“When I retire I’ll travel the world.” “I’m waiting for my retirement before I do that.”
How many times have you heard someone say that? They work their butts off for 40 odd years, not going on holidays, just saving, saving, saving for their retirement. Then when they finally retire, they don’t have the energy or desire to travel anymore. Sometimes health issues set in which prevents them from doing all the things they saved for retirement.
I’m not that person.
I’ve always lived my life at full speed never saving for that rainy day or retirement dream. Of course, this is to my detriment. I now find myself a supposedly retired person having to work until the day I die.
Retirement for me will always be a myth.
So what went wrong, you might ask with tears of sympathy in your eyes. Don’t feel sorry for me as it’s all my own doing. I made certain choices when I was younger that impacted my retirement. Because when you are young getting old seems to be far, far away in the distant future. I never imagined I’d get old. In my mind I would always be forty. Unfortunately reality dictates that each year you get older and before you know it, you are sixty!
The good thing is that I can look back on my life and see that I lived it to its very fullest. I took my children all over the world with me, lived in many different countries, had some amazing holidays, made awesome memories and basically experienced it all. I didn’t wait until I was too old to enjoy traveling. I lived for the moment and grabbed it with both hands.
But…and there is always a but. I never put anything aside for my retirement. Instead of saving, I paid for my children’s tertiary education, their accommodation and subsidized their living expenses until they were independent. And of course there were holidays. Even when backpacking, holidays don’t come cheap. As an international school teacher moving countries every few years, the onus was on me to plan for my retirement and pay into a retirement fund. Of course I never did that! I was never going to get old after all.
If there is something I learned it’s that we all eventually get old. Whether we like it or not. My advice to young people out there is, start paying into a retirement plan. Don’t put it off until it’s too late. You have to have a plan for the future.
Don’t be like me.
I do long for a day when I can choose whether to work at something or just chill, and just stay on my farm and enjoy my golden years. Unfortunately that day will never come for me. I am destined to keep working paycheck to paycheck, never earning enough now I work part time to ever be able to put something aside to save. Work, work, work. You can see why for me retirement is a myth. And before you say anything, I agree with you. It is my own stupidity and something I have to live with and make the best of.
I have to say though, I don’t regret the choices I made when I was younger to travel and create memories with my children. I far prefer sharing the travel experiences with my family than traveling alone and having nobody to share it with. Being a solo tourist is lonely. I think if I didn’t have those family holidays when I was younger and instead saved that money for my retirement, I would never have visited all those wonderful places now as an older retired person. It’s no fun traveling alone. I would have missed out on so much. The world has so much to see and experience.
So no regrets on traveling with my children when I was younger rather than saving it to do in retirement.
But there is definitely a regret that I never put aside money into a retirement plan.
For me retirement will always be a myth. Something that when I get up at 2am to drive to the airport to fly to a work assignment, will always be just out of my reach and something I yearn for.
One day we all get old. Remember that. Put money away for a rainy day. Pay into a retirement plan even if you are only twenty.
Listen to this old lady.
DO IT!
Cindy Vine is a sort-of retired teacher, author of books available on Amazon and has a YouTube Channel that she would LOVE you to subscribe to @CindyVinePortugal
7 comments:
I'm so glad l did Cindy. Will you get a state pension though? I hope you do. 🙂
I was wondering the same thing.
No time like the present to put a little bit away whenever you make some money. Its like paying future self first before sorting out your present self.If you put in a good low cost investment index fund you will be surprised at how much it has grown in 5, then 10 years time when you really have much less energy to work. Bank interest won't do it for you. I am so surprised to see how much one of my funds that I opened at the start of the pandemic has grown with just adding small amounts consistently and watching the magic of compounding. You CAN do it too. Love and hugs to you.
Beat advice ever x praying that day will come for you when you can just chill on your lovely farm🩷
Given your age and the illnesses you already have, I think you would be better off with a small house and a bigger yard. There you could practice a bit of vegetable farming, have a few chicks and a dog instead of raising piglets every year, most of which die anyway. This is not a pig farm, but a PR campaign to raise money to the detriment of many animals and, in fact, people. Because in your eyes, friends are only the people who allow themselves to be exploited by you, as I have understood so far.
Hi Cindy, I worry that now you are 65 years young and live far from family, and may need them, what happens to your property and animals? Is moving to U S A perhaps a better option? I doubt that they would be able to live and work in Portugal ,or want to? I presume you have made arrangements for any eventuality.What are you future plans?Idea? Perhaps sell the property, but with life rights, and split profits with buyer, even that they stay while you travel? Would be less of a headache for your family.
Wow! Does this comment leave you feeling better now?
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