“Spending earlier in retirement yields a higher return on experience, memories and fun.“
Retirement isn’t the end of the story. It’s when you start to live life on your own terms.
Everything that I’ve read about Rookie Retiree says that you don’t deal with pensions, annuities, and savings. So why is there a topic about money?
You’re spot on; Rookie Retiree doesn’t deal with pensions etc. There are plenty of other people who deal with that)
But there are two sides to money in retirement. The most obvious is pensions and other sources of income.
The second, more nuanced side, is what do we do with money and assets that we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring?
I know that some will say that the answer is easy, ‘spend the money’. But will we? And, if so, how and when will be spend it?
As you get older, we tend to spend less money. We’re less inclined to venture out, change our wardrobe or replace big ticket items. And there’s a great irony in saving for a rainy day: when that rainy day finally arrives, we can really struggle to let go of the purse strings – and even feel guilty when we do.
Money in retirement isn’t simply about having enough. It’s also about what having enough allows us to choose.
Do we spend more on travel while we can? Do we help children or grandchildren? Do we downsize, or stay where we are? Do we buy the thing we’ve always talked ourselves out of buying? Do we trade some financial security for more freedom, experiences or time?
There probably isn’t a spreadsheet that can answer those questions – and that’s where Money & Choice comes in.
Instead, this is about the choices that money makes possible once work is no longer the thing dictating what we do with our time. This isn’t about financial planning. It’s about the choices that money makes possible once work is no longer the thing dictating what we do with our time.
And then there are the things we’ve accumulated along the way. We spend our lives collecting possessions that are valuable and full of meaning to us. But the next generation may not value them in the same way, and as we grow older we can become less inclined to do anything positive with our beloved possessions. So what do we do about those?
Rookie Retiree’s Perspective
I spent most of my working life doing the sensible thing. Saving for retirement. Making sure that I didn’t spend money unnecessarily. And trying to put aside something for the future.
Likewise, I’ve collected lots of things that give me pleasure -pictures, collectables, Christmas decorations and even whisky glasses.
And then I retired, realised that the future had arrived and we needed to both start making the most of our rainy-day money and declutter.
Personally, I struggle with both spending money on ‘luxuries’ and letting go of prized possessions.
But I’m starting to make progress – albeit very slowly – towards spending more and disposing of possessions.
We don’t have to switch from saver to spender, or accumulator to minimalist, in one go. But I think that we need to acknowledge that money isn’t an end in its own right, it’s there to help us to enjoy life.
We also tend to spend less as we get older, being less inclined to venture out, replace big ticket items or update our wardrobes. It therefore makes sense to me that we should spend more at the beginning of retirement otherwise we may never get chance to enjoy it.
For us, spending more means a mixture of concessions to a little more luxury – maybe extra leg room on a plane, going out for coffee, opting for longer holidays and ‘future proofing’ our home.
I don’t see anything wrong with exchanging savings for experiences, entertainment and making people happy.
Explore the Rookie Retiree Journal
SPENDING & CHOICE
👉Retirement Spending Paradox
After spending a lifetime of saving for a rainy day, how do we open the purse strings once the rainy day arrives?
👉Decluttering & Downsizing
What do we really need, what do we want, and what does letting go make possible?
👉Travel Detour
How does having more time – and the freedom to use it – change the way we travel?
LIVING ON OUR OWN TERMS
👉Resolutions vs Resets
A different way of thinking about making changes when we have more freedom to choose what comes next.
👉Could Do Better
A look at what worked, what didn’t and what we might choose to change.
WHERE NEXT?
MONEY & CHOICE is connected to almost everything else we explore at Rookie Retiree because money is rarely the destination – it’s one of the things that can help us decide where we want to go.
You may therefore also want to explore LIFE AFTER WORK, TRAVEL & ADVENTURE, CONNECTION & RELATIONSHIPS, GIVING BACK & CONTRIBUTING, or REAL STORIES.
Retirement doesn’t have to mean that life grows smaller. It can mean having more choices about what matters – and actually using them.
Where this journey takes you is down to you.