Retire Rich (and Happy!): 6 Secrets Often Overlooked

What is retirement? This is the withdrawal from one’s position, occupation, or active working life.

Here are some things to think about as you read this blog;

👉🏼You can choose to be semi-retired, but many people choose to retire when they are elderly.

👉🏼 If you’re to calculate your replacement ratio: you will need 80% of your income to survive.

🤔According to your current income, where will you derive the necessary funds to survive while you retire from active work?

Earlier this week during the usual Worship Harvest Ministries, Business Leader Network 7 am EAT learning call, Director Grace Munyirwa, took us through the two biggest challenges to beware of about retirement.

• Cash: Where will you get cash without active work? Where will you get the money to survive?
• Purpose: You’ve been running with your employer’s purpose before you retired.  What is the next one after retirement? Do you have a purpose to live for?

This is for the men mainly.

•  Identity – Most men tend to identify themselves by the work they do. E.g. I am a teacher. After retirement, who will you be?

He plunged us into the important things to note about retirement.

What’s your retirement plan?

Retirement is not death nor is it the end.  Think about it as💃🏻 enjoyment, ✈ Traveling and living a 🏞 stress-free life.

So, to make the most of your retirement you will need to take on things that you can be committed to and will take your time. This can be done by:

• 📝Making a bucket list.
• 🗒Setting goals.
• 💻Drafting a plan.

Retirement means leaving to do something else away from what you have been doing and thus have something to retire to.

So here are the things that Dir. Grace mentioned that one needs for retirement.

1. Medical Cover. Because you were ageing by the time you retire.
2. Liquidity/ cash flow. Having assets is not having cash flow. Most of our parents have houses & land but have no cash, that’s why we send them money to survive now.
3. Debt. It’s easy to pay for it now. Statistics show that of people in debt; 45% are either earning or struggling or in crisis, 23% are free and 63% pay the debts painfully.  Debt complicates this entire retirement thing!
4. Please start a business of your choice EARLY. You will have an abundance of time. Think of what you will be doing on Monday to Monday. How will you get that income post-retirement? Start a business and make sure it’s highly profitable. It will help you to stay active but also help you have cash flow.
5. Relationships, who are your friends? Women build relationships way early in their lifetime. This gives them a chance to retire well. Now the encouragement for men to do the same. Men should build now and mend relationships especially cross-family relationships early, you will need them when you are old.
6. Think about an emergency fund. Be asset-rich and cash-rich too. So, you have land, will it take care of weddings, funerals or hospital bills after you retire?  When did you last calculate your net worth? 👉🏼Do it regularly. Your home is not an asset. It’s not about to offer you cash flow! It won’t put food on the table.  🗒Think outside of it

As I conclude, these are the few things that Director Grace asked us to ponder,

• 🤔What is wealth to you?
• 🤔Where do you want to live after retirement?
• 🤔What does your spouse think about it?
• 🤔What kind of house will you be staying in?  Your current home could be too big to serve as an open nest.
• 🙊 Beloved CEO, no one still laughs at your jokes, no that you are retired. They laugh now because you have no power.
• 🤔 Pension won’t take care of you.
• 🤔 Your expenses won’t go down after retirement.