Preparation

I just hit my 5 year mark of retirement! It has passed so quickly and I better get busy over the next years and live it up before the next 5 years zoom by.

Prior to retirement, preparation is the key. Many spend years preparing for retirement. I spent 33 years saving in to the government version of a 401K in preparation for retirement. Some people prepare by saving, some by investing in real estate or other investment and income producing products. Some people never prepare and just as my 5 years of retirement quickly passed by, their 30-40 years of working passes by with nothing saved for retirement. Reminds me of the grasshopper and ant fable where the ant works hard to prepare for the winter while the grasshopper did nothing. The grasshopper played around all summer and then had nothing to eat that winter. The news is full of stories about the number of people, at or close to retirement, with little to nothing in retirement savings.  Preparation is key to a good retirement and requires some sacrifice along the way. I was very fortunate to have the career that I had that included a pension plus any 401K savings. I certainly understand that saving is hard these days, even if you have a middle class income. For some, preparation for retirement is difficult if not impossible for a variety of reasons.

The grasshoppers of the world are a different story. The grasshopper is able to prepare but just fails to do it because it is more fun to live it up in the moment and not worry about tomorrow. Today's grasshoppers are buying more car and house than they can really afford. Today's grasshoppers are wearing expensive clothing and carrying around the latest gadgets. Today's grasshoppers are going to wake up in 30 years and then panic because they can't retire.

Retirement preparation is not all finance. We need to prepare in other ways. We have to prepare for the extra time on your hands and what our retirement days are going to look like. We have to prepare for possibly living on less. Even in retirement, there is preparation to be done. We need to monitor the savings and income to make sure it will last for another 30 plus years. We need to continue to prepare for the future with decisions of downsizing a house or moving into a retirement community. We need to prepare for aging in place by making our homes easier to live in as mobility and dexterity may become issues. I have read of recommendations of replacing door knobs with door levers to make it easier to open. Other recommendations are to have a walk in shower with no step, have brighter lighting and widening doors for wheelchair access if eventually needed.

Other retirement preparation will include wills and long term care insurance. I have a will that I completed online but I have yet to check on the insurance. 

What other preparations can you thing of that are needed leading up to retirement and during retirement? Have you explored long term care insurance yet? Have you made any improvement to your home for aging in place? At 58 years old, I don't think too much about these things, but I do need to begin preparing for the future.