Redefi ne Retirement: Plan to Live Life on Your Terms! By Caroline Wetzel, CFP®
time honoring your Mom and Dad. Maybe someone will seek out time to acknowledge you and all that you’ve done. Recently I spent time with my par- ents, who will turn 70 and 81 this year. As we lingered over Mom’s homemade apple pie in their dining room, I realized how fortunate I am. First, I am blessed to learn from my parents; as they navigate the aging process with care, grace, and intention they often share with me both successes and challenges. And second, I am privileged to work with clients daily to plan fi nancially for changes in their lives so that they can manage their own futures with confi dence.
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Many Americans are living longer lives than previous generations and different people prepare fi nancially for this real- ity in various ways. From when they fi rst started working as a college professor and high school teacher, my parents diligently monitored their expenses and saved and invested regularly over time. While they en- joyed their work as teachers, they did aspire some day to retire, and they understood that the decisions they made daily around their fi nances decades before retirement began would impact their future choices.
, MBA, AWMA®
ill you celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Day this May and June? Perhaps you’ll spend
When my parents started their retire- ment, they embraced their new lifestyle. Their schedules varied day to day and week to week. Some days were free of any com- mitments or obligations, and they enjoyed choosing to do something spontaneous or do nothing at all – “just be” as Dad would say. At other times their days were so fi lled with activities, from lunches with friends to volun- teer work to exercise and Church, that Mom and Dad would joke, “How did we ever fi nd time to work before retirement?” I’ll never forget one crisp October morning when my parents knew that my brother would be visit- ing my husband and me in Connecticut, they secretly made the 5+ hour trip to our home, surprised us at our doorstep and, together, we all went pumpkin picking. What memories they created for all of us that day!
Over time, the pace of my parents’ retirement lifestyle changed. After a few years of retirement, they mentioned that they pre- ferred driving in the daylight to driving in the dark, so they changed “dinner date nights” to “lunch dates”. And a while later, when we’d all get together for family weekends, they ex- plained that mornings “took a bit more time than they used to,” so we agreed we’d go to Church on Saturday evenings rather than Sunday mornings.
And just last year, the unforeseen hap- pened. My father, a dedicated gardener, got a tick bite and was diagnosed with Lyme
Disease. It was incredibly disruptive and very challenging for him and my Mom. Dad suddenly was exhausted all of the time, unable to enjoy life in the way he and Mom were accustomed; and Mom took on new and additional tasks as Dad focused on recovery. They began paying different professionals to take care of home mainte- nance tasks that they had covered by them- selves for years. The reality that they were embarking on a new stage in their retire- ment lifestyle became very clear when they shared somberly with my brother, husband, and me that they no longer felt they could make the trip to where we live because “it was just too much”.
I am grateful for Mom and Dad’s honesty
and courage and how they’re sharing their retirement journey with me. We as a fam- ily are living the reality that I strive to help clients and their families consider and plan for fi nancially; retirement can be a 30+ year experience fi lled with different life changes.
Over the years, I have developed hun-
dreds of fi nancial plans for clients. With the majority of Americans expected to live into their 80s, each of these fi nancial plans now projects men and women living into their 90s. When clients share with me that retirement is a goal for them, our conversa- tion delves into what retirement looks like for them. Given longevity, technology, and trends like the “gig economy” and “encore
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