Retirement: Benefits and Interesting Facts

My uncle sent me an email that contained a PDF about the benefits of retiring early.

Before I reveal to you its secrets (*laugh*) I want to point out the obvious:

• Not everyone can retire early.
• Not everyone wants to retire early.
• Retirement means different things to everyone.
• Retiring early for some people means working part-time and slowing down, not stopping completely, and for others, it means stopping completely and deciding to move and travel the world.
• This post is not to make anyone at any age feel bad or feel like they are failing in comparison.

Okay? Okay.

Besides, sometimes even if we can retire early, we feel anxiety in doing so such as “will the money last?” You just can’t predict how long you will live, how you will live and what the future will bring.

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THE MAIN BENEFIT TO RETIRING EARLY

For every year someone works beyond the age of 55, they lose 2 years of their life span on average.*

This is taking into account that when they say “working” they mean full-time, full-speed ahead, full-anxiety and perhaps even a little resentment at having to do so.

The key is to a longer life span is to make sure that your retirement embodies your values — what you want to do and at your own pace.

I also believe that this is applicable to pre-retirement age. The more stress someone is under at any age for a prolonged period of time, the more of a toll it takes on you. You can see that some people of the same age either look younger or older.

The older looking ones usually tend to be more stressed, head full of white hair, and lines on their face. They’ve been through more and it shows.

The hard-working late retirees probably put too much stress on their aging body-and mind such that they are so stressed out to develop various serious health problems that forced them to quit and retire. With such long-term stress-induced serious health problems, they die within two years after they quit and retire.

On the other hand, people who take early retirements at the age of 55 tend to live long and well into their 80s and beyond. These earlier retirees probably are either wealthier or more able to plan and manage their various aspects of their life, health and career well such that they can afford to retire early and comfortably.

These early retirees are not really idling after their early retirements to get old.

They still continue doing some work. But they do the work on the part-time basis at a more leisure pace so that they do not get too stressed out. Furthermore, they have the luxury to pick and chose the types of part-time work of real interest to them so that they can enjoy and love doing that “fun” work at a more leisure pace.

The late retirees are small in number, tend to die quickly after retirement and disappear from the population of old people beyond the age of 70.

Late retirees, therefore, have very little weight on the statistical average life expectancy of the population of “old people” dominated by the early retirees.

On the other hand, if you are not able to get out of the pressure-cooker or the high-speed battleground at the age of 55 and “have” to keep on working very hard until the age of 65 or older before your retirement, then you probably will die within 18 months of retirement.

By working very hard in the pressure cooker for 10 more years beyond the age of 55, you give up at least 20 years of your life span on average.

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IN SUMMARY:

1. You are richer if you can retire early
2. You are probably healthier, less stressed etc, having planned your life until retirement
3. You are not totally retired, working part-time
4. Less stress on the body not working 24/7 hard and pushing past the age of 50 > 65 (taking it easy)

I agree with retiring part-time.

I’ve already tried the feeling of being retired (I took a year off to travel), and my brain turned to mush. I simply can’t stop using my brain and only watching TV or gardening. I’d murder a plant.