Jacob: Process that, think through that. What is retirement gonna be? What does that look like, for me and my family? And then go from there and say, hey, how do we use our wealth, our money, and our time to accomplish that retirement that we envision for ourselves? Welcome to Retirement Answers, a podcast built to answer your most pressing retirement questions.
If you're someone who's either thinking about retirement or already in retirement, well, you're in the right place. Hey there, my name is Jacob Duke, and each week I'll be walking through different tips and strategies to help you succeed in retirement. So let's go ahead and get started with today's show. Hey, friends, and welcome back to another episode of Retirement Answers. My name is Jacob Duke.
I'm your host as always. This week, I wanted to talk about a question that should be on the top of every retiree or pre retiree's mind as they enter this new phase of life, and the question is, what are you retiring to? Now, it's easy to answer the question of what you're retiring from, right? We have a job, we have a career, we have something we've done for the last perhaps thirty plus years of our life, and it maybe is part of our identity now. But now we've got to figure out what's going to happen next.
And the hard part about this is oftentimes people enter retirement and they're like, oh my goodness, I'm going to be free. I'm going have unlimited time to do what ever I wanna do, or I can go play golf every single day or pickleball or whatever your thing is. I can go do that every single day and it's gonna be the best life ever. But what I've found in many conversations with people just like you, clients of mine, people who aren't clients of mine, I've found that retirement is actually a lot harder than we make it out to be before we get retired. And the reason for that is a common theme.
And that common theme is I don't know what to do every day. I don't know how to spend my time. I don't know who to spend my time with. I'm pretty lonely. I'm scared.
I don't know what I am or who I am anymore. And the reason I wanna talk about this is because I've had a few conversations lately that indicated, hey, has not been all that it's cracked up to be or just all that I thought it would be. And I was talking to a lady, a client of mine recently, and I asked her, she'd been retired for about a year now, and I asked her how things were going and how retirement was, and she said, well, you know, Jacob, it's not as good as I thought it would be. Things aren't as great as I anticipated. And I asked why, and she said, Well, it's just not what I thought.
I didn't know I'd be taking care of my parents as much as I would. I didn't know I'd be as lonely as I am. I didn't know that I wouldn't have as much community as I did, right? Went to the office every day, I worked, and I was with my people, people that I grew close with and had relationships with, and so not getting out and interacting with people has been, I guess, not fun for me. It's actually led to a little bit of anxiety or depression, and so this is the often not talked about side of retirement, and the reason I wanna talk about this today is because this is a common conversation that a lot of people I speak with have, and it's like, hey, what are we doing?
Why are we doing this? We worked our whole lives and now what? We have unlimited time and we have resources, we have money, but what do we do with all of it? And so the question that I wanna encourage you to think about and ponder in your own life is is what are you retiring to? What are you gonna do?
What does a day look like in retirement for you? And if you're gonna say, well Jacob, it's golf, it's pickleball, it's something like that, well, that's all fine and good, but can you do it every single day, and can you do it every single day for the rest of your life? And so, the hard part about retirement is you have unlimited resources in terms of time, you have unlimited ability to go do what you'd like, so what do you do with that? So this is the problem that I think you should be trying to figure out and learn more about for yourself on the non financial side of things in retirement, because retirement often turns into this thing where great people just aimlessly wander towards death. They just kind of mosey their way through whatever life throws at them because of this mindset of like, oh, well, it's just all downhill from here.
We've done the hard work, we've saved, we've worked our whole lives, we've put in our time, we've done all these things, we perhaps taxed our body or our mind and now we can just kind of coast and you've reached the top of the mountain, you worked for all these years and now you get to the golf every day, but the problem is you end up not liking golf a couple years in because of how bad you are, right? Or how frustrating the sport is that you can never be good enough at. And so it's like, man, I'm done with this. And so, what I encourage you to do is figure out what the new version of yourself might be. And maybe it's not necessarily a new version, it's just, hey, this is the thing that I've always been, I just haven't been able to uncover it or discover it yet.
So I think this is kind of a moment of, you know, what's next? It's not the end of anything, it's just the start of something new. So instead of viewing retirement the day that you punched out on the clock for the last time, don't think of that as the end, Think of that as the start of the next thing, because I believe that everybody's created for more than just work and a job. Now, here's what I will say is retirement, think today is a little bit different than it was twenty, thirty, even maybe ten years ago, is, you know, previously people worked, they worked at a job for thirty years, they got a pension, they went home and they made, they got paid their pension. Nowadays, I think retirement is a different concept.
Retirement is not so much a retire and stop, it's a retire and do something else, do something new. And that might be more work where you get paid, or it might be unpaid work, or might be a new hobby that you're gonna discover, or maybe it's just like a side gig type thing that you maybe make a little bit of income from, but it's not really for making money. It's really just to enjoy and do something that you like to do. In fact, rather than leaving the workforce completely, 38 of pre retirees think retirement should be a shift to a new type of work or a fulfilling purpose. And another 17% think of it as working less.
So not this complete or full retirement stop doing anything. It's more of how do we find the next thing? How do we shift our mindset towards this new type of work or this new purpose? And even just maybe doing the same thing, but just doing less of it on a part time basis or something like that. So what are those things?
Like ask yourself, what are those things? Do I enjoy being around people all the time? If so, how do I create community? Right? Do I do that through church?
Do I do it through a local charity? Do I do that through, you know, some sport or activity? Biking, pickleball, who knows? What are the things that bring you joy? And what are the things that you can do on a daily basis and have almost like a planned out schedule for throughout a week and say, this is my to do list for the week, this is my mission for the week, I'm gonna go to lunch with a friend on Monday, I'm gonna go play pickleball all Tuesday morning, I'm gonna go to dinner with my spouse on Tuesday night, and I'm gonna wake up Wednesday and go for a hike.
And so these are the things that I think you have to kind of plan out your time and say there's structure, because that's the hardest part about retirement is there's no structure. So what does retirement look like for you specifically? Here's an interesting fact. There's a study done and it shows that about sixty seven percent of retirees who are fifteen years or less into retirement say that they're happier after they retire. So that's sixty seven percent of the people who've retired.
But what that means is that thirty three percent of people who retired are less happy than they were before, which is really interesting. That's not a small percentage overall. 33% is still a large percentage of people who've retired that are having a worse time being retired than they were while they were working. And some of the things that are obvious here is like I mentioned, it's loneliness, it's a lack of purpose, it's a lack of goals or a mission. So if you go from this high stress environment where you're counted on and dependent on to make things happen and produce, and you go into this kind of, I guess, era of like no dependence on you in terms of a goal or a mission to complete.
There's no stress, and sometimes stress is obviously a problem, but there's also stress that's helpful in terms of getting things done and accomplishing things. And so if you kinda do a cold or a quick 180 and switch on that, it's like, who am I? What have I turned into? Like, what am I doing now? And so this is my encouragement for you today.
Focus a little bit less on the money. I know this is a money podcast and that's what it's really about and that's what I do all day is talk about money with my clients and help them improve their situation so they can have a better retirement throughout the rest of their lives and make sure they don't run out. But sometimes retirement, I would say is too focused on the money and way less focused on the personal. And truly, I view my job as this, it's identifying what is most important and valuable to you as a person, as a couple, as a family, whatever instance you might find yourself in, what's most valuable to you and how do we use your money, your resources, your time and your wealth, how do we use those two things to help you meet or fulfill those values that much more, right? So money is a tool, it's not meant to be had, it's meant to be used.
So how do we use your money effectively and efficiently so that you can do the things that are important or valuable to you with the people that you love? So that's really what the goal is for retirement, in my opinion. That might be more work, that might be more time with family, or might be moving across the country to be with kids or grandkids, but what I wanted to encourage you to do is find out what that is for you. Maybe it's just doing more of the same. Maybe you already have a great life, maybe you already enjoy everything you're doing, just now that you're retired, you get to do more of it, and so keep doing that.
So today, that's what I wanna encourage you with is the question of what are you retiring to? So take some time, process that, think through that, you know, what is retirement gonna be? What does that look like for me and my family? And then go from there and say, hey, how do we use our wealth, our money, and our time to accomplish that retirement that we envision for ourselves? Don't just kind of wander into it and expect it to all go well.
You have to go into it with intention or else you will end up lonely, sad, depressed, unfulfilled, and so that's not what I want for you. I want you to enjoy it and use the time and the money that you have for the things that are most valuable to you. So hopefully this is encouragement for you. If you haven't thought through some of these things and written these things down, I encourage you to do so. If you have, good for you.
Keep flushing that out. Keep identifying the things that will be valuable for you. So with that, thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Retirement Answers. I hope it's been valuable. We will talk to you again next week.
Hey, it's Jacob again, and I wanted to extend a quick offer to you. If you have a question and you would like to have it answered here on the show, please email me at jacobretirementanswers dot net. And I'd love to answer that question for you right here on the show. Also, I wanted to remind you that nothing discussed in today's episode is meant to be financial, legal, or tax advice. Retirement Answers is for educational purposes only.
Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I look forward to talking with you again next week.