Our clients often share their plans and ideas for their retirement years with us. While some are looking forward to simply slowing down and spending more time with family and friends, others have more ambitious plans. They want to get out and experience the world, do things they’ve never done before, and achieve goals they’ve been putting off until the ‘right time’. After all, that’s what retirement is for! Isn’t it?
Should You Wait Until You Retire To Start Ticking Off That Bucket List?
This excellent Forbes article on the subject of waiting until retirement to do ‘all these things’ you’ve ever wanted to do aligns perfectly with our views on this topic. Why risk waiting until then? If you do, there’s a good chance you won’t be healthy or fit enough to do as much as you want to do. Plus there’s the potential for some serious aches and pains…!
Experiences You Shouldn’t Wait Until You Retire To ‘Experience’
With the above in mind, here are some types of experiences you probably should enjoy now rather than waiting for retirement.
Travel tops most people’s retirement bucket list.
After years of work commitments and raising a family, retirement is a time to kick up your heels and head off into the wide blue yonder. However, we believe some of your more active travel ambitions are worth ticking off now while you’re still fit, healthy, and young enough to enjoy them. Travelling around Australia on a motorbike or back packing across Europe for example may not be quite so enjoyable when you’re in your mid to late 60’s! Our advice is – do these ones now and save the less strenuous ones for retirement.
Sport is another experience many people say they’d like to take up when they retire.
Sometimes the sport in question is something they used to do when they were younger, like horse riding, cross-country running, cycling, hiking and so on. Conversely, it may be something completely new and different. Either way, starting well before retirement will ensure that by the time you do retire, you’re fit and capable of continuing to do it if you want to!
Many of us probably have at least one adrenaline pumping, heart stopping experience on our ‘to do’ list.
The problem is that we may also reach retirement/older age without having done it. At this age, the ‘heart stopping’ bit could easily become a reality! So, whether it’s bungy jumping or abseiling, paragliding, rock climbing, canyoning, diving with sharks, or any similarly high octane experience – get it done whilst the spirit AND the flesh are still capable of doing, and enjoying, the experience. Be aware too that many providers of these activities have specific health and fitness requirements for older age participants.
Considering renovating the house and garden when retirement gives you the time?
There’s no shortage of reality TV programmes around telling us how ‘easy’ it is to do these types of projects. Therefore, it’s not surprising when people set themselves a retirement goal to ‘finally put in a veggie garden’ or ‘turn the kid’s rooms into usable space for us’ and so on. Unfortunately, it usually isn’t as ‘easy’ as it looks on TV, and a veggie garden in particular shouldn’t have to wait until you retire! Do these things now whilst your back can still stand up to the work. In fact, with the price of fresh produce going up (and up), there’s never been a better time to grow your own.
The moral of the story: don’t put off until retirement age what you will enjoy more today.
Ultimately, your retirement years should be enjoyable, a time when you can do whatever you want to do. However, some activities and experiences demand a certain level of health and fitness. If you want to do them, and we’ve mentioned a few such experiences above, you run the very real risk of missing out if you wait until you retire or reach your twilight years. Get in now and enjoy them whilst you can.
Our goal at Chapters Retirement Partners is to fully support our clients across a range of metrics that will affect their retirement. Should you decide to pursue some of your planned retirement ‘experiences’ sooner rather than later for health and fitness reasons, we’re here to listen and provide feedback around how you can best achieve these things.
