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!