Significance of Money When You Retire

Individuals looking forward to retirement must determine what sort of lifestyle will make them happy and how much money they will need to support it. They must then take steps to ensure that they will have enough money to support this lifestyle. An A G SunAmerica study found that satisfaction is positively related to the number of years individuals save for retirement. More than 60 percent of those who saved for twenty-five years or more reported being extremely satisfied with their retirement. Just over half of those who saved for fifteen to twenty-four years were extremely satisfied, and only 46 percent of those who saved for less than fifteen years were extremely satisfied.

Note: Check out excerpts from the book 1001 Ways to Enjoy Your Retirement:

Significance of Money When You Retire

A major dilemma faces many of us as we try to decide when is the best time to retire. It involves our finances. This dilemma is best summarized by the words of Bertolt Brecht: "Life is short, and so is money."

Everyone has decisions to make about money and what each is willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of it. Here are a few quotations regarding money to place it in proper perspective:



The 777 Best Things Ever Said about Money

Perhaps It's Time to Tell Your Boss, "I'm Outta Here," and Retire Happy

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've played, and loved, and ate, and drunk your fill:
Walk sober off; before a sprightlier age
Comes tittering on, and shoves you from the stage:
— Alexander Pope

Soon there may come a time when you won't want to work at your career anymore. You will have had enough of the pretending that happens in the typical workplace. Working at nebulous activities just for the money can go on only so long before you realize that you are in a state of mental inertia. You will start wondering why so many workers blindly accept confinement to rigid work hours, waiting until they are in their sixties or seventies to be put out to pasture — either by layoff or poor health.

After focusing on the negatives of the typical workplace long enough, you will start looking at alternatives. As is to be expected, the thought of early retirement will appear highly promising. It will be easy to fantasize about the wonderful things that you can do once you retire — go on three cruises a year, spend a lot of time with your grandchildren, spend a year in a monastery, or live in Costa Rica for a year. If you have recently been having similar fantasies, perhaps it's time to tell your boss, "I'm outta here."

Note: The above is excerpted from the book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free.