available so a senior citizen who is preparing for retirement can begin to realize some of that equity as capital and not have to take on a loan payment or move out of their home. This innovative new program allows you to set up the equivalent of a home equity loan but instead of getting a huge lump sum, you can have the equity sent to you in the form of monthly payments so the equity of your home can actually become part of your monthly budget to supplement Social Security or other retirement funds.
What is great about the reverse mortgage type of financial vehicle is that you are never required to pay back the loan of the money that is based on your equity. The only time that loan amount would be required of you would be if you moved, sold the house or passed away in which case the sale of the house would realize the equity to retire the loan. In other words, if you take out $100,000 from your home for medical costs or just to finance a comfortable retirement living, you are not called upon to pay back that money and you can continue to live in the house for as long as you want to.
This is a phenomenal arrangement that seems tailor made for senior who want to enjoy their retirement years without financial worries and do so living in the house where they raised their children and a home that has become so precious to them. For children of a retiring parent, the reverse mortgage is a godsend because mom or dad can stay in their own home where they are happiest. And if they can keep the old homestead, the whole family will continue to enjoy coming to visit there, seeing the grandkids run and play in the same yard they grew up in and having holidays there as well.
Like some of the best programs for retiring persons, the reverse mortgage was originally put together by the US. Department of Housing and Urban renewal. It isn’t often that the government gets something right but they hit one out of the ball park with the reverse mortgage. It is a program and provides federally insured funds to seniors so they can supplement their income in a safe way that allows them to use the equity of their home for their retirement comfort without ever having to give up that home. And because the money coming out of a reverse mortgage is technically a loan, you never have to pay taxes on that money which is another big financial blessing.
The reverse mortgage is an option worth considering as part of retirement planning. It gives seniors one more option for keeping their homes. And that is good for everybody.
It used to be that to take advantage of that equity when you enter retirement, you either had to sell the house and go live in a nursing home or retirement community or you took out a new mortgage borrowing against the equity and you find yourself paying huge interest payments all over again.
But a new kind of mortgage called the “reverse mortgage” is now available so a senior citizen who is preparing for retirement can begin to realize some of that equity as capital and not have to take on a loan payment or move out of their home. This innovative new program allows you to set up the equivalent of a home equity loan but instead of getting a huge lump sum, you can have the equity sent to you in the form of monthly payments so the equity of your home can actually become part of your monthly budget to supplement Social Security or other retirement funds.
What is great about the reverse mortgage type of financial vehicle is that you are never required to pay back the loan of the money that is based on your equity. The only time that loan amount would be required of you would be if you moved, sold the house or passed away in which case the sale of the house would realize the equity to retire the loan. In other words, if you take out $100,000 from your home for medical costs or just to finance a comfortable retirement living, you are not called upon to pay back that money and you can continue to live in the house for as long as you want to.
This is a phenomenal arrangement that seems tailor made for senior who want to enjoy their retirement years without financial worries and do so living in the house where they raised their children and a home that has become so precious to them. For children of a retiring parent, the reverse mortgage is a godsend because mom or dad can stay in their own home where they are happiest. And if they can keep the old homestead, the whole family will continue to enjoy coming to visit there, seeing the grandkids run and play in the same yard they grew up in and having holidays there as well.
Like some of the best programs for retiring persons, the reverse mortgage was originally put together by the US. Department of Housing and Urban renewal. It isn’t often that the government gets something right but they hit one out of the ball park with the reverse mortgage. It is a program and provides federally insured funds to seniors so they can supplement their income in a safe way that allows them to use the equity of their home for their retirement comfort without ever having to give up that home. And because the money coming out of a reverse mortgage is technically a loan, you never have to pay taxes on that money which is another big financial blessing.
The reverse mortgage is an option worth considering as part of retirement planning. It gives seniors one more option for keeping their homes. And that is good for everybody.
A Place to Settle Down With
When you are looking down the road at that new lifestyle of retirement, there is a whole new way of life to be anticipated. And that is the fun of retirement planning because, as they say, anticipation is half of the fun. And part of the preparation for retirement is looking at various retirement facilities and retirement communities that you might look to call home.
It’s appropriate to use the term “retirement community” because when you are considering selling your home and moving to an assisted care facility or a senior apartment, community is just as important to you as the food and the layout of your space. So when you start that search process, it’s good to know what questions to ask and how to evaluate different retirement communities against each other.
Anytime you go to “interview” the administration of a retirement community, they are going to put their best foot forward. But that’s ok because you want to know what their bragging rights are all about. So in addition to discussing price and amenities, make sure you include community activities as part of the things you ask about and use to evaluate the community. One of the big advantages of moving to a senior center is that you can have a more social lifestyle then living in your home by yourself. So the retirement center must be the kind of place that facilitate a lot of social interaction so you can make friends and get out and have fun.
The layout and how the residents are interacted with by staff make a big difference for how well people get out of their apartments and enjoy their living arrangements. Take the tour of the place but don’t just look the carpet and the views out of the display apartment windows. Look at how many people are out and about, how much informal communication is going on and if public spaces are available and in use on a daily basis. That is something that cannot be “staged” and you will be able to tell if the people are having fun and enjoying each other at the retirement community.
Of course there are the “brass tacks” questions you will need to go through when interviewing a possible new place to live. The facility has to be within your price range so they should be forthright about costs. But even if you can afford what they charge, there has to be value for the money. Look at the facility both for what is being offered and how well they seem to be able to fulfill their promises. Look at the physical arrangements. How old is the facility and does it seem to be in good repair?
Make it a point to talk to various staff members during your stay. If the person assigned to host you lets you talk to residents and staff but they must be present, that might indicate that they are putting on a show for you and not letting you know the real story of the facility. Make arrangements to be “cut loose” to wander the halls, talk to residents and visit staff on a surprise basis. If the staff is irritated by your attempts to communicate, always busy or cold and hostile, that is a culture issue that you don’t want to be part of your new lifestyle.
A real test of a retirement community might come in giving them a test drive. If the facility owners have a guest apartment and they offer to let you stay for a few days to just sample life in the community, that is a strong statement of faith that you will find everything to your liking. By living amongst the people, you have lots of chances to eat with the residents, begin making friends and find out the real scoop on whether this is a good place to live or not.
By coming up with a strategy for looking at different retirement centers to find out what they are really all about, you will do a much better job of evaluating retirement communities. And it’s worth the effort to dig a bit beneath the surface because if this place wants to be your new home, they must be able to make you retirement life happy, social and fun. Because that’s the way it should be.
It’s appropriate to use the term “retirement community” because when you are considering selling your home and moving to an assisted care facility or a senior apartment, community is just as important to you as the food and the layout of your space. So when you start that search process, it’s good to know what questions to ask and how to evaluate different retirement communities against each other.
Anytime you go to “interview” the administration of a retirement community, they are going to put their best foot forward. But that’s ok because you want to know what their bragging rights are all about. So in addition to discussing price and amenities, make sure you include community activities as part of the things you ask about and use to evaluate the community. One of the big advantages of moving to a senior center is that you can have a more social lifestyle then living in your home by yourself. So the retirement center must be the kind of place that facilitate a lot of social interaction so you can make friends and get out and have fun.
The layout and how the residents are interacted with by staff make a big difference for how well people get out of their apartments and enjoy their living arrangements. Take the tour of the place but don’t just look the carpet and the views out of the display apartment windows. Look at how many people are out and about, how much informal communication is going on and if public spaces are available and in use on a daily basis. That is something that cannot be “staged” and you will be able to tell if the people are having fun and enjoying each other at the retirement community.
Of course there are the “brass tacks” questions you will need to go through when interviewing a possible new place to live. The facility has to be within your price range so they should be forthright about costs. But even if you can afford what they charge, there has to be value for the money. Look at the facility both for what is being offered and how well they seem to be able to fulfill their promises. Look at the physical arrangements. How old is the facility and does it seem to be in good repair?
Make it a point to talk to various staff members during your stay. If the person assigned to host you lets you talk to residents and staff but they must be present, that might indicate that they are putting on a show for you and not letting you know the real story of the facility. Make arrangements to be “cut loose” to wander the halls, talk to residents and visit staff on a surprise basis. If the staff is irritated by your attempts to communicate, always busy or cold and hostile, that is a culture issue that you don’t want to be part of your new lifestyle.
A real test of a retirement community might come in giving them a test drive. If the facility owners have a guest apartment and they offer to let you stay for a few days to just sample life in the community, that is a strong statement of faith that you will find everything to your liking. By living amongst the people, you have lots of chances to eat with the residents, begin making friends and find out the real scoop on whether this is a good place to live or not.
By coming up with a strategy for looking at different retirement centers to find out what they are really all about, you will do a much better job of evaluating retirement communities. And it’s worth the effort to dig a bit beneath the surface because if this place wants to be your new home, they must be able to make you retirement life happy, social and fun. Because that’s the way it should be.
Your Financial Future Is In Your Hands
All of us have one big transition facing us not that far down the road. Of course life is all about transitions. We make a transition from childhood to adolescence. We transition from being a child of a house to adulthood and independence. And we make big transitions through marriage, parenthood and even becoming a grandparent. But of all of these, maybe the one we need to focus on in terms of preparation is the big transition to retirement.
Moving from the world of work and the active life that all that entails to retirement and your golden years is a huge adjustment for people. There are lifestyle changes, changes to your goals and priorities and even in how people view you. But the changes to your finances are perhaps the ones you will notice the most. When you move from getting a steady paycheck to living on your Social Security and retirement, that is a major shift in your expectations and how you plan your life.
The saddest thing we see when it comes to people in late middle age are those who are depending on Social Security to be the sole means of their support in retirement. While Social Security is a fine program, it has created a false illusion of “security” that somehow the government will take care of you in your old age. The “brass tacks” truth is that if you are depending on any outside agency to be your means of support in your retirement years, your assurance that you will be conformable in your retirement years is not assured.
Even if you are currently working at a job that has a retirement program or a 401K that you put some into, you may still be allowing yourself to “depend” on your job to be there for you when you get to retirement age. And the horror stories of the elderly who finally arrive at retirement age to discover that what they thought they could depend on was not reliable are tragic.
This is why starting now to prepare for you financial future will be the best way you can be absolutely sure you will have what you need as you enter that time when you should be able to relax and enjoy the fruit of your labors. This is a major attitude shift and if you can accomplish it and take charge of your financial future, you will approach retirement with much greater confidence.
The outcome of your decision to take charge of your retirement will be that you won’t just let money get put away for you without any oversight on your part. You cannot always trust that the managers of your retirement account at work are handling the money correctly. By staying on top of how those funds are being invested and doing all you can to direct where those funds go, you are making sure that you get maximum return on your investment all along the way. And when its time for you to need those funds, you will be ready to use them because you are acutely aware of their value.
We cannot control Social Security and there is a chance it will be there for you when its time for you to retire. But instead of depending on Social Security, build a financial future that is secure whether it is there or not. Then when you retire and your retirement packages begin to kick and give you that lifestyle of leisure and financial safety that you want, if you do see Social Security add a few dollars to your monthly funds, so much the better.
By taking control over your financial future, you are putting the security of your funds and the planning that you will have what you need when those wonderful years come along. You are depending on the one person you know is in turn with what you will need and has always been abler to plan and provide for yourself and your family and that is you. It’s a good feeling to put the management of your financial future in your own hands in preparation for retirement. But it’s a wonderful feeling you worked hard to enjoy so you deserve it.
Moving from the world of work and the active life that all that entails to retirement and your golden years is a huge adjustment for people. There are lifestyle changes, changes to your goals and priorities and even in how people view you. But the changes to your finances are perhaps the ones you will notice the most. When you move from getting a steady paycheck to living on your Social Security and retirement, that is a major shift in your expectations and how you plan your life.
The saddest thing we see when it comes to people in late middle age are those who are depending on Social Security to be the sole means of their support in retirement. While Social Security is a fine program, it has created a false illusion of “security” that somehow the government will take care of you in your old age. The “brass tacks” truth is that if you are depending on any outside agency to be your means of support in your retirement years, your assurance that you will be conformable in your retirement years is not assured.
Even if you are currently working at a job that has a retirement program or a 401K that you put some into, you may still be allowing yourself to “depend” on your job to be there for you when you get to retirement age. And the horror stories of the elderly who finally arrive at retirement age to discover that what they thought they could depend on was not reliable are tragic.
This is why starting now to prepare for you financial future will be the best way you can be absolutely sure you will have what you need as you enter that time when you should be able to relax and enjoy the fruit of your labors. This is a major attitude shift and if you can accomplish it and take charge of your financial future, you will approach retirement with much greater confidence.
The outcome of your decision to take charge of your retirement will be that you won’t just let money get put away for you without any oversight on your part. You cannot always trust that the managers of your retirement account at work are handling the money correctly. By staying on top of how those funds are being invested and doing all you can to direct where those funds go, you are making sure that you get maximum return on your investment all along the way. And when its time for you to need those funds, you will be ready to use them because you are acutely aware of their value.
We cannot control Social Security and there is a chance it will be there for you when its time for you to retire. But instead of depending on Social Security, build a financial future that is secure whether it is there or not. Then when you retire and your retirement packages begin to kick and give you that lifestyle of leisure and financial safety that you want, if you do see Social Security add a few dollars to your monthly funds, so much the better.
By taking control over your financial future, you are putting the security of your funds and the planning that you will have what you need when those wonderful years come along. You are depending on the one person you know is in turn with what you will need and has always been abler to plan and provide for yourself and your family and that is you. It’s a good feeling to put the management of your financial future in your own hands in preparation for retirement. But it’s a wonderful feeling you worked hard to enjoy so you deserve it.
A New Life – A New Career
For many the idea of retirement comes with the automatic translation that it means that you will stop working is just not acceptable. For many, retirement from work is equivalent with no longer living. If you have been a productive worker all of your life and someone asked you what your dream retirement might look like, you might respond “to work” because you may be one of those people for whom work is what gives meaning and purpose to life.
It isn’t fair for us to impose the same standards of retirement on everyone. To say that to enjoy your golden years, you must take up fishing, start sleeping until noon, sit in a rocker and watch the day go by and gradually turn into a senior citizen would to many be the same as sentencing them to life in prison without parole. So for many it’s very possible that working would be the thing that would make your retirement meaningful.
Still others must continue to work into their retirement years because they did not or could not prepare for retirement. Whatever the situation, there are some adjustments that should be made to shift to a retirement career that you can continue to do well into your senior years.
You can get a running start on your retirement planning if you find that a career change is appropriate later in life. Many times we do find that the career we are in may either be changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, it’s too physically demanding when you are older or in some other way that job has become a “young man’s game”. If that has happened to you, you can get a jump start on finding a career that you can stick with well into your retirement years, that career can be an income generator that might never go away.
It is not at all uncommon for men in their later years to start a new career. Perhaps you just want a career where you can use the creative side of you and one that can be a natural transition into retirement. Perhaps you reached the maximum vesting of your retirement account with a job you held for decades so you can “retire” from that job with full benefits and funding and still start another career that you can take on into retirement and keep doing as you enjoy the fruits of retirement as well.
Many times the skills and knowledge you learned in the business world during your first career can transition you into a lucrative consulting career late in life. One way to explore this option is to think of the venders who sold goods and services to you when you were in your previous career and contact them to see if you might now represent their services as a former satisfied customer. If you had specialized knowledge and training in how to use their software or a technical product, that training which your former employer paid for can now transition into an exciting career as a sales representative or sale support for the very companies who once had you as a customer.
The internet can also open up worlds of money making opportunities that you can use to land work or sell something you may have made by setting up your own web site and learning how to promote yourself online. Many cottage industries have taken off and been hugely successful just getting what you do out into cyberspace. For example, if you are talented at making beautiful artistic pottery, you can create a line of pots that is perfect for sale over the internet. You can work with a skilled internet web developer and marketer to get your product out on the internet and before long, you might have more orders than you know what to do with all flying out through your web site which is collecting the money and filling your back account up with all the profits.
The ways you can create a new business in your retirement years are only limited by your imagination. And once you have a good new career going that you can continue well into your retirement years, you won’t have many of the worries other retired people have. You can enjoy the freedoms of a retirement lifestyle and made plenty of money at the same time. And that’s a great combination.
It isn’t fair for us to impose the same standards of retirement on everyone. To say that to enjoy your golden years, you must take up fishing, start sleeping until noon, sit in a rocker and watch the day go by and gradually turn into a senior citizen would to many be the same as sentencing them to life in prison without parole. So for many it’s very possible that working would be the thing that would make your retirement meaningful.
Still others must continue to work into their retirement years because they did not or could not prepare for retirement. Whatever the situation, there are some adjustments that should be made to shift to a retirement career that you can continue to do well into your senior years.
You can get a running start on your retirement planning if you find that a career change is appropriate later in life. Many times we do find that the career we are in may either be changing so fast that it’s hard to keep up, it’s too physically demanding when you are older or in some other way that job has become a “young man’s game”. If that has happened to you, you can get a jump start on finding a career that you can stick with well into your retirement years, that career can be an income generator that might never go away.
It is not at all uncommon for men in their later years to start a new career. Perhaps you just want a career where you can use the creative side of you and one that can be a natural transition into retirement. Perhaps you reached the maximum vesting of your retirement account with a job you held for decades so you can “retire” from that job with full benefits and funding and still start another career that you can take on into retirement and keep doing as you enjoy the fruits of retirement as well.
Many times the skills and knowledge you learned in the business world during your first career can transition you into a lucrative consulting career late in life. One way to explore this option is to think of the venders who sold goods and services to you when you were in your previous career and contact them to see if you might now represent their services as a former satisfied customer. If you had specialized knowledge and training in how to use their software or a technical product, that training which your former employer paid for can now transition into an exciting career as a sales representative or sale support for the very companies who once had you as a customer.
The internet can also open up worlds of money making opportunities that you can use to land work or sell something you may have made by setting up your own web site and learning how to promote yourself online. Many cottage industries have taken off and been hugely successful just getting what you do out into cyberspace. For example, if you are talented at making beautiful artistic pottery, you can create a line of pots that is perfect for sale over the internet. You can work with a skilled internet web developer and marketer to get your product out on the internet and before long, you might have more orders than you know what to do with all flying out through your web site which is collecting the money and filling your back account up with all the profits.
The ways you can create a new business in your retirement years are only limited by your imagination. And once you have a good new career going that you can continue well into your retirement years, you won’t have many of the worries other retired people have. You can enjoy the freedoms of a retirement lifestyle and made plenty of money at the same time. And that’s a great combination.
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