Retire The Way You Want. Maybe?
September 21, 2024
You can have the retirement you want. As long as you plan for it. Over the past couple of years in my podcast I’ve warned many times about something that is creeping up on all of us. Nobody likes to talk about it and maybe that’s why most people are not prepared for it. But this time I have a real life story of what happens when a person has not prepared for retirement.
My Best Option
I think the best option for retirement is to never retire. Coach and personal development influencer Bob Proctor said he would never retire because he loved what he does. He worked right up until the day he died at the age of 87. Unfortunately most people do not love what they do and are eager to retire. Some even want to retire early. The problem for most of these people is they can’t pay for it.
Here comes the real life story. This is one of those life lessons that is better when it happens to someone else and not to you. My wife has an uncle who is 83 years old and until recently was living alone. His wife had died many years ago. He had a decent savings account at that time. All he had to live on was his social security check and his $200k in savings.
The day finally came when he could no longer live alone. At the time he was living in a small apartment and had a caregiver coming by 3 times a week to make sure he took his meds and was generally ok. When his cognitive function started to fade and he started showing signs of dementia it was time for him to move where he could have more constant care.
It had become dangerous for him to be alone. His mobility was increasingly impaired. His savings was nearly depleted and his social security check was about $1,700 per month. All he could do at that point was move to a veterans assisted living center paid for by the VA.
Here's The Life Lesson
When I think back to the time he put that $200k into savings I think his life could have gone down a much different path. That money could have been a down payment on a property that could today be earning him $60k to$70k per year in income and would have had a large amount of equity.
Options
What it comes down to is options. The more income you have, the more options you have. When you live on savings it eventually gets depleted. We can no longer count on earning enough interest from a savings account to live on. And once the savings is gone you are out of options.
Whatever your age happens to be, if real estate is your investment of choice, the best time to start was 20 years ago and the second best time is today. That’s true even if you are 60 years old. Because 20 years from now you will wish you had started 20 years earlier. And you could even end up in a situation where someone else decides where you live for the rest of your life.
Good News
The good news is this is all preventable. You can start buying properties now, earn income now, save on your taxes now, and build equity in the properties. And repeat. Do it over and over. Build your Financial Momentum. When your real estate income gets to a level that suits you, you can either stop investing or continue on in your new career as a real estate investor. With or without your job.
Retirement is optional.