How Much Money to Retire? You Are Asking the Wrong Question
If you are looking for the answer to how much money to retire… you are asking the wrong question. It should be how much longer can I afford to wait before retiring. The longer you wait to retire the less time you will be retired. That should be a given.
Something the dollars and sense approach to early retirement planning fails to take into consideration is the fact that as we age we are less and less able to do the things that we could do when we were younger. That is not just referring to sex either. As we age we have more aches and pains, we slow down, it is a fact that is not looked at hard enough by folks wanting to retire.
Let’s say you think retirement will be 18 holes of golf 5 days a week. Hey sounds great. Now ask yourself a question, new equipment advances aside, how much further do your drives carry now compared to 5 years ago. Do you putt better. Do you hit more greens. Do you still want to play from the blue tees? I’m guessing the answers are they don’t, no, no and heck no.
Why wait to reach your retirement number ( I loathe that commercial)? If golf is your thing why wait 5 years from now to retire. You know in your heart you are going to be able to play golf less and you are not going to play it as well as you do now…
Well I play golf for fun now…Baloney. It is very difficult to accept the higher scores that are coming as you age. You go from breaking 80 at times to please let me make this putt for 89. It just the way it is.
Make all the excuses you want. The longer you wait to retire the less you are going to enjoy retirement from a physical standpoint.
How much money to retire? Was a question I heard from friends after I retired 14 years ago at age 49. The friends that asked me that question are still working, most in poor health. There is no answer…
I know I could not do the things on the sailboat we retired to now compared to 14 years ago. If I had to go up the mast right now (52 feet above the deck), I could probably still do it but I know it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. Reality sucks but it’s a fact I am 14 years older. You are aging too.
Agonizing over how much money do you need to retire is real and I am not making light of a problem many are facing in 2009.
If you have seen your IRA’s and 401K’s tank, (mine sure did). It is not the end of the world. There are ways to retire on less while you can still do the things you want to do. You should explore them now…don’t wait.