Rummikub is a bad retirement plan
As originally appeared in The Jerusalem Post on May 27, 2022.
“Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.” -George Burns
I have been a bit sick for the last week and a half, and it got to the point that I actually stayed home from the office. The first day I was home, I was joined by our 12th-grade daughter. For the uninitiated, the second half of 12th grade is basically a few months of staying at home and studying for the final few matriculation exams. It was about 10 AM and I was already going stir crazy. I was sitting on the couch with a high fever and just the thought of not going to work had me feeling antsy.
Suddenly I heard her come out of her room, and I got so excited and asked, “Hey do you maybe want to play a game with me? Rummikub? Or maybe want to sit down and talk?” I got an eye roll, a sigh, and some other unidentifiable noise as a response. When I asked again I got a “NO”. The next thing I heard was her bedroom door shut. Fast forward a few hours, and our 13-year-old son came home. I gave him a big welcome home greeting, and then immediately asked if he wanted to play a game with me, or even better, talk? He looked at his sister and asked her, “Has he been like this all day?” She made the same eye roll and gave him a head nod. He then gave me a NO, and then went into his room.
A few days later my dear wife returned from a trip to the US, and as soon as she opened the door, I asked if she wanted to play a game. She chuckled. It’s been a few days, still haven’t played.
It dawned on me that I was the shoemaker who went barefoot. I spend so much time preaching about the importance of work-life balance issues as you transition into retirement, and here I am going nuts after 3 hours of being sick and stuck at home. Other than a Blue-fin tuna fishing competition show, there isn’t much to watch on TV. I told my wife that when I get older, I am not retiring. She actually looked relieved after my proclamation. I think for her the thought of being stuck with me at home day in and day out isn’t so appealing!
Planning for retirement
For many, retirement is the culmination of decades of hard work, and a new beginning of a life of leisure. Though as a financial advisor my main job is to help individuals fund their retirement, I have found that more and more the job entails getting them to start planning and thinking about how they want to spend their time when they no longer need to punch a clock. With much longer life expectancy we no longer work until we drop. You better think long and hard before you retire, on how you plan to fill up 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for what could easily be 20-30 years! You can check it out at Burzynski Elder Law to see the importance of planning for your future, including your properties.
When questioning potential retirees about their future plans the most common answer I get is “we are going to travel.” That usually means a couple of trips a year (in non-corona times) for maybe 2-3 weeks at a time. That comes to1-2 months, so I then ask what they plan on doing the rest of the time and I am usually met with a ‘deer in headlights’ kind of look.
Too much leisure = burnout?
The White Coat Investor, Jim Dahle, writes about how he recently did a retirement practice run, and spent basically 6 weeks straight traveling in the US. He writes, “After six weeks of doing the most fun things I could come up with in our current COVID-impacted world, I was no longer having anywhere near as much fun as I should be having. So, how can someone prepare for finding purpose in retirement?”
He continued, “Brigham Young once famously said that a day should be composed of eight hours of work, eight hours of recreation, and eight hours of sleep. This results in a balanced, purposeful life. And when it gets out of balance, one becomes less productive, tired, burnt out, unhealthy, and/or unhappy. I think there is a great deal of wisdom to be found in that formula.”
For those of you who have worked your whole life and haven’t thought about how to spend your retirement years, look out. Those who never thought about how they will spend their time post-career often tell me that they are bouncing off the walls! They were so used to having a set schedule while they were working, now that they have so much free time they just don’t know what to do with themselves.
As I have written many times I think that it’s incumbent for those about to retire to speak to other retirees to understand how they made the transition from working to this new chapter in their life. Those who succeed in this transition look at retirement not as the beginning of the end, but rather as a new chapter in their life. This attitudinal approach is crucial in creating an optimism which helps give meaning and purpose to this stage of life.
The information contained in this article reflects the opinion of the author and not necessarily the opinion of Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. or its affiliates.
Aaron Katsman is the author of Retirement GPS: How to Navigate Your Way to A Secure Financial Future with Global Investing (McGraw-Hill), and is a licensed financial professional both in the United States and Israel, and helps people who open investment accounts in the United States. Securities are offered through Portfolio Resources Group, Inc. (www.prginc.net). Member FINRA, SIPC, MSRB, SIFMA, FSI. For more information, call (02) 624-0995 visit www.aaronkatsman.com or email aaron@lighthousecapital.co.il.
