Creating a Fulfilling Next Chapter, Your Retirement

Welcome to part four of the retirement 101 series. I'm excited to wrap up this series, helping you get a full picture of retirement planning. That was my goal with doing the series, supporting you into. Making it more simple of all of the aspects of retirement planning and lose that overwhelm. There's so much information out there and being able to get it maybe dialed in to the specifics of what you need to be focused on. how and all of those wonderful things. If you have not yet, download the retirement readiness checklist. It explains in two different ways by topic and by timeline the specifics of what you need to be doing. This series supports that checklist by giving you practical advice, giving you stories. Hopefully you can. Better understand those specifics on the checklist, but having that list and knowing what you need to do is gold as well. Today's topic is creating a retirement lifestyle you'll love. How many times have you heard somebody say, I am. so bored. I gotta go back to work. I don't know why I retired or anything very similar. I know I've heard it and it doesn't need to be that way. This is a new phase. This should be exciting. We should be creating a new life in a sense we went from all of our education, up through secondary, even if you did college or if you didn't, into working. That was our life. That was our life. That's what we did when we raised kids in there, if you did have that wonderful opportunity. And all of those things. And now, we get to embark on a new adventure. But it does take a little bit of planning. It does take a little bit of forethought. This is where I believe the financial planning industry is not covering. They're failing just a little bit here in helping people have meaningful lives in retirement. Some individuals have that example. Some individuals just know to do it. Some individuals kind of figure it out haphazardly. I just see so many people, in fact, I just did a podcast interview and the young girl said my mom's been retired about three or four years and she's like, I need to just go get a job. I'm just going to go be a greeter at Walmart. Just be. Right? Just go. That is what it caught me up. I don't care what you go and do and if you're choosing it for purpose and reason. That's what we're going to dive deeper in today is the non financial aspects. There's too much placed on growing your money and getting it there and then they leave you hanging. Let's start with kind of a vision exercise I have in my coaching. Where we talk about three different types of experiences to kind of get the juices flowing with creating your vision. The first thing I want you to think about is your great experiences. What do I mean by that? Well, these are the big, the grandiose. There's more people than not who I want to go travel. They might be traveling in the States, they might be traveling abroad. Whatever it is, that is a big goal of a lot of people. However, it is not everybody's great experience or desire or wish. Think through if you are, if you are somebody that is not going to travel, what are your great experiences going to be? What is this being free from work, having all of this time freedom going to mean for you? How are you going to bring in some great experiences? And I'm going to let you define that. But I am going to go back to the travel, if that is what you're choosing, because so many people do, but I think it also paints the picture of defining that experience to support the money side. So a lot of people are like, well, I'm going to go travel in retirement. That's great. How often? Where? Who's going with you? all of these things. Are you just traveling once a year? Going abroad. How long? One week? Two weeks? Are you going to go longer? What is that cost going to impact your retirement budget? Those are the things you need to explore within these great experiences. Maybe you're going to buy a second home and you're going to live there and you're going to live back where, you had your main home. Great. Those are great experiences. What is going to happen? Those don't fill up a lot of calendar space, time space. But they do take some money, so it's important to dive deeper into those, into those specifics of what it's going to cost. But think about, all the details in that. That's part of creating this vision. The second thing I want you to think about as you're creating your retirement vision is seasonal experiences. Now, if you live in a place that doesn't have seasons, great. But a lot of us do. You have 20 days of fall, 20 days of spring, 400 of winter, and 400 of summer. I know those don't add up, but those people who live in those places understand what I mean. We have some long seasons. Now the problem is, if this is not your season, if you don't love winter, what are you going to do all winter? If you love summer, what are you going to do? Or if you don't love summer, like it's way too hot, you don't go out, just like those of us who don't like the cold, so we stay in. First think through the season that you do love. Maybe you love summer. You love to go hiking. You love to go camping. You love to go road tripping. All of those things. What is it you're going to do in that season? And that fills up some space. It starts creating this vision a little bit more. Maybe you're the flip side and you love winter. You love to be a ski bum. You love to go skiing and working. You only were able to maybe go a couple weekends. On the weekend when everybody goes. That's the advantage to being retired. You can go on a Monday when nobody else is there. So really thinking through those seasons. Maybe you're going to become a gardener, maybe plant a bigger garden, maybe plant some flowers. I did that my very first year. I planted flowers. I'd never planted flowers. I had a new pergola my husband had built for me. I enjoyed time out there. I didn't do that in the winter, thinking through some of those things, it will take up some time on that, of that time of freedom. Moving into that last section of experiences is your day to day. Planning this is the most important. Planning this is going to avoid the burden. It's going to help you find purpose. It's going to create the flow of retirement. This is filling in between those other two areas we've already talked about. As I have you dive into this, I want you to think about what your day is going to look like. If you were somebody who worked, so I'm talking about a workday, we're envisioning that now to be a non workday. If you worked 8 hours, 10 hours, or 12 hours, how much of the time do you really need to fill, okay? Now we have time to make our meals. We don't have to do it the night before. rushing out the door or going to the store or doing whatever we're gonna have some more time. What is it that you want to do? Maybe you want to prioritize, making a nice meal or whatever it is. Think through those things of, okay, well, I can do this, and start making this little routine thing. I love to do a little bit of laundry if I need, a little bit of housecleaning if I need in the morning. This is after my slow part. This is not what I do when I first get up. And that takes up a little bit of time. Making lunch takes up some time. Making dinner takes some time. Those are some things, so as I was retiring and as I was thinking about this, I realized I needed something for about four to six hours. Now, I became an entrepreneur. Not everybody needs to, but that is an option. I want you to think about that. But, it is also an opportunity time to donate your time, to become a volunteer, to start connecting in community, in groups in bringing your talents and abilities that you had working into these areas that The non profit areas that don't have the money to pay for it, connecting, bringing that there. Next month or actually I think it's the end of this month, I have a guest who I've done the interview with. She's a generosity coach, so she does talk about money, but she also talks about time. She got me so excited, so I hope you'll listen to that episode. But there's so much more. So much more that you can do., that's one area to explore. Another one is, what are your current hobbies? Have they been, shortened because you've been at work? You haven't spent as much time. And how much more time of that, four to six hours that you filled, or whatever you've defined, will you continue to do that hobby? Will you do all of it for four hours every single day. Remember, this is an every single day thing. Maybe there's a hobby you had, but it got put on the shelf because it was like your secondary hobby. Or maybe there's something else you want to learn, you want to try. You know, maybe, I don't know, sculpturing, painting, crocheting. There's lots of different things, that you can do. And so exploring that hobby area, new hobbies, can also support you. Maybe there's community classes you can go to. So, really start thinking about what the day to day means. This is where you're going to find your purpose. Your relationships and the activities that you love to do. What is your priority now that you're headed to retirement? Is your priority to support your family, your kids, your spouse? Is it to create a new health identity or support your health in a better way or a new way? really think through about what it is is going to be your top priorities. Get those in there. That's going to help you create purpose. Who's going to be there with you? Who do you want and how do you want to fill? It's so important to think beyond the numbers. It's so important to be able to create a meaningful retirement instead of just doing what you want to do when you get there. I'll figure it out when I get there. No, it takes a little bit of forethought, planning. You can really start developing this. The other advantage to creating this vision is building the motivation and the desire. Even though I left this as part four, It's not step four. I honestly believe it's step one, step two, step three. It just is something that you keep going along. You think about your vision, you start getting into more details, you start understanding how those great experiences are going to impact your retirement budget. We talked about that on a different episode of how to kind of create your retirement budget, what that looks like. How much are, how much are you going to need? How much is that going to take from you? Is that going to impact you? Maybe you can't go as often, that really starts bringing in the reality, but the vision needs to be there first. Then once you start doing this, flowing through all of the other steps, as you're getting close to the end of it's time to retire. I've got like one or two years. It's time to start maybe testing things out. Now there's a couple of things you can do, a couple of ways you can do. You don't have to do all of them. But back when we went to visit my daughter at college, which is now where we live. We stayed in an Airbnb and of course they had the visitor log who makes a comment. There were there was a couple who spent 30 days at that house trying out the city, living in the city to see if it, when they wrote this, to see if this was a place they wanted to retire. Now, if you're still working, you may not be able to spend 30 days. Maybe that's something you, for location wise, we'll have to figure out later. But it's, it's a great idea and example for testing things out. The second thing you could do is testing out your retirement budget. As you've started, calculating these numbers and you're like, okay, it's going to probably be this much that we're bringing in a month. Go live on that. Go see if you can do this. I had a coworker, former coworker who, when she, decided to actually change jobs, change positions. She wasn't necessarily retiring. Her and her husband spent about six months living on the income that they knew they would have. And so exploring that and making sure that this was going to be a right move. However that fits in, practice living on your estimated retirement income. If you've been around a while, I know I've said this a couple of times, as I was getting, I was within a couple months, just over about two months away from headed out, I turned in my notice so it became reality, then the fear kind of sets in. I go to my numbers. That's where I find assurance. Black and white, the numbers don't lie. And I calculate how much I'm taking home. I was planning on I'm taking a 40 percent cut in pay, so I calculated my take home and I was taking home 57%, so I'm under what I knew I would have, kind of negating the fact of taxes, so I still have to pay taxes, but everything else that's coming out of there is not going to come out of there. At least for me. Think through your paycheck and maybe have that calculation. You're not going to still be contributing to retirement. If you're sending 500 a month to retirement, you don't need to calculate, I need that much to live on. You're not living on that getting real with what you're actually living on and the impact of your experiences coming together. As you do that, as you're estimating, as you're exploring, you're testing it out, maybe making a few adjustments to make the reality work. vision equals motivation. Vision equals being able to do the hard things now so you can achieve what it is you truly want. But the biggest thing, your, the biggest takeaway from this episode, because I know we've covered a lot, is I want you to create something you're going to enjoy. Start thinking about that now. Don't find yourself two, three, four years In retirement bored out of your mind going crazy that you're just going to go get a job. I don't think that's healthy. I don't think that's what retirement is intended to be. Spend some time now, even if you're 10 years or more away from retirement, this goes for everybody. Start thinking about what it is retirement's going to be. Talk about those who are going to be, talk with those, excuse me, talk with those who are going to be there with you. A spouse, a partner, your kids, your parents, if, you're fortunate to still have them around, whatever it is. Start talking about it. Start getting feedback. Not to make changes. But to just kind of see how things are going to go, verbalizing what you want also helps you see it differently. Start making some concrete decisions about what you want in retirement, then start creating the budget now to be able to make that happen. I'm so excited to share this. I think it is the crucial piece to happiness in retirement. And I think this is very lacking out there in the financial planning world. There are some who do a really good job of it. But I honestly believe you need to start creating that vision. If you retire at 60, 65, you live till 80, that's 15 years, 20 years of what? And you're not old at 65, you're not old at 60, even if you have some health conditions. So make this what you want it to be. If you need help creating this vision, if you need help getting past what is holding you back, schedule your complimentary retirement vision session today. That link is down in the show notes. I would love to chat and support you. Bonus for booking a call between now and the end of March is a free financial health life audit. We'll go through some life areas, see how those are impacting you, how those will relate to retirement, help you solve some challenges and hurdles and get moving. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.