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RETIREMENT PENSIONS - RELEASE PENSION
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Retirement pensions - release pension, planning for retirement is not just about having a decent pension fund to ensure you can afford a happy retirement
I can remember driving away from my in laws house determined that I would not allow myself to vegetate if I ever lived long enough to retire. I knew that the problem wasn't just having nothing to do, they also didn't have the money to be able to afford to do the things they should have been enjoying in retirement.
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retirement and pensions.
He had chosen to take early retirement, thus reducing his pension benefits and by careful budgeting they would be able to eke out an existence for the rest of their lives. They had moved to pay off their mortgage, they had a few savings in the building society and with care they would be able to have a holiday once every two years. In the meantime they would have to wait until they qualified for their state pensions in order to boost their incomes.
I am the same age as how old my father in law was when he retired and whilst I have always considered them to be old, I still consider myself to be fairly young. Of course I can't do the same things for as long or as fast as I could thirty years ago; but I still have the metal age of a twenty something young man. I still like to have a good laugh and enjoy young people's company. I still get the buzz out of doing business and starting new projects and find it difficult to just sit still and relax.
Looking back, my father in law was old before his time. Mentally he was ready to take his pension and retire into obscurity with his stamps and fountain pen collection. I couldn't think of anything worse and I believe it is why so many people die shortly after retirement, no matter what age they take their pension. If you don't have any real and active interests and the money to be able to pursue them, you are heading for an early grave.
I find it incredibly sad that my father in law effectively gave up living in order to stop working. He had never been an ambitious man but setting his sites so low in order to take a pension meant his life of mediocrity became a life of virtual nothingness.
From there on in, everything they were asked to do that broke the rhythm of their lives became a mountain to climb. Asking them to look after our young children for a few days whilst my wife and I went off to Monte Carlo, expecting them to come and visit us for Christmas, even getting them to break their routine in the slightest manner became a tremendous problem.
They would lay their breakfast things out ready for the morning; then having had breakfast lay the table ready for lunch and repeat the process for dinner. They would go to bed at the same time, rise at the same time, go shopping on the same day each week and my mother in law would have her hair done every Friday. I suppose some people would consider this orderly and nothing out of the ordinary for old folk; but you have to remember that these people were in their fifties.
Money being restricted, for the last twenty or so years they have spent a regimented life and anything that might disrupt their pattern throws them into complete turmoil. They became old age pensioners long before they were really due for retirement and when many people are still active and doing exciting things, they sat down and gave in. They have used their age as an excuse not to do things for years whilst other people I know of the same age or in fact much older are still behaving like teenagers.
The fact is that age is relative. The moment you start acting your age, you start to grow old and start to feel your age. If you are looking forward to retirement; have you asked yourself if you are thinking of taking your pension for the right reasons? Have you thought about what you are going to do with all the extra spare time you will have to fill? Have you considered how much money you will need to entertain yourself.
Tolstoy wrote: "Nothing, not even iron bars can hold a man like poverty in old age." Some of the richest and most successful business people in the world are in their seventies and eighties and still working. They are not doing it for the money; they are doing it because they enjoy what they do and have never considered retirement. Obviously they have the money to do the things they want to do but they live to work rather than working to live and more people should take this attitude.
I was with a business colleague the other day who was bemoaning the fact that he had to give up hang gliding; he is seventy three. Most people of his age struggle to hang out the washing but he is still working, still doing business and still enjoying life. So, as he can no longer jump off cliffs and steep hills, he is taking up gliding, because he can and because he can afford to.
Other people I know can't wait to retire, can't wait to leave their jobs and take their pensions. What a miserable existence; they have spent the last twenty or thirty years hating what they do and once they have retired they will discover that they hate retirement because they actually hate their lives.
Taking early retirement
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