Retirement – The Other American Dream!
Everyone dreams about retiring and eventually, everyone will retire. The questions most people will have are “How much money do I need to retire?“, “Will I have enough income to retire?” and “What will I do when I retire”.
A successful retirement depends on several things and two of the most important are good health and enough wealth. How we get and keep those two things is the real challenge.
In today’s economy, most people won’t be ready for retirement or may not have enough money for retirement. Health care costs go up every year, for that matter, everything, especially health care, is getting more expensive.
Financial freedom is very important in retirement. It’s probably second only to good health for a successful retirement. Many people will continue to work after they retire either because they have to or they want to. If you don’t have enough money, full retirement may not be an option.
Retirement Income
The internet is awash with retirement advice. An internet search for “retirement income” returns millions of results. Most of it on how to save money, but little on what to do if you can’t save enough.
The purpose of this website is to help try to help retired folks and those who are soon-to-be-retired get information that will help them identify their options in achieving their retirement goals.
Social Security is available, but it probably won’t be enough and other sources of retirement income may be needed. Most of us will continue to work at something to earn extra money and stay busy.
Figuring out when how to apply and start collecting social security retirement can be stressful enough by itself. There are a lot of rules you have to comply with and the rules change from time to time. You can get good information and apply at the Social Security website. Worrying about having enough money may be one area we can reduce stress with some thought and planning.
Healthcare Costs
Other things to plan for are medicare and health insurance. Everyone has to sign up for medicare, but the premiums for the government sponsored health care system is almost as much as private health insurance. Signing up for medicare is relatively easy. The hard part is making the prescription drug coverage selection. But, we have insurance companies available to help us make the best choice.
Healthcare has changed. The new healthcare law takes us closer to universal healthcare and there are some changes that is still being debated. A lot of information can be gotten from the government’s healthcare website or just follow the links on the right.
But, everyone will retire someday and there’s dozens of things to consider before retirement. Retirement takes planning to get it right. If you want to have a good retirement, take the time to explore the possibilities and be creative in planning for an eventual retirement. Get as much information as you need to make good informed decisions before you retire not after.
Planning for retirement is similar to changing careers, or a doing any other self improvement project. Changes in life style, time management and personal development all have to be made. Goals have to be made and some work will have to be done to achieve those goals.
Just quitting work won’t do the trick. Making a retirement plan is easy but it’s hard to stay focused and keep the goal in mind without motivation and support.
Help is available, but think about this, a lot of people go to seminars, buy books, tapes and videos, then fail to use the information they get or don’t follow the program.
They actually lose twice, once when they pay for the information and again when they don’t follow the advice or program. The same thing works for retirement. If you make a plan and don’t follow it, then success will be hard to come by.
Why wait, the earlier you start thinking about your retirement, the easier it will be to transition into it. Start planning for your retirement. You have a right to be successful and keep growing personally and professionally after you retire.
Originally published 01/02/2011. Updated 07/28/2021