But All Is Not Lost!

Here’s my fourth mad retiree tip - the best way to be able to afford yourself once you’re retired is to track down the free stuff.  So, relatively early in your planning stages, put down all of your electronic devices and go find your local library branch (and if you don’t already have one – get a library card).  Then go find your local community centre.  Then find the bulletin board and the brochure rack that’s bound to be in the lobby of each.  Read every flyer that has been posted.  Read every brochure in the rack.  Then starting now, go back at least once a month to check for new announcements and flyers.  You will be amazed to discover what actually goes on in your neighbourhood at 2 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon.  And that a great number of those of activities are actually free.

Then add all of these activities, workshop, seminars, etc., to your “list”.

Then check out (and bookmark) the parks and recreation web site for your part of town (you can walk and ride the paths in the park for free!).  Parks and rec is how I “found” my bird watching group!

And don’t forget the web site for city hall (at the very least, there’s always something happening on Canada Day in every municipality in the country).

 

 

..... next, what can you really do with your list!

 

The Best Piece of Advice You’re Going to Get

..... this is the best advice I got from the first retirement workshop I attended …..

You have a list.  But what you don’t have yet is a plan.  All of the activities you checked off on the preprinted sheets aren’t a plan either.

Study your list carefully and, I’m sorry about this, start making more lists.

Look at every activity on your list and figure out what you need to do, starting now, to make that activity a retirement reality.  Photography your hobby – what equipment can you buy now, what workshops can you enroll in now.  Want to buy a food truck – got a driver’s license; know anything about the health code or any of the other rules and regulations governing the restaurant business in Toronto?  Want to start a consulting business – could your business writing and computer skills stand an upgrade?

Now, while you still have a full-time salary, start seriously working on yourself, your skill sets, your education, your environment, etc.  Whatever it is that needs to be worked on to ensure that every activity on your retirement list will come to fruition.  Enroll in classes now, upgrade equipment now, renovate your home office now, etc.

Over the course of my five year planning arc, I followed this advice.  And you know what.  It was great advice!  Among other things, I (a) upgraded my camera equipment; (b) enrolled in a drawing class; (c) ‘rounded up a piano keyboard.

A second bit of advice about the “list” from the same workshop.  Take a good long, hard look at the pricier items on the list.  The travel, the golf games, season tickets, etc.  Then get out a calculator and figure out exactly how much these “wish list” items will actually cost.  This is where you have to already have researched exactly how much your monthly pension income will be.  Now compare the “wish list” costs against your “fixed” pension income against your monthly budget.  Changes are, none of the figures will meet.  Heck, they’re probably not even in the same room.  But if any or all of your “wish list” items are deal breakers, are absolute, sanity-saving essentials for your retirement happiness – stop reading now , go back to work and keep earning that full-time salary.   ‘Cause you can’t afford to retire.  The one hard, cold fact about retirement is that you probably won’t have the income to keep you in the same lifestyle you enjoyed with your full-time salary.  That’s why you need a list.  You need to know going in whether or not you can afford you after you retire.

........ next time - all is not lost!

There might be free food!

Here’s my second mad retiree tip – enroll in every retirement lifestyle workshop and seminar offered by Ryerson.  ‘Cause rule one of impending retirement – don’t turn down anything that’s free!

You may hate the idea of sitting around a conference table, sipping bad coffee out of styrofoam cups, and “sharing”. 

Get over it!  And I mean that in the nicest, possible way! 

As difficult as is it to believe, the seminar leaders actually do have some valuable insights and advice. 

Financial workshops are important too, but if you have already determined that financially, retirement is in your future – any and all workshops examining the lifestyle and social implications of retirement are a must.  In fact, are mandatory.  Many of the meetings may be too “touchy, feely” for your taste, too much artsy farsty, pop psychology for your liking.  But go.   Keep your mouth shut, collect all of the hand outs and try to pay attention.  You need to hear what others are saying about retirement.  You need to listen to what the seminar leaders are saying about the impact retirement will have on every aspect of your future day-to-day existence – physically, psychologically, emotionally, and financially. 

And if you’re lucky, someone may want to talk about an issue or situation you haven’t considered.

But if you’re really bored, you can just sit and silently mock everyone else’s “list”!! 

 

 

Do Not Mock The List!

Here’s my third mad retiree tip – do not mock the list! 

Because as soon as possible during your five to seven year planning arc, you need to start “the list”.

At some point in one of the workshops you attend, you are going to be handed a sheet of paper and a pencil.  Or if you’re really lucky, a sheet already preprinted with lists and lists of the myriad activities you might enjoy participating in when you are retired.  All you have to do is check off activities, one by one.

Remember all that free time you’re going to have when you retire.  That 16 hours a day you are going to have to fill ….

The “list” is no longer optional.  It is now mandatory.  The ubiquitous list.  A running tally of everything and anything you want to do, to accomplish, to learn, to be, when you retire.  Start your list, and then you can secretly mock those who did not have a list, at the same time smugly admiring how long your list is becoming. 

 

..... next time .... want to know what to do with that "list"?