For all of our adult lives we have been conditioned to believe that, after forty years (or more) in the workforce, we get to retire at 60 (if you are female) and sixty five (if you are male). That was up until quite recently, when the government shifted the goalposts and announced that the qualifying age for the retirement pension would be increased, in stages, to sixty seven for both men and women.
That’s the bad news………
The good news is that, with life expectancy rates increasing rapidly (83.5 years in 2020) most Australians can expect to enjoy a retirement period of close to twenty years.
The fly in this ointment, though, is your health – will your health allow you to maximise this final stage of your life?
There is no guarantee that it will. Neither is there any guarantee that the government will not, once again, move the goalposts!
The question is, what can you do about all of this?
As it turns out, quite a bit! The bottom line is this – you do not have to wait to reach the government mandated age before you retire. With a little bit of planning, combined with applying some different thinking around your own situation, you can retire on your own terms a lot sooner than you thought!
How much sooner is going to vary widely according to your circumstances, your tolerance for taking risks and your ability to roll your sleeves up and take some focused action.
This was the motivation for me to write my book, “If Seventy Is The New Fifty, When Do I Get To Retire?”, to provide people with a process to navigate the early retirement journey. Hopefully, my book will help you to determine just when it will be possible for you to retire – and the earlier the better!
The book is broken down into three broad sections;
Section One is all about setting the tone, taking a snapshot of the world we now live in, exploring possibilities and a look at my story to date – which I am hoping that you can utilise as a case study, a “Proof of concept” if you like, which demonstrates that you can make changes to your life that, currently, you may think are outside the realms of possibility for you. I believe that this section will start you on a bit of “blue sky thinking” for yourself – to start you thinking about possibilities for your future and the sort of life you could be living in your latter years.
Section Two is where I start to provide you with the details you will need in order to make the changes to your current situation without having to tip the “baby out with the bath water.” Be warned, you are going to have to prepare yourself to make some massive leaps in your thinking if you are going to enjoy the sort of lifestyle you may well deserve but that few people actually experience. This section of the book is going to require you not just to shift your thinking but also to “roll up your sleeves”, as you work through what is a substantial amount of detailed content. It will show you how to plan your journey, as well as what you can expect & what hurdles you are likely to face (with ideas on how to deal with them).
Section Three is all about putting your plan into action! Here’s where you can really benefit from my experiences – no plan survives intact once it is activated, so here I also deal with how to cope with the unexpected and where your biggest challenges are going to come from.
Each section is crammed full of tools, techniques, processes and systems designed to assist you on your journey towards your new lifestyle. There are also numerous references for additional support resources on the book’s support website (www.whencaniretire.com.au). In short, in reading this book you will have everything you are likely to need to make your journey possible.
The best part of all of this is that I know, from first-hand experience and observation, that these tools, techniques, processes and systems all work, because I have used them (to varying degrees) to achieve my own chosen lifestyle.
This book is not a collection of theories – my own journey is testament to the effectiveness of what I share in it and, whilst my circumstances will be different to yours, I can assure you that, if you follow in my footsteps, you too can enjoy a lifestyle of your choosing rather than one that is forced upon you.
Here are a few thoughts to ponder as you consider the feasibility of your being able to retire early;
• You cannot be happy in retirement if you have been unhappy for most of your working life
• 56% of baby boomers want to do something different as they approach retirement
• Retirement is an opportunity – it is a new chapter in life not an end to it
Thanks to Covid many people in their fifties find themselves out of work and with few prospects – unless they totally retrain. This is what happens to you when you have little or no control over your income. My book will show you ways to take back that control, so that you can live a life you enjoy every day of the week, rather than just on your days off work.
You can get a printed copy of the book by clicking on the book title below:
If Seventy Is The New Fifty, When Do I Get To Retire?
For a Kindle version you can download to your device click on the book title below:
If Seventy Is The New Fifty, When Do I get To Retire?
To receive a signed copy of the printed book please place your order directly with me by using the contact form on the “Make contact” page.