Working for longer before you retire
While reading a recent newspaper article reporting on new rules surrounding health checks for older doctors still working in the profession, I was struck by a simple quote by one of the doctors being interviewed.
“The bare fact is seventy is the new fifty and as long as you are sound of mind, I don’t see why I shouldn’t continue to work well into my seventies and potentially my eighties” one doctor was quoted as saying.
That comment has stayed with me, and I absolutely agree.
More and more Australians are living well into their nineties with birthday celebrations for people turning 100 years plus once a rarity, now becoming increasingly common.
The prospect of living well into your nineth decade means if you are retiring at the traditional age of 65, then you will have some 30 plus years in retirement or a third of your life. As many people find, that can be a very long time.
The challenge for modern day retirements is to find a way of keeping engaged either with remaining within the workforce, by working full-time or part-time, or becoming more engaged in your local community.
What becomes increasingly important as you get older is flexibility. Flexibility to work the hours you would like or the days of the week that you prefer and that you just enjoy what you are doing.
The opportunities for doing this, from what I see with clients, appear endless.
Crucial to this I think is having your financial affairs in order. That you live in a home that suits your needs and is debt free. That if you are eligible, that you have applied for the age pension and are receiving it.
That you are making the most of whatever superannuation you have and using it to support yourself financially so you know that between your super and your pension entitlements, you can pay all your bills as they arise.
That then frees you to look at working in a way that suits you in terms of hours, flexibility and the interest and satisfaction that it gives you. That you are not working longer hours because you have to in order to pay the bills.
Happily, the Federal Government and Centrelink are alive to this and even if you receive the full age pension, you can still earn extra income of up to $11,800 from a bona fide employer and not have it impact on your pension entitlements.
That’s the equivalent of having an extra $200,000 in superannuation savings and having it pay you a private pension of $1,000 a month.
If you add up the numbers, that a couple on the full pension can receive $21,876 each a year and then earn $11,800 each a year from a bona fide employer and then earn say a further $6,000 each a year from their super savings, all tax free, retirement can look okay.
Hence the reason why more and more Australians are working longer in retirement.