Monday, December 04, 2006

Defining Retirement

It occurs to me that I have overlooked something on this site so far. My goal is to retire at 45, but what exactly does the mean to me?

Well let me first say that does not mean I plan to never work again. For me retirement is having enough money that it does not matter if I do an activity to earn an income. That leaves me the freedom and time to do what I really love to do rather than what I just get a pay cheque doing.

I personally love to write (as you can tell from this blog), but I know that in Canada it is a very competitive market place for writers and frankly I know I need to get better at writing, but that takes time and I still have a family to feed. So I do engineering, which I enjoy but I don't love, to pay the bills.

If I reach my goal and retire at 45, it means I will most likely go to a new career of writing full time (ie: maybe 20 hours a week, after all this is suppose to be retirement!). So as one reader asked me, I'm not worried about what my then 18 year kid is going to think of having a 45 retired father, because I'm going to show him that if you work hard and plan you can set yourself up to do what you love. Which if your doing anything you really love, it really never feels like work at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been trying to figure out the same thing. Currently I run my own business and quite enjoy it. After 'retirement' will I quit? I doubt it, mostly because my business is fun and I have the flexibility to do what I want. I see my business evolving with me.

Which brings up the question, why am I so focused on saving for retirement if I don't see myself really retiring?

Tim Stobbs said...

EPC,

I think if you can sell your business for a fair amount and easily when you want to retire full time (or have to for medical reasons), then you shouldn't be so focused on saving for retirement.

If not, then it is a good idea to have a nest egg built up. If nothing else to just give you some piece of mind.