Retiring Versus Going On Vacation
Over the past six years, our family has enjoyed a week-long summer reunion at the beach in Ocean City, MD. At times there have been four generations enjoying a week of fun-filled events. At the end of each reunion, we begin planning for the following summer’s gathering. As our family has grown in number through marriage and births, we have accommodated the increase in family members by renting larger houses.
Our planning effort for the next reunion always begins while we are all together during our current reunion. We start by selecting next year’s July week after all of the children get out of school. We then identify additional housing based on expected attendance and decide what family members will stay in what property. We have created what we call a “vacation fund” that the older generation funds for everyone.
As we get closer to our reunion, we begin to make detailed plans on what activities we’d like to do and which night each family will take in preparing the evening meal for over two dozen family members. We also plan beach time on the bay or ocean side, a pontoon boat ride, parasailing, jet skiing, miniature golf, etc. Some of the activities are decided early on the day of the activity, depending on the weather.
As you can see, our family devotes a great deal of time, energy, and expense to planning and carrying out this special time together. We all look forward to a week of family time and the kids especially love seeing their cousins and look forward to this reunion all year long.
How many of you have spent months, weeks, days, and hours planning for a special vacation? It may be the trip of a lifetime, an annual vacation, a cruise, or it may be just a summer trip. Whatever it is, there is always the necessity for planning to have enough money, to have the appropriate accommodations, and to plan for the sites you will see and the tours you want to take.
Unfortunately, the reality is that most of us spend more time planning a summer vacation than we do planning what we will do with our precious time, talents, and life experiences in our 25 to 30 years in retirement.
Why Do We Fail To Plan For Retirement?
Too many choices
Part of the dilemma is that we can be overwhelmed with all of the choices we have available to us. Too many choices often result in feeling immobilized. Since every decision involves trade-offs, it’s easy to get caught in the weeds.
- “I’d like to live in a warmer climate but I don’t want to be far from my family.”
- “I’d really like to downsize but we love this neighborhood.”
- “I’d like to live in a golfing community but it’s too expensive.”
- “I’d like to be closer to the kids, but we don’t want to give up our friends, doctors, church, stores, and restaurants we like to frequent.”
I’m not making light of these trade-offs because they’re very important considerations we all have to make but be aware that you have been making similar decisions all of your life. It’s a safe assumption you don’t live in the same town/city you grew up in. Your spouse or significant other is not the first person you have ever loved. You probably changed jobs multiple times in your working career. If you think about it, you are better and more experienced at making decisions that result in life changes than you realized.
Having said all that, there’s one inescapable fact we all need to recognize. Not making a decision is, in fact, making a decision. By not making specific plans, you’ve decided by default to do nothing. This results in making no decisions, postponing the decision until it’s too late, or letting someone else makes the decision for you.
When I talk to clients who are stuck, I asked them to provide me with information like:
- Where they want to live vs. staying in place
- How they’ll collaborate with their spouse or partner about their mutual desires and wishes and about different ideas as to what each wants in their futures
- What values are driving their decisions
- Considerations regarding being close to family and friends vs. moving to an area What might accommodate lifestyle, medical, and entertainment needs
- Exploring ways of finding purpose in their life that brings meaning to these 25-30 extra bonus years they’ll have, i.e. working part or full time, turning a hobby into a business or a competition, volunteering, starting a non-profit or working for one, traveling, fighting for a cause, etc.
- Weaving their values and beliefs into the fabric of their meaningful retirement years
Essentially, I’m asking them to image or daydream about how their life could be different after they retire.
Procrastination
Procrastination, combined with a willingness to leave things to chance in order to avoid the work of planning ahead, is a second reason people fail to plan for retirement. To illustrate the downside of failing to plan, I use a light-hearted hypothetical example of a vacation without a plan to help clients recognize the consequences of not planning:
I ask them to imagine having a good friend or family member who always talked about their lifelong dream of going to Europe for a month. After focusing on their dream for years, they excitedly tell you they finally have the funds to go on their trip. They have already made their plane reservations and will leave next month. While you are excited for them, you are also amazed when you hear that the only planning they have done is buying plane tickets and travelers checks. Where will they stay, what will they do?
They sense from the kind of questions you are asking that you have some concerns about their plan. They brush off your concerns by saying it is not a problem-they will book their tours, hotels, museums, etc. when they arrived in Europe. The question is: would their dream be realized if they could only find a few available tours (and the ones they did find were not to the places they really wanted to see)? You know from your own travel experiences that the hotels that would be available last minute would be substandard or out in the middle of nowhere. You’re also worried that there might not be any more tickets available to the sites they truly wanted to see or to the boat and land tours they really wanted to go on.
Unfortunately, leaving things like a vacation to chance can result in a huge disappointment and leave one with a very incomplete feeling. However, not planning one’s retirement lifestyle can have much more devastating consequences than going to Europe without room reservations.
Fear of making a mistake
In addition to too many choices and procrastination, some of us are afraid to make a mistake. I can relate to that affliction. At times, it seems as though our generation invented perfectionism. When it comes to retirement planning, too many people are afraid they’ll make a mistake in some of their choices and not be able to recover. So they avoid thinking about it, don’t decide at all, and end up roaming aimlessly through these precious years without direction. This can leave them burdened with regrets. However, if you do your homework by reading articles and books along with getting the support you need, you can minimize your risk.
Letting someone else or circumstances decide for us
When things get complicated, it’s often easier to let someone else decide for us-what I call following the crowd. We copy what friends or family are doing even though we might prefer a different lifestyle if we stopped and thought about it. We let others’ needs define our day instead of being proactive and deciding for ourselves. When employed, we often had someone else defining projects and protocol but in retirement, you are in charge of how you want to spend each and every day. That requires significant and thoughtful planning.
Is Planning Really Worth All This Effort?
None of us know how much time we have left to do all of the things we desire. Even being in poor or tentative health doesn’t predict your future. Planning for the precious time you do have will leave you with a sense of accomplishment. Creating a plan doesn’t always mean major efforts or earth-shaking decisions. It can be as easy as teaching your grandchild how to ride a bike, volunteering to help at the homeless shelter or soup kitchen, or starting a project that becomes a significant part of your legacy. There are even ways to volunteer if you’re handicapped. Here’s a link to an article: Where can I volunteer if I’m handicapped?
Action Plan
Consider the following action items to help you get started:
- Plan ahead by at least 3 to 5 five years.
- Even before meeting with your financial planner in final preparation for leaving work, have discussions with your spouse about what your needs, wants, and interests are.
- Discuss how close you want to be to family and friends.
- Be honest about goals you have always dreamed of when you thought about your retirement plans.
- Consider where you’d like to live and decide if you’d like to move.
- Enlist a lifestyle retirement coach to help you plan your personalized retirement, just as you have used the guidance of a financial planner. Adequately preparing for this life stage could be instrumental in keeping you from making mistakes that could be costly financially and emotionally.
Remember, this is not the same as planning for a summer vacation. This is about planning your post-work years when you have so many choices and the wonderful opportunity to make a difference in your family, your community, and the world. Use the many choices you have to your advantage and make the world your oyster!
Now go make the very best of the rest of your life and live and leave a legacy of a fulfilling retirement you are proud of!
Dee
Dee Cascio
Author, speaker, Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Life Coach, Retirement Lifestyle/ReCareer Coach, and Life and Work Transitions Strategies Coach.
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