The Next Step: Planning the road through Retirement

By Barry Smith

So you're retiring now what?

Your years in retirement should be the best years of your life and having fun in retirement is essential. It is thus vital for everyone to have meaningful purpose for their time in retirement. Keeping involved in activities during this stage is therefore vital with numerous examples provided in the book.
There are many positives to retirement like the substantial number of discounts and benefits available to senior citizens. Many references in this regard are provided in the book.
This book will help you learn about managing your future retirement, so that you can truly experience the best times of your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry Smith
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311300478

Barry Smith

Barry Smith is, it goes without saying, an islomane. He has spent much of his 60-odd years at work, rest and play on islands all around the world – from Scotland’s Western Isles to Sicily, from Alaska to Cape Horn. To cap it all, he has completed a doctoral dissertation... about islands. He lives in northern Scotland and France.

Book preview

The Next Step

Next Step

Planning The Road Through Retirement

Andrew Blaine (AAB) & Barry Smith (BES)

Copyright © 2016 Andrew Blaine & Barry Smith

First edition 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Printed and bound by Mega Digital Printers

Edited by Vanessa Finaughty for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

Introduction (AAB)

Our Approach (AAB)

Retirement is Simply Another Part of Life

Part 1: Preparation

When is the Right Time to Retire? (AAB)

Succession Planning (AAB)

Retrenchment (AAB)

The First Step (AAB)

Finding Your Path (AAB)

Part 2: Compiling An Action Plan

Planning Your Future (AAB)

Remaining Healthy in Retirement (BES)

ADJUSTING YOUR LIFESTYLE (BES)

HAVING FUN (BES)

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE (BES)

OTHER ACTIVITIES TO BECOME INVOLVED IN (BES)

The Retirement Years Could be the

Best Years of Your Life (BES)

The Dangers of Being Exploited

in Retirement (BES)

Downsizing or Downshifting (BES)

The Planning Template (AAB)

The Plan Template (AAB)

Making a Last Will and Testament

and Keeping it Up to Date (BES)

Discounts and Benefits (BES)

Conclusion (AAB)

Introduction (AAB)

Please, before we start, a word of warning. By opening this book, it proves that you are:

• Not going to simply give up when you retire.

• Have already decided to remain positive.

• Are determined to get as much out of retirement as you have put into the rest of your adult life.

There will be times during your planning and preparatory process when you question the effort needed. I hope it will be your choice to keep going through the tough times into the blue skies of the future.

There is only one prerequisite to being successful in retirement and that is realising that:

• Nobody owes you anything that you have not already earned.

• Keeping positive is the root of success in both retirement and life.

• Negativity will certainly diminish the pleasure and fun you have every right to enjoy – so cull negativity.

Our Approach (Aab)

Most of our advice will be based either on research tempered by our experiences or our anticipation of experiences that we expect to encounter in the future. After consideration, we feel there are three phases to the retirement process:

• The planning phase where you make decisions on matters that will only come into effect once you have closed the ‘daily grind’ chapter of your life.

• The implementation phase where you implement your plan and then assess its effectiveness. Almost invariably, you will modify your plan once you appreciate the reality of your new situation.

• The planning and preparation of the ‘slow down’ phase of your life when you finally need to start really enjoying the smell of the roses.

We will address the planning and implementation phases in this book by looking at the steps, we feel you should make and that we consider important, in separate chapters. Each chapter will be penned by one of us (you can identify the author by the initials after the chapter title) and will address a new aspect that will be experienced leading up to or during retirement. Remember, Andrew will address the philosophy and mechanics of the planning process while Barry offers an alternative viewpoint and/or tips and points of importance to bear in mind while formulating your plan. Where we can, we will provide you with references through which you can get more information, if we have found them. Remember, we are not looking exclusively or extensively at the financial aspects of retirement, as we have left this aspect to other, better qualified people.

Once penned and agreed to, each chapter has been passed to the experts for their critical appraisal. We hope you will start by reading the whole book and then concentrate on those sections that, in particular, hold your attention. To identify a particular topic of interest, use the Table of Contents to guide you to the correct pages.

Please bear in mind that the only constant in life is change and we write with information available to us that we consider relevant and important in guiding you through this process. We do not anticipate the need to periodically amend the content, but do plan to start a newsletter service through which we can provide you with updates/amendments to the information included in the book. If you wish to receive newsletters, please advise us by logging onto our website at http:\\www.retirement-the-next-step.com

Both of us started out as optimists and have become realists along the way (realist – an optimist with experience!). I have had both good and bad experiences and have learned more from the bad than the good, but my memories of the good outweigh the trauma of the bad. I have tried to learn from mistakes, having first apologised if I have offended or hurt anybody by my errors, and look forward to those experiences still to come with keen anticipation.

In closing, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any contribution you feel would help us to refine and improve the content of this book. Remember that, while retirement need not necessarily be the precursor to death, it is, for many of us, the first part of our life that is totally under our own control. We only need to manage it well to enjoy the fruits of our own decision-making – it should be fun and exciting.

Andrew Blaine

Retirement Is Simply Another Part Of Life

Life as a Series of Phases

Life, from infancy to death, can be considered to consist of a number of successive phases. For example, the following phases are clearly defined:

• Infancy – when we are totally dependent on our mother for security, protection and succour.

• Babyhood – when we start to realise there are people other than our mother in our life.

• Toddler – we begin to show our independence and try to push our own envelope.

• Childhood – we start to act independently and are subjected to external discipline from people other than our parents.

• Youth – we have developed sufficient knowledge to begin to make our own decisions and identify our own personality and character.

• Young Adulthood – we begin to make important decisions that affect and influence our future lives.

• Adulthood – we have now completed our formal general education and often form a bond with another person with whom we start our own family. From an employment viewpoint, we start assuming responsibility for our own livelihood and keep a job that provides us with the means for our own support. We continue learning and grow in importance to our employer, family and community.

• Middle Age – we now have sufficient knowledge and confidence with which we can decide to move ahead and implement plans of our own formulation. This could be in a business owned by another, in our own business and/or in our community. During this period, we assume responsibility for more than ourselves and our immediate family.

• Retirement – we decide that we have spent sufficient effort and time on others and now wish to spend some time on ourselves and our own needs and desires. We decide to concentrate inwards and move into a situation where we truly become ‘masters of our own destiny’.

I appreciate that this may be a very simplistic hypothesis which is proven more by its exceptions than by its observance, but I offer it to explain my ‘phases’ theory. Each person goes through phases uniquely, but, generally, we all go through the phases.

Retirement should not signal the end of a productive life; it is simply the end of one more phase. You are coming to the end of the formal employment phase of your life, a time where your job took precedence over your own wishes, needs and desires and affected your personal life, often for the worse.

Taking Charge

Retirement should be that period where your life and its direction become truly your own – you are now the captain of your own destiny. In the early 20th century, retirement would, generally, have lasted some eight to 10 years, but, with medical advances, an improved understanding of diet and the requirement for physical and mental fitness, today it can stretch for 25 or more. You are responsible for taking advantage of all the time given to you.

By extension, we are now seeing 75-year-olds running the Comrades Marathon and touring the world, which means you, who are generally fitter and filled with more energy than your forebears at an equivalent age, should find that this is no time to sit back and watch the world pass you by.

Many people approach retirement with a feeling of uncertainty, impending doom and fear of the unknown future. Others eagerly look forward to a time when they can relax, indulge their desires and follow their own road – if you want to lie in bed until 10, you can; if you want to tee off at 6, the only thing stopping you is the availability of the sun – difficult finding your golf ball in the dark? This situation might sound sublime and ideal to you, but, unfortunately, man gets bored and needs constant stimulation to feel really alive. You also need a challenge to keep the ‘juices’ flowing.

Our Approach to the Book

The journey to and through retirement is different for each of us, mainly because we each lead different lives and our priorities are different. As an example, Barry and I have completely different life experiences:

• Barry worked in corporate South Africa for 43 years and then retired, while

• I started out as a soldier and then completed my studies. Having graduated from the University of Natal, I then started working for myself, first as a member of a small farming company and then as my own boss and driver.

Barry and I are both over 65 and our life experiences leading to retirement could hardly have been more dissimilar. However, we have both witnessed the effect of retirement on those of our peers who have made no or inadequate plans prior to retiring and it has not always been fun!

We both live in the Durban area and enjoy the balmy climate and the facilities available to us in our daily lives. Natalians have been described as ‘people who play as hard as they work’. I take this as