I would imagine many of you living in the States belong to AARP. I will put a plug in for them here. Membership is cheap and you can get that back on their discount program very easily making the magazine and the good information there pretty much free. After my father retired we got one of their medical insurance programs and it worked out nicely for him. Not free, of course, but it was a good deal. Click here for their Membership Guide.
Again, we get no monies from anything we talk up but we would like to! We do have scruples and won’t say nice things about anything we do not personally know. Occasionally I will include what I have heard but hearsay is marked as hearsay.
So much for the disclaimer. AARP magazine for October/November 2016 has an article about growing younger. It is based on a book by Chris Crowley and Henry Lodge. The article hits the basics. You know the fitness four (strength, endurance, balance and flexibility), healthy eating, social connectedness and meaning in life, although they do not use the same words. Looking through their section on meaning, they call it nurturing your inner life, I noticed #5 which said “get over yourself”. Oh, my. [Lin/Linda here: I can’t connect to the article, you have to be a member to access the magazine. For a look at what is in this issue, click here.]
The point they make is you won’t be the hotshot_______ when you retire. That identity goes away. You have to be prepared to lose part of your self. Crap.
I have been in my profession for 39 years. Who am I? I am a psychologist. The idea of giving that up voluntarily is one thing but the idea of being forced to give it up is almost traumatic. OK. Maybe it is traumatic. No matter what words you use, it ain’t good. Maybe I should start looking at some stuff about retirement. Maybe get a little more comfortable with the idea?
US News had an article that talked about 12 ways to survive an early retirement. It is a more practical article but does have some information that might help emotional coping as well. I want to do this article for this page and go over another article on coping for another page. Hope that’s OK.
The article said 45% of people retire earlier than planned. I guess if misery loves company, when the time comes (probably not at 70 as I had planned), that little fact should give me some comfort.
Getting forced out of a job is sort of normal. It is not me (or you either).
If you can get a job, get a job. It does not have to be in your field. A related field would be nice, but not necessary. For example, my specialty has always been assessment but administering and scoring tests has gotten harder. Plan B is to do more counseling.
Try to cut expenses. I have heard of some people who ‘practice’ living on what they will have after they retire. If you can get an estimate of what you will have, that may be helpful.
If you can, postpone filing for Social Security. If you file early, benefits will be a lot less than they would have been if you waited until your full retirement age. Waiting until 70 to file will increase your benefits even more. Since I plan to live to a ripe old age, my thought now is to collect school disability retirement, work as much as I can and fill in the gap by tapping savings. Of course, since I should be eligible for Social Security Disability (SSDI), I will want to investigate that before making a final decision. Seeing a financial consultant early will allow you to crunch the numbers and see which will be to your advantage.
There are several more suggestions in the article. I took the ones out that ‘spoke’ to me. I would refer you back to the source for the rest.