Your retirement checklist – Get it done!

Good morning Dinks. It’s time to think into the future, let’s talk about our retirement.  I want to ask you a question and let’s be honest…are you worried about retirement?

You are most likely saving money for retirement, but what are you going to use that money for?  I can’t emphasize enough that saving for retirement is not as important as planning for retirement.  When do you want to retire? Where will you live? And what are you going to do every day from sun up to sun down?

Retirement doesn’t always work out like you planned

The truth is that a lot of people are saving for retirement, but they don’t actually plan how they are going to spend their retirement.  My Dad retired after 35 years of service at the same company and he thought that his summer days would be spent playing golf and his winter days would be spent ice fishing (we’re Canadian) but after he got injured he isn’t doing much of either.

Unfortunately my dad lives with a demanding woman who controls his life.  At her request they sold their home and now they pay rent for an apartment all year round, they have a mobile home in the country where they spend their summers and another mobile home in Florida where they spend their winters.  If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I ever thought my dad would be living in a trailer park the answer would have definitely been no…and I don’t think that he ever thought so either.

My dad now pays 3 rents and can’t afford to do much else.  Yes of course there is the bigger problem of his controlling girlfriend, but the big picture is that my Dad’s retirement didn’t turn out exactly as he hoped and that’s probably because he didn’t plan for any of this to happen.

 What should you worry about in retirement?

Income.  Where is your money going to come from during retirement, when will it start and how much will you have?  These are all questions that you need to ask yourself when planning for retirement.  It’s also important to set a budget to determine how you will spend your money because when you live on a fixed income, you also have to have fixed expenses.

Healthcare.  The reality of life is that we usually develop more health concerns as we get older, but we may not have the group medical insurance coverage that we had with our employer.  Retirees need to consider where their monthly prescriptions are going to come from and how they will afford to pay for them.

Housing.  I see it every day, retirees want to keep their house because of their memories, but they can’t afford to keep it and they don’t have the energy to maintain it.  Maybe you plan to move to a smaller house or apartment and maybe you plan to relocate to an entirely new city; either way this decision requires planning and will have a major impact on your budget.  When planning your living situation in retirement keep in mind that your plans have to be realistic and affordable.  What we want to do and what we can afford to do are sometimes two very different things.

What are you planning to do with your days in retirement?

Photo by tahnyakristina

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.