RETIREMENT PITFALLS

SO, WHAT DO ALL THESE FOLK HAVE IN COMMON?

FAIRLY HAPPY BUNCH I can hear you say. True!

In fact they have all retired! Yep, all retired!

Man this retirement thing is a bit on the tricky side. There are heaps of people doing it but just because it’s popular, doesn’t mean you should be jumping in willy nilly.

A person works for quite a few years – decades. Day in, day out. Then work stops!

For some people, like some doctors, some accountants and lawyers and Crock the dentist, they’ve managed to ease into retirement somewhat gradually. First they have Fridays off. Then they just don’t go in on Mondays and Fridays. You get the idea. Indeed, a number have followed Bev’s angle and taken up something quite foreign like bus driving on a less than full-time basis to give them something to do after their real job has finished. And something quite different from their farming career or whatever it was.

One minute Robbie was a most important person as a well respected deputy principal of a community primary school. The next minute she’s a nobody; just living on the memories of her former occupation and her place of importance. Then there was a really good mate who had an engineering firm. He scaled down to something like 3 days per week. Problem was there’d be a site meeting called on one of the days he wasn’t supposed to be working. Got to be a bit awkward. Think it really affected him big time.

Another engineer became the manager of his wife’s beauty salon. It seemed to work…. OK. Maybe she started seeing too much of him?

Teachers and principals are a bunch I know a fair bit about. A classroom teacher does a 5 day week (normally.) Most of them retire… They stop teaching… cold turkey. Some of them do a bit of casual (which can be a tough gig.) But how ’bout principals? Bit hard to do a three day week when you’ve been boss of a school. They either want you there all the time or not at all.

There are pitfalls in retirement – like hangin’ around your missus 100% when you used to be around home only 17.5% of the time before that. Some of the spouses can feel a bit cornered.
Eating is another pitfall. Stuck within seven metres of the fridge and six from the pantry…. can be a bit of a danger. Without too many meaningful tasks to be completed and meetings to attend. How many sudokus can you do between brekky and lunch? How many days can you play golf Bill? Dicko?

Of course the health bit is important. Some folks’ health goes down the gurgler at an alarming rate once they cease to be employed on a full-time basis.

So, Dicko, Alpal, Bruce, Bill, Robbie, Army, Morrow, Bud, Jim, Smarty, Reidy, Margy White, Robbo and the rest of you… what are the secrets of retirements? What are the pitfalls and how do you avoid them?

Guess the question we want answered is:

How can you ensure retirement is a fabulous time?

Hey, you've got a bit of spare time - click on comments below (somewhere) and tell us one thing you think is a factor for a great retirement.... whether you're there or not!!