The Mistakes Of The Great Resignation

Barron's looked at the reversal of the Great Resignation that appears to be underway. The Great Resignation was the pandemic-induced phenomenon where people quit their jobs or retired early for feeling scared of the pandemic, emboldened by stock market gains and motivated to reassess their priorities as many people were getting sick and even dying. 

Toward the end of the article was an anecdote about a now 50-year old who had "retired" in February, 2021 but found himself bored after a while and feeling some financial stress after seeing his portfolio go down in value. It turned out to be a one year sabbatical, going back to his job in February of this year. He was quoted in the article "it's nice not having to go to work but what are you going to do?"

I say this a lot, you don't want to wake up on day one of...in this case, retirement and say to yourself, "ok, now what am I going to do?" There's a natural tendency for people to make things too complicated and a blind spot of mine might be that I make things too simple but what do you enjoy doing, what does your ideal day look like? How much of that ideal is embedded into your typical day already? If there's not as much overlap between your ideal and your regular routine, what can you do to change that? Building more of your ideal into your regular routine is a way to more easily transition into whatever comes after you move on from your primary career even if moving on just means doing the same work part time. 

One part of the Barron's anecdote was the implication that the guy played a lot of golf. I don't golf so I don't know how much green fees are these days. When I google "average green fees" $61 comes up as the first result. Is that realistic? How many rounds per week is the typical retiree going to get in at $61 per? I know clubs are expensive too. I might be cheap but this seems like an expensive hobby for a retirement plan that causes stress from a portfolio decline of some magnitude during an up year for the stock market--presuming 2021 since he was back at work as quick as February.

How old are you? If you want to retire, when do you want to do it? That's how much time you have to figure it out if you haven't already done so. I get that many people don't love what they do for work and want to retire from it at some point. What do you love? What would you want to learn about as something new? Learning new things is critical to successful aging and there are plenty of outlets to go learn new things. What are you passionate about that needs volunteer help? Hopefully any planning like this leaves time for exercise too.     

I said many times before, and I think the Barron's anecdote is a reiteration, that retirement planning isn't just financial. Knowing yourself and what you want to do and what will make you happy are key to getting retirement, or whatever you call it, right. This is why I write so often about the non-financial aspects of retirement so frequently.