by Sammy Stein

Created on: September 10, 2010

Planning for your retirement should be taken just as seriously as planning for your career- after all, you may just end up retired for longer than you worked and retirement can be just as productive as when you were working. The key thing to remember is that you have retired from work, not from life so think about retirement as an opportunity.

Just like when you were about to leave school, think of the opportunities ahead of you. Hopefully you have a pension so earning bug money is possibly not a big priority although many people retire from one profession and make a success of another. You may not have so many people depending on your pay so you might be able to take up a lower paid job which you have always fancied but you could not do before because you had to make money.

Planning your retirement can be an exciting and rewarding experience. You do not have to feel as if you are no longer useful. Retired people play a huge part in communities, often supporting charities by volunteering to work, providing much needed support for their families and finally having time to do things they want to do. Many people who have retired from a profession to lecture or run classes to help pass on their experience and knowledge to the next generation. 

Many opportunites are available for retired people if they want to keep their hand in the work place, whilst still enjoying their retirement. Now might be the chance to do something which you always wanted to but could not before because of economic considerations such as shop work, teaching assistant or learning assistants. These are all valuable jobs which retired people can look to do and many are part time so allow you to earn a little extra whilst stil having plenty of free time and, bestof all, not having to worry about them when you go home like when you worked full time.

Activities should be planned around any work you had just like before, except now you have far more time to enjoy them. You can play golf perhaps, learn a new hobby, join day classes or take up a subject which has interested you for years.

It can be daunting when you know retirement is looming but once you start to plan, the change from working life to retired life will not feel such a big one and you will look forward to the new opportunites retirement will bring. The fact that no-one will be timing your arrival or departure from work should not mean you lose the sense of being needed at a certain place at a given time. All of us need to feel useful and needed and retired people are often the lynch pins of communities and most definitely needed.

  

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