Hi Folks I had posted the original question about a couple of years ago and I thought that I'd share my journey since then as a "human case study" on this subject as it were :). So this may be a somewhat longish post. I got a lot of valuable tips from the thread then (thanks!!) and here are the ones I implemented:
1) Put together a *retirement corpus* (have to admit that I didn't exactly have one at that point in time): took the payout from the company, liquidated assets such as an old property, withdrew PFs, exited expensive schemes and streamlined outflow of money - I found a surprising number of recurring payments that I didn't really need to make. I also moved my home loan to another bank with a lower interest rate. 2) Hired a* professional "family office" investment consultant* to invest and maintain this corpus. I enjoy the financial planning aspect of wealth management, but my weakness is I hate paperwork - and this from a person whose career was built on documentation! So for my own sanity, I decided I needed this service. 3) Took out a *personal health insurance* before I left the company. It was helpful to ensure that I get some things done while still employed: credit cards, visas etc. These get much harder to apply for if you have a fledgling business. 4) Started a *consulting business* in training. I got a documentation and a training gig working few days a week right from the get go, that provided enough to cover monthly expenses. I also invested in some *skills-building*: went through training to get coaching certification as I enjoy that. So far, so good. I had my expenses covered, got a little extra time to spend with my daughter, went for training classes, could catch up with friends, and even attended sketching classes to indulge a long-neglected hobby. I spent any spare time writing, which is my first passion. Then, what? I had today covered, then I started wondering if I have the tomorrows of my daughter (who was only 4 then) and myself covered. What about inflation, rising educational and other life costs my daughter had yet to incur. I realised my corpus just wasn't quite enough yet, and as a single Mom, I had only my own resources that I could count on. If I sold my current *house*, moved into a smaller place, and downsized our lives, we could still manage. That was what my head said. But when the time came to do it, I found myself wavering. It's a lot harder to do, especially if you're accustomed to a certain lifestyle that comes with three decades of corporate life. All I got from my parents was a good* education* and I was determined to give my daughter that. She was flourishing in her current school I couldn't quite see her being as successful in another curriculum. So that meant continuing her current expensive school and whatever that led to. She had jsut started her education and had another 10-15 years to go. What I never heard growing up was a constant place to call "home" as I was an Army brat. My house gave me that, and I wanted my daughter to have that as long as possible. The real estate market in B'lore being what it is, getting another place to stay may eat away a significant part of whatever additional corpus I might get through a sale. Also, this was a safe, gated community and a nice environment for her to grow up. I also enjoy globetrotting and there are so many countries in the world I haven't been to yet! And I wanted to share that with my daughter too. What all that meant was that I wasn't really ready to downsize. At least not just yet. I was sure my consulting service would build up, but that would take time, I also figured that I had another decade worth of working in me before retiring from corporate life. That would be the fastest way to maintain all my above mentioned aspirations. I had just come to this realisation when I got a job offer from a company nearby. In the meantime, My family (parents, sis and family) had moved in with me to help with child and home care. So taking care of the home became more of a shared responsibility and that gave some relief. So I'm back to the grind, not exactly loving it, and come to terms with what that gives to my life. However, with this whole exercise, I have a clearer path to retirement, have things sorted in my head, and I try to make more time for the things I want to do. Still planning for retirement... and more immediately, a trip to Vietnam! Sandhya On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 10:59 PM, Dave Long <dave.l...@bluewin.ch> wrote: > Shyam (and others), would be interested in your thoughts on this approach. >> >> http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-get-more-pleasure-out-of- >> retirement-spending-1473645961 >> > > > Ideally, money is not the only scare resource one has to allocate in > retirement: there's also time. > > There are many pursuits where willingness to be awful for a short while at > first eventually pays back with an upward slope (granted, likely with > several plateaus) of mastery. > > Some of these pursuits even allow one to apply that mastery to increase > derived pleasure without increasing spending. > > -Dave > > Le Guin, "The Dispossessed": > >> And then there is challenge. Here you think that the incentive to work is >> finances, need for money or desire for profit, but where there’s no money >> the real motives are clearer, maybe. People like to do things. They like to >> do them well. People take the dangerous, hard jobs because they take pride >> in doing them, they can — egoize, we call it — show off? — to the weaker >> ones. Hey, look, little boys, see how strong I am! You know? A person likes >> to do what he is good at doing… >> > > > >
