Lifting the Lid off Retirement

TEN QUESTIONS:

ARE YOU READY TO RETIRE?

Retirement has many facets.  If you are thinking of retiring and have a choice about it, the questions listed below are important for your future. Think about each of them carefully.  The more answers you have in the Yes column, the more ready you are for retirement.

1. Do you know how much it will cost you to live in retirement?

   YES            NO

2. Do you know the amounts of your financial resources –savings, state pension,  occupational pension, personal pension?

   YES            NO

3. Do you exercise regularly, consistent with your physical condition, age and gender?

4. Do you have a sensible diet that helps you maintain the proper weight?

5. Do you discuss retirement freely with your spouse or partner, family and friends?

6. Have you considered what you will do with your time that will bring you similar satisfactions to those you now receive or did receive from your work?

7. Have you determined whether your current housing and community will suit your retirement lifestyle?

8. If married, have you considered the consequences of losing your spouse from both a financial and social aspect?

9. Do you have an up-to-date will, and does your spouse or partner also have one?

10. Do you know the local and national resources available to you in retirement?

If you have rather more NO answers than YES, now's your chance to make a point of  considering their implications.

 FACTS TO CONSIDER

·        The latest figures show that pensioners need an annual income of around £20,000 to enjoy a comfortable retirement.

·        Only about one in twelve people will retire on that amount of money.

40 % of men and women aged 65 to 74 do not take part in any moderate or vigorous physical activity.

·        30 % of men and 50 % of women in that age group do not have sufficient strength in their thigh muscles to rise easily from a low chair.

·        If you retire at around 60 you may have at least another twenty and possibly thirty years ahead of you.  How happy you will be will depend a great deal on your health.  It is never too late to start getting into good shape for the decades to come.

In subsequent columns we’ll look at what you can do to boost your income. There will be some thoughts on keeping healthy and how to make those leisure hours some of the pleasantest you’ve ever had.  We'll be asking questions like: what will retirement do to your relationship with your spouse, partner, children, friends? And before you decide to sell your house and move to smaller accommodation or a different location, think carefully. All this and more in future columns of laterlife.com

To view other articles in this series - see the laterlife-interest index page and look for the Lifting the Lid off Retirement links.

The above article is part of the features section of laterlife.com called laterlife interest. laterlife interest contains a variety of articles of interest for visitors to laterlife.com written by a number of experienced and new journalists.

It includes both one off articles and also regular columns of a more specialist nature such as healthwise, reports from the REACH files, and a beauty section called looking good in later life.

Also don't forget to take a look at our regular IT question and answer section called YoucandoIT by IT trainer and author Jackie Sherman.

To view the latest articles and indexes to previous articles click on laterlife interest here or above.  To search for articles about a certain topic, use the site search feature below.

back to laterlife interest

Site map and site search