Should all of us be thinking retirement?

When the issue of retirement comes up, many of us think it is a problem of the old. Although the younger people look at it, but within them the older people should be more concerned.

But this is rather not the case in real life situation. The point is that at any given time you lose your job, either as a result of age, circumstance or by accident, and you are to continue earning income from an employer or savings arrangement, then you are said to have commenced retirement. This is because the person would now have to fall back on what has been saved as pensions or start a personal business and pay himself salary.

Retirement therefore does not really mean getting tired or inability to earn income, but somebody losing his job where he earns salary either for reasons of age, permanent disability or lack of employment opportunity.

In actual fact, retirement planning is everybody’s concern because no body works throughout life, as there would always be a point when you must stop. So, it becomes important that you see retirement and planning as an important part of your working life when you put aside today what will enable you cope with tomorrow.

Tunde Ibare-Akinsan, author of the book, Contributory Pension Scheme “Know It Now,” says retirement means you are not working anymore for that employer that pays your monthly salary, because you have reached the age that your company says you must leave the employment.

You are either looking forward to retirement because of your level of preparedness or you never wished it to be a reality. Please, know that it is not what you earn that matters but what you are willing to save and invest. Thus, retirement planning should be an integral part of your working life. Not doing so, the author says is a recipe for retiring to a life of pain, suffering, penury, shame and ill-time death. This is true except a miracle happens.

One good way to do this is to save and invest. For success to be achieved, you have to discipline yourself. If stress and discipline is taken away from you, and sacrifice which is the opportunity cost of what you cannot enjoy today, you cannot achieve your goal.

He said retirement could also mean that because of accident you can no longer actively do the work you used to do. In this case, you can learn a trade or business and start another work. So, your early retirement can create a new job for you to live on till you reach the age you cannot work anymore but to go and rest.

The company you work for can also retire some staff because they want to employ younger people. Whichever one, retirement means you do not work for that company again. Your benefits will be paid and you will have to live your life on the pension that will be paid to you.

According to him, you must picture the life you want to leave; you must picture your retirement life and prepare for one of the most certain things in life, death, by having a Will. At retirement, the author recommends that you must avoid spending your retirement benefits on projects you know nothing about.

On why you are afraid to be retired, Ibare-Akinsan says people are afraid to retire because they do not know what tomorrow holds, saying “you are not sure whether the money you have collected or will be collecting will be sufficient to see you through the retirement period. That is one of the reasons you are encouraged to save money with additional voluntary contribution into your Retirement Savings Account (RSA) as provided in the Contributory Pension Scheme.

“When you put money there for over five years, your contribution is not taxed but the returns are high and that goes a long way to solve money problems in retirement.”

Describing what people face in retirement, Ibare-Akinsan states that some of the things retirees face include; not able to rest, being impatient, always getting annoyed, not calm, failing health, nervousness, unsettled and always in a hurry.

Others are inadequacy of money, rising cost of living, increasing bills, declining social relationships, loss of influence, sitting idle and such strange behaviours.

The author says further that “my vision for you is that your retirement doesn’t have to be dull, sad, sorry and unhappy, or put you into total loss of hope. Events, observation and access to information and the choices you make can provide you many ways that will make your retirement a happy one if you can change the way you think.”

An analyst quoting George Samuel Clason in his book titled the ‘Richest Man in Babylon’ published in 1926, says “the life of everyman proceedeth from his childhood to old age. This is the path of life and no man may deviate from it unless the Gods call him prematurely to the world beyond. Therefore, do I say that it behooves a man to make preparation for a suitable income in the days to come, when he is no longer young, and to make preparation for the family should he be no longer with them to comfort and support them…”