Sunday Afternoon Musings on DGI: “Are You Retiring From Something Or To Something?”

Recently I had a person close to me announce that they were retiring. After working a whole lifetime this is a huge reason for celebration! Thinking of all the time spent throughout the years, away from family and friends, the late hours and stressful days, the missing your children’s events or milestones, the saving and investing throughout the years while forgoing some of the frivolous spending, the planning, the worrying. It is finally time to hang it all up and enjoy the fruits of all that sacrifice.

After a much deserved congratulations and excitement for them, my next question was, what is next? What does retirement look like for you? This person came back and said, I am not sure. That is a scary concept and was eye-opening to me.

We spend so much time focused on what life throws at us that we seldomly think about what we actually want to do. Forty years, working 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year – that is 80,000 hours of our life that we are working. We fill our days with what is required of us, not what we want to do. So what are we going to do with our time now that we are retired? Have we put in enough thought of how we are going to fill the hours now that work is not required?

Did we plan out what we are retiring to and not just what we are retiring from?

When we were all children we used to say we want to be doctors, or firemen, or a teacher, or an astronaut. So much of what we create our persona around is what we do for work. That is not who we are, that is not what we are about. We are here to do more than a “job”.

So now that you don’t have to work, who do you want to be when you “grow up”? That may not be as easy as it was when we were young and full of anticipation. Most people retire at 65-70 years old and God willing, you will have another 20-plus years in retirement. What, or should I say, Who, are you going to be now? You have the chance to be who you want to be, who you dreamed of being. A do-over, if you will, but now you have decades of knowledge behind you to help you make a better decision – for you this time.

Thinking about the numbers – how much in assets do I have, how much dividend income will I be able to use, do I have other sources of income? – this is what most people do their planning around. What we need to plan for is how we are going to spend our time, not just how we are going to spend our money.

Dividend investing will give us the numbers, which will give us the time, which will give us the opportunity – to do what we want, when we want, with who we want! That steady, growing source of income will provide us with the replacement from our wages to live the life we want.

Retiring early, spending time with the kids or grandkids, starting a charity, traveling the world, or maybe just sitting by your pool enjoying the songs the birds are singing. You can be active, slow down, change it up, you can take a class on the topics of your choice, you can learn to bake, you can learn woodworking, take daily walks, take a yoga class, go to the beach every day. The possibilities are endless and it is up to all of us to determine what we are retiring to, not just what we are retiring from.

Let’s work on the financials by saving, investing in dividend growth companies, letting that income compound to the point where we are work optional, but while we are doing that, make sure we take time to think of the non-financial part of retirement to make sure THAT is ready when our dividend income is ready.

Now that is something worth celebrating!