How To Plan and Spend Retirement

Above, The Beast at Yosemite National Park. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

It has been two years since I retired. Like many have said, it takes about three months to get used to the new lifestyle. Don't worry, the time goes by quickly.

The Press-Enterprise has an article with seven tips on how to plan and spend your retirement.

It begins with:

Retirement is an enormous transition for most people. You’ve been working long hours for years and you have a general idea of what you will do with your retirement. 

For instance, you will have free time to sleep in, sit around watching television or play on your computer. All of these things were activities you couldn’t do while you were working. 

People are healthy and living longer. You probably (hopefully) have a financial plan to help you through retirement. Do you also have a plan to stay engaged and productive? You should explore different retirement activities and choose the ones most appealing to you.

One tip they provide is an obvious one: travel. Getting a national park lifetime senior pass (now $80, but still a bargain) will save seniors a lot of money.

They wrote:

You might like to travel in groups on cruises, train tours, motor home caravans or with tour guides to foreign lands.  Groups like these might get together once or twice a year but after you’ve taken the trips over many years with the same people, you develop a tight social network of good friends.

To read the other six tips, go here.