Retirement

 6 Mar 2023

Currently, the Retirement and Re-Employment Ages are 62 and 67 respectively. In 2019, the Government accepted the Tripartite Workgroup on Older Workers’ recommendations to raise the Retirement and Re-Employment Ages to 65 and 70 respectively by 2030. 

In a conversation with a colleague this morning, I will most likely be "force" to retire at the age of 65 with little opportunities for re-employment. So what does that meant for me?

In Singapore the average life expectancy of  male is 84 years old. That means if work is to now occupy a 8 hours of your daily life, you have to find something to replace this time after you stop work at 65. You have another 20 years to go!

Therefore if I am to life that remaining 20 years, I should start planning how to live those years and if possible start preparing and start even living it out now.

Retirement streams of income is not a concern. Together with Rach we have planned well. By the time we reached that 65 years of age, the passive income from CPF, investment and rental will be more than expenditure at the current age. Expenditure will get lower by the years towards 65 as the children grow up and become independent. I am not expecting to foot overseas studies fee for any of my children nor to foot payment for their housing. Of course as parent, I can help out of love but not out of an expectation. 

Imagine that I am at the age of 65 tomorrow, what will be my daily time table and schedule be like?

There will be a few areas that I will spend the bulk of the time: With God, in exercise, in keeping the mind alert and with friends.

With God, the three areas - study the Word, prayer and journaling. Before retirement, this habit of getting closer to God will become a natural desire and by retirement age, the time spend with God will increase. Serving God will also form part of life style - in the area of mentoring. As such, before retirement age, keep the habit of reading, praying and keeping records of His goodness. The more senior I am, I should be a mentor to new believers as well as a friend to encourage others in the faith. Currently, I am not doing much in the latter and therefore should start building this "credential" leading to the retirement age. 

Health become the next big important thing. In order to live a good long life, you have to be conscious to watch what you eat and exercise. Agility will slow down and speed will reduce in the activities that requires physical. But the consistency to keep and maintain your mobility will require to keep your body moving. I target to increase to 1 hour of MVPA and 12000 steps a day, including muscle toning exercise. Need the discipline to keep the momentum.

Instead of working physically - like classroom teaching, I need to work more using my brain. Two areas I have identify that will keep me alert and without the mental stress. The first is to develop and create online class and teaching materials on platform like Udemy. The second is to analyse data for Forex and also Index (Wall30). The motivation is further create passive income with the earn by hours type of job.

Lastly, build your social network of friends. I will try to "catch up with at least 1 friend each week to maintain the friendship. On the other hand, I will engage in hobby that will also find like-minded people in the activities. One is videography including drone flying, travel including hiking overseas, cycling. 

Habits begin now and hopefully by the time I transit from 65 to 84, the full life or life style I lead now will be similar then.