Lifestyle Planning

We have all been encouraged to believe that if we saved and had a financial plan, our retirement would be happy and stress free. Unfortunately, life is rarely that simple.

It's true that a good financial plan is a very important part of a successful retirement plan, but it's only one part.

When most people leave the full time workforce for retirement, semi-retirement, or a new kind of lifestyle, there is a range of financial and non financial issues that need to be faced. Some of these are practical and some are emotional. In the past, most people ignored these issues because they didn’t know about them and there were very few organizations offering assistance in the field of retirement lifestyle planning. Fortunately this situation is changing.

If someone is unhappy because of emotional issues, all the money in the world won’t make for a happy life.

While various retirement lifestyle planners have different titles for the main issues that most people face, the following list is a basic guide to the areas you should consider when thinking about the rest of your life.

• Financial security
• Housing Relationships
• Future work
• Education
• Purpose in life
• Health
• Recreation / travel
• Handling change

When you think about it, it's difficult to set up a financial plan to cover the rest of your life if you don't have a lifestyle plan that spells out what you want to do and how you want to live.

Because many retirees have not thought about a retirement lifestyle plan or strategy, we now see many instances of people struggling with problems like marriage breakdowns, lack of purpose, boredom & depression. It’s not made any easier when people think that they are the only ones suffering from these problems.

Would you like to take the first steps to develop your own retirement lifestyle plan?

You can purchase a work book which will help you consider 8 major life
change issues which will probably effect you when you leave full time work.
The book, called "Building Your Retirement House " will show you how to
develop a basic Retirement Lifestyle Plan. . It is an excellent and
inexpensive starting point and could be a major step in helping you to enjoy a happy and successful retirement.

The book costs $25 inc postage. CLICK HERE to purchase.