It’s been a doozy of a fall here in the Northeast. Normally, our Saturdays are jam-packed with soccer games and tournaments. But thanks to the onslaught of rain that’s magically arrived every weekend like clockwork, we’ve had a bunch of Saturdays recently that consisted of hours cooped up at home. And when you have young-ish kids, hours at home mean countless complaints of boredom — and lost patience on the part of parents like myself.
But it’s not just my kids who have been complaining to me of boredom lately. In the course of my work, I like to talk to people about their experiences in retirement. In recent weeks, I’ve chatted up the parents of friends of mine, as well as older people in my community, to see how they’re faring.
Image source: Getty Images.
Some are not doing all that well. The reason boils down to the fact that they’re bored in the absence of having a job.
I can sympathize with them, though, more so than I can with my kids on a rainy Saturday afternoon. See, one of my biggest retirement fears — besides running out of money, which I think everyone is sort of afraid of — is winding up bored and unhappy. So I’m trying to take steps to set myself up to avoid that situation.
There’s an upside to continuing to work
When I started writing about investing and finances, my goal was to find a job that was conducive to a good work-life balance. I knew I wanted to have kids, and I purposely sought out a career that would have some built-in flexibility.
But in recent years, I’ve been thinking about that flexibility more so in the context of retirement planning. I don’t want to work 40 hours a week or more for the rest of my life. But I do want to work in some capacity for as long as I’m able. And I hope that by expanding my knowledge and skills, I can continue to do what I’m doing today even once I’m old enough to collect Social Security.
Maybe some weeks I’ll want to work 20 hours. Maybe there will be weeks when I only work two or three. But I’m trying my best to set myself up to continue working in retirement so I don’t have to spend my days struggling to fill my time.
Is your career sustainable in retirement?
Some careers require a full-time commitment. If you’re a teacher, for example, you can’t exactly get a classroom position where you only come in twice a week.
But it’s a good idea to think about the type of work you might want to do in retirement, and what it might take to make it possible. You should also think about ways to extend your career if it’s one that brings you joy and fulfillment.
If you love being an educator, for example, you could seek to work as a substitute teacher or go into tutoring during retirement. Or you could work on the curriculum development side and create classroom content from home.
This is just one example. The point, however, is that I really don’t like the idea of being bored in retirement, and I’m trying to take steps to avoid that fate. And I strongly suggest that anyone who feels similarly think about ways to extend their careers in some shape or form, or find new ones to embrace later in life.
