Retirement used to be determined by a Government, a church, a male family member or a large corporation.
- Teachers used to talk about working until 54/11. That is 54 years and 11 months as it was not worth your while to stay on.
- 65 years of age used to be the mandated age, in that you weren’t entitled to the age pension until you reached that age. Now the Federal Government is encouraging people to work until 70 years of age by gradually increasing the mandated age for the age pension.
Nowadays we see ourselves as having more choice about when and how we retire:
- We may be in a position to choose where we live. We have seen the trend of people making a tree change or sea change.
- How do we want to spend our time. What are we going to do in the 50 – 60 hours we used to spend at work?
- Our intimate relationships may be a concern. What will happen to me if my partner leaves me?
- Today we can transition to retirement. Do I still want to work but at reduced hours or do I want to only work from home to cut out the daily grind of the commute to work?
