An Alternative Take On Retirement Planning

As we move closer to what we think will be the end of our working years, we inevitably start reading more about retirement planning. Usually such articles focus on the financial aspects of retirement planning, seeking to help you tackle the toughest question of all: how much do I need to have saved, really, to retire? In most of those articles you’ll see all kinds of formulae, investment tips, and planning concepts that will supposedly help you attain a financially comfortable retirement life.

CNN recently published an alternative take on retirement planning. The writer’s bottom-line point is that many Americans are too obsessed with accumulating retirement funds. Instead, he argues they should be focused on creating great memories and accumulating enriching experiences when they are still healthy and active enough to do so–and helping out their kids at earlier ages, when they really need the money the most. The idea is that the retirees can then reflect on those happy memories in their dotage, when their health might not let them engage in many expensive, physically taxing activities.

It’s an interesting perspective that is contrary to many articles that take the position that most Americans don’t save enough for retirement. But it reflects what I think is a fundamental point: there is no one “right” way to look at retirement. Some people will be comfortable with following the writer’s approach, spending more at earlier points in their lives, and saving less, like the grasshopper in the fable. Others will be like the ant, because they know that they don’t want to risk a retirement where they don’t have enough and are beset by money worries during their so-called golden years. Underlying both scenarios, and others along the spectrum, is knowing yourself and what you really want your retirement to be.

Once you realize that retirement is not a math test and there is no single correct answer, it becomes a little easier to accept that you can only do your best, based on your own circumstances and interests and self-awareness. That’s a liberating notion.