By Ezra Ivy
Early retirement is a dream for many, and it’s now becoming more common for people to retire earlier than average if they’ve carefully saved and planned their retirement. If you’ve decided you’re going to retire early, here are some things you need to get organised, from your finances to coping with this big change, so you can start your retirement on the right foot.
Draw up a budget
You can usually find out easily what kind of pension you’ll get from your annuity, so shop around, get some quotes and make sure you get independent financial advice. From this, you can figure out what you’ll have to live on and how much you’ll have after paying bills. Luckily, your expenses should be lower once you get to retirement age.
Consider getting counselling
Retiring is a big life change, especially if you are taking early retirement. If you’re retiring out of necessity, for example, due to ill health or reaching the maximum age for your job, you might want to consider seeing a specialist for firefighter retirement counselling or similar. This will ensure you are happy with making this change and settle into your new life with ease.
It’s also worth considering getting some career advice if you can, even if it feels like it’s the end of your career. There may be options open to you that you hadn’t considered in the past, which might give you new energy and enthusiasm for your chosen career path.
Decide what to do with your time
Retirement doesn’t have to mean a life hanging round the house. Some things people do when they retire include:
- Working part-time – semi-retirement is an excellent option for younger people who want to technically be retired, but get bored without stimulation
- Freelancing or consultancy work
- Volunteer work
- Traveling
- Moving overseas – a lot of expats are retirees
Without needing to go to work daily, you have so much more freedom. This means you can do things you never thought possible. With early retirement, you still have plenty of energy and drive too, so can do things you feel you missed out on when you were younger.
With the retirement age on the rise, there has been a trend towards people saving hard so they can retire earlier than their peers. You too can retire early if you have a plan in place, from your budget to what you’ll do with your time.
