Choosing life

In retirement planning, taking care of basic needs questions come first: will there be enough money for you to stop working; can you maintain your lifestyle when the pay cheques stop; what about the unknown future costs: healthcare, transportation and accommodations?

For most retirees in Canada today, their most basic needs are being met. That isn’t to say that people aren’t living without challenges or having to make compromises so ends meet.

In Abraham Maslow’s 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation,” he identified five stages of human growth. Illustrated as a pyramid most often, the fundamental and basic needs fall to the bottom of the pyramid: safety and physiological needs. His theory suggested that those basic needs must be met before an individual will focus on higher needs. So what if you’ve met the basics, what are the next steps in planning your retirement life?

Photo: Contributed

One conversation needs to be around the lifestyle you want to live in retirement.

What activities do you enjoy, how social a person are you, do you enjoy physical pursuits, do you want to grow intellectually, creatively, spiritually? Will you travel, will you work? These are the questions you need to ask in order to begin to plan for the future. Retirement years for most people will make up almost a third of their lives. These years are not a throw away at the end; they are times to be enjoyed and experienced as much as any of the previous two thirds of your life. It requires thought and planning to make sure the years don’t slip by and the opportunities with them.

We often think of lifestyle goals as frivolous - not worthy of the time or detail that a financial plan gets. This is far from the truth, these are the reasons you did all the planning in the first place – so you could do the things you wanted to do but didn’t have the time or money for earlier in your life. I know, I’m saying it again but it’s time for another list. This time, write down all the things you do today that are lifestyle oriented, what do you do when you’re not working or sleeping? What energizes you, and what activities do you look forward to? What activities do you do that cause you to lose track of time when you’re in the middle of them?

Next, let’s think about the things that you’ve always wanted to do, but for lack of time or money weren’t able to. Is it realistic that you might be able to do some of them once you’re retired? Do you still want to? One of the worst things we can do when we are planning is to see an event or task that we want to accomplish and then tell ourselves we’ll get to it. The best time to start something new is now, and the best first step is to get it in writing. Create a plan for your lifestyle; acknowledge the things you really want to do. When are you going to do them? How much time are you willing to commit? Are you going for performance or just for fun? Don’t put the things you want to do off for later; tomorrow has a funny way of not showing up.

This is for information purposes only. It is recommended that individuals consult with their financial advisor before acting on any information contained in this article. The opinions stated are those of the author and not necessarily those of Scotia Capital Inc. or The Bank of Nova Scotia. ScotiaMcLeod is a division of Scotia Capital Inc., Member CIPF.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.