Dear LPG, 

It appears to me that the media spend a lot of time instructing today’s youngsters about the importance of being able to afford life after retirement financially, while very little time is spent on preparing for the time that will be at their disposal when they get to that stage in life.  

It is true that relatively few people suddenly acquire back ache and arthritis on the first Monday morning when they don’t need to commute, and many of us oldies, who have past the milestone, spend the weeks and months immediately before visualising a time when we can do exactly what we want to do all day and every day.

I hope that the retired readers of LPG will agree though, that there is something to be said for the advantages that having been through the process teaches us.  Very little emphasis is put upon what to do with your time when we retire and I feel that one of the things that we elders can do to soften the time challenges that our younger family members will face, is to fill that gap in their education when we talk to them about the subject from the point of view of hindsight.  I am by no means suggesting that we spend every minute we are with them hammering home the subject, but the odd conversation on the subject might be valuable a little way down the line.

With recent experience of the changes that retirement provokes; the time to focus on those aches and pains that will inevitably creep up on us and the importance of making some plans for the very big change in life that retirement offers (especially for those of us who do not have a partner or who’s partner still has a year or so before they catch up with you), perhaps we should be taking the time to gently remind the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings in our families that money is not the only aspect of retirement that they should be dedicating their plans and resources to.  Retired people need to have definite plans for the extra time that they will have at their disposal.

Time was when it was accepted that once a person had arrived at the big 6o, provided they have sufficient finances life would be all good, but I believe that the young need to start planning how they will manage their time when they have more time to spare.  The dilemma creeps up all too quickly near the end of our working lives and our working youngsters may find that having too much of it to spare can be as damaging as not having enough.

MT Ladywell

LPG found a few tips that we can all learn a little from…

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