Ready for Retirement

You are likely to spend one quarter to one third of your life in retirement. If you retire at age fifty and then live another thirty years, you would be retired for as many years as you worked! What are you going to do with all that time?

How Well Prepared Are You?

Before you can decide whether you’ll have enough money when you retire, you must decide what kind of lifestyle you want. Planning is the best way to take control and manage your future, especially as it relates to your retirement.

Plan for your future using the questionnaires and exercises available in the Life After Work section of the website. 

Retirement implies change, which can be described as a change in:

• Lifestyle
• Finances
• Work
• Living arrangements
• Friends

Retirement may result in one or more of the above changes in your life. For most people, change involves some anxiety since it deviates from a comfortable present. Take a few minutes to work through the following exercises to examine:

1. What work means to you
2. Your retirement concerns
3. What it means to have a satisfying retirement

1. What Work Means to Me

A number of factors contribute to the meaning that work contributes to your life. In the exercise below, My Meaning of Work, you can rank the items according to the importance they hold for you. For example, if you consider earning a living to be the most important on the list, place a 1 beside it; if you think self-respect is the next most important, place a 2 beside it; and so on.

My Meaning of Work

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2. Retirement Concerns

There are a number factors at work when it comes to the adjustment to retirement. Consider what factors may be of concern for you and complete the My Retirement Concerns exercise below.  Rank the items according to how you foresee them as problems in retirement. For example, if you consider boredom to be the most worrisome on the list, place a 1 in beside it; if you think living arrangements is the next greatest concern, place a 2 beside it; and so on.

My Retirement Concerns

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3. Satisfying Retirement Years

What do you feel is necessary for a fulfilling retirement? As you go through the list below, think about which areas you’ve accomplished versus which areas need further attention. If you’ve accomplished an item, put a check beside it. If you feel the item needs further attention, leave it unchecked.

Government of Canada:
Living in retirement
Retirement Planning
Canadians Abroad