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Retirement - It is only a matter of time before you retire, so get ready! By Glenn S. Ferguson: "Time sneaks up on you like a windshield on a bug." Jon Lithgow It was quite interesting recently to see the news story about a retiring priest who is challenging his organization's decision to retire him. This suddenly got me thinking about the fact that most persons are certainly not thinking about the eventuality that one day they will be retiring. Believe it or not there are only two outcomes in life - you will either die before you retire or you die after you retire. And as you can see in both instances the word "retire" shows up. So it becomes incumbent upon you to get ready for your retirement because it is only a matter of time before you retire. Retirement should not be a function of age, but rather your ability to maintain the lifestyle you are accustomed to without having to subject yourself to the rigors and stresses of everyday life. It is a function of being able to have your money work for you as opposed to you working for money, thereby freeing you to do what you want to do when you want to do it, without the fear of running out of money or health! You see early in life you do not usually have the financial capital to create the lifestyle you want, so what you do is exchange the human capital that you do have - the physical strength and intellectual skills you developed for the financial resources the marketplace is willing to exchange with you. You are simply exchanging physical or human capital for financial capital, in anticipation of eventually having the financial capital to recapture your human capital. Retirement marks the achievement of this objective and can happen anywhere along the spectrum of life, and has nothing to do with your age. Therefore your focus should be to recapture your human capital as soon as possible, because whether you know or not the marketplace has a predetermined time set for withdrawing its offer to you. And this is what most persons call retirement. You must realize that inherent in every employment contract are conditions of separation and disengagement and you must be fully aware of what those are and govern your financial affairs accordingly. This is why today is also a good time for you to review your own plans for retirement. Unfortunately, most people are under the misconception that "You do not have to start planning your retirement until a few years before you actually retire." You may also believe that having a pension plan at work and National Insurance benefits are all that you will need for retirement. But the reality is that in order to have a fulfilling retirement you need a whole lot more. One of the things you must plan is how you are going to spend your time! The reason why most retirees described retirement as the most difficult transition they had to make is simply because they had no plans for their new found free time. So have you started planning how you will spend your time? You need to know what you want out of your retirement: 1. The lifestyle you want 2. How you will spend your time and 3. How much money you will need. Once you know the answer to these questions then you can put in place the strategies needed to achieve them, because it is only a matter of time before you will need it! If you have not started planning already, it is more critical than ever to start now. The workbook "Strategies For Achieving A Comfortable Retirement-Yours", a useful tool to get you started. Remember, no matter how important you may feel you are to your organization, the day will come when you will have to leave, whether you like it or not. So get ready because your retirement is only a matter of time. "You may delay, but time will not." - Benjamin Franklin Copyright 2010 - Glenn S. Ferguson Get help with your retirement planning with this Free Report and Rescue Your Retirement. To read more retirement articles go to http://www.financialcoachingwithglenn.com Glenn Ferguson is a financial & retirement Speaker, Coach and Syndicated Writer, helping you to painlessly take control of your Money, to create wealth for yourself and family. Email to: glenn@financialcoachingwithglenn.com Website www.financialcoachingwithglenn.com Tel: 327-2453 or 327-0853 Fax 327-2456 Wednesday January 3, 2010