You may be familiar with the term “retirement glidepath.” It usually refers to the 3-5 years before you retire, in which we gradually prepare your financial plan for the transition. It’s a good reminder that planning for retirement is a progression and not a moment in time. Today’s reflection looks at the personal side of that glidepath.
Reactionary Retirement
Understandably, we find that many conversations around the timing of retirement revolve around the desire to be done. People are often focused on what they’re getting away from—the long commute, the difficult boss, the corporate nonsense. While those are valid reasons, we often don’t spend enough time on designing what we are retiring to.
The people who actually enjoy retirement are the ones who retire to something. They’ve figured out what they want life to look like on the other side. They have a compelling answer to the question: “How do I most want to spend my 168 hours a week?”
That could mean working a little less but doing work they actually enjoy. Or maybe it’s working remotely from their favorite beach town, spending six months on Cape Cod and six months in Florida. It’s more time with family, more travel, more of the stuff that lights them up.
How to Spend Your 168 Hours
If you can’t answer the question, “What am I retiring to?” then you’ve got some work to do—no matter how much money you’ve saved. Once that vision is clear, then the financial planning starts to have real meaning. Now you can work backwards:
- “What does this lifestyle actually cost?”
- “How much do I need to have saved to support it?”
- “What’s my tax plan to avoid unnecessary losses along the way?”
- “Do I have enough liquidity to buy that second home or fund the big trips we want?”
This isn’t an overnight switch. Retirement isn’t a finish line you cross—it’s a transition you build into. Frankly, you should be test-driving parts of this lifestyle before you ever hit that so-called retirement date.
Retirement as a Process, Not a Moment
To put this into practical terms, here are a few things we encourage clients to be thinking about in the 3-5 years before they retire:
If I didn’t have to do this work anymore…
- Would I want to live somewhere else? Full time or part time? Closer to family? Warmer climate?
- Would I still want to do some kind of work? Lower stress? Fewer hours? Less travel? More of a passion project?
- What hobbies have I put off that I’d love to invest more time in?
- Are there relationships that I want to prioritize in a new way?
- Do I want to give any new time to volunteering or mentoring the next generation?
If you’re considering retiring in the next 5 years, consider taking some purposeful time to design what a fulfilling life might look like when you have far more freedom on how to spend your time. Even better, if you’re married, have your spouse answer these questions independently and then share your answers.
For what its worth, financial planning is far more useful when you have clarity on the kind of life you want in retirement. Our job is to help you plan to fund it. Your job is to know what that life looks like.
