Posted by Robert on February 6, 2012
This is a guest post by Robert, who lives in Calgary and works as a financial advisor retired at 34. He is married, has three kids. Robert and his wife then plan to return to school and become teachers, eventually living and working overseas.
Now that I don’t go into an office every day to work and generate income, I’ve occasionally wondered where the time goes. Some days, I accomplish a lot, but other days I read, write, play with the kids, swim, cook and by the end of the day, I don’t feel that I’ve been very productive.
When I was at work, being productive was important. My supervisor expected me to be productive. There was work that was my responsibility to complete, and it needed to be completed correctly, and within a reasonable amount of time. Other employees were also expected to be productive, and we held the same expectations for each other. For example, too much time spent on the phone talking with family at home was frown upon. And if projects were held up because a single employee hadn’t completed their portion of it (me, as often as anyone), there was grumbling from the others.
Now that I spend a lot of time at home, I’ve wondered about the idea of productivity. The basis of productivity is the fact that something is produced, either a product or a service of value. This idea is even generalized across the economy, with the government occasionally fretting about how productivity can be increased. More work per worker should, according to economic theory, translate into more GDP per capita, making everyone better off.
Some people might call me lazy, but upon reflection, I don’t really feel a need to be productive. There’s no question that being productive feels good. I like getting to the end of a day, looking back and savouring all I’ve accomplished. But what really makes me feel good is to feel needed. For example, last week a friend of our family had to go into the hospital, so we arranged to take supper to their family. It was stressful getting dinner together (with my wife) for two families, but when we dropped it off, the stress fell away with their gratitude.
I especially feel needed now that my two sons both have swimming lessons with their classes at school. Every other afternoon, they pile the kids on a bus and take them to a city pool for swimming. The girls all go into the women’s change room with the teachers, while me and one or two other fathers take the boys into the men’s change room. It eats up my entire afternoon, but the teachers continually express their gratitude that men are able and willing to come help with the boys. It sometimes gets noisy and chaotic, but think back to the first day when they crammed all the kids in the special needs/family change room and the help us fathers provide makes it go much smoother.
Now that I’m far less productive than previously, having my money work for me, instead of working for money, I can no longer base my self image on my productivity. Rather, it’s nice to feel needed when I care for my kids and help out in my community. Do you feel needed at work, or simply productive? Where else do you feel needed?
Posted by Canadian Dream on February 2, 2012
I’ve recently just started to admit to myself that I have a new habit and its measured in grams. No, for the record it is completely legal. Yet I do get a little thrill paying for my little bags of black, green and multiple colours looking mulch. It also involves varies types of compounds steeped in hot water at precise intervals…yes I have a loose tea habit.
For years, I’ve been mostly a coffee sort of guy and yes I’m ok spending $10/lb on decent coffee. So you might think this new habit must be expensive, but I recently worked it out and no it really isn’t much more money. I’ve spent perhaps $30 total over the last three months since I already had most of the equipment. Instead it is a shift in spending, which actually happens fairly frequently around my house. You see I don’t believe in being purely a creature of habit. I change my interests in reading fairly regularly, as do I on my eating and drinking habits. I consider it an ongoing evolution.
So the point of the matter isn’t that fact I have a not habit, but rather what am I reducing my other spending on to support the new habit (mainly through less coffee drinking). You can have anything you want, just not all at once. The fact of the matter is if you really want to retire early you will have to master this concept. The overall level of your spending needs to stay fairly constant, but that doesn’t sentence you to a boring life or the exact one you have now. Feel free to splurge once in a while on something or try something new. Just remember that something else is going to have to give to support that.
Overall this isn’t a bad thing if you keep in mind your level of satisfaction/happiness from your spending on something. You need to get something out of your discretionary spending, and if you aren’t getting something positive out of it you need to reconsider what you are spending it on. Or another way to free up cash is to look at some frugal ideas around your fixed spending. There really isn’t a wrong way to do this, but rather find out what works for you.
After all spending money is the easy part, as I can always find something to spend money on. The trick is to keep the total the same, which involves a balancing act.
Posted by Robert on January 30, 2012
What makes a smooth transition to retirement? I personally didn’t have anything in mind. In the first week or two that I stopped going in to work every day, I had more naps than I’d care to admit. I’ve also read a lot, but too much of it has been internet news (or entertainment). Something that’s important to me is to spend my time doing things that are worthwhile. That’s why I’ve decided to spend more time volunteering at my children’s school and at the YMCA.
It seems that volunteering is a common theme among retired people. At the YMCA, I met a woman who explained that she’s currently transitioning into retirement. Without being rude, she is quite a bit older than me, probably nearing the normal retirement age. She worked for years as a psychologist, helping children (eg. with ADHD) adjust to their usual environments, such as school. She has decided that she wants a smooth transition to retirement. Her first step was to stop taking on new clients. Each client is a relatively short term project, measured in months, not years. This reduces her commitment (and income, I assume), without ending it all at once. It also gives her a modest amount of extra free time.
Most people, after working full time for the majority of their lives, crave a routine and a feeling that they are contributing to a cause larger than themselves. The woman I met has chosen to volunteer at the YMCA in order to be part of a group effort and to have a time commitment that builds into her routine. I’ve talked with other people who either worry what they would do with the spare time afforded by retirement. They seem to take literally the proverb “idle hands are the devil’s playthings”.
That may hold true for some people, but having the luxury of being able to choose where and how to spend my time gives me options that wouldn’t be available otherwise. My favourite things to spend my time on relate to my interest in public education. I regularly spend time in our school, volunteering in one or the other of my sons’ classes, or joining them on field trips. I also talk with other parents about their experiences with and expectations for our school. I have the luxury of being able to read news, scholarly articles and books related to the education issues that our school and our system are facing.
None of these activities were planned as a transition to help smooth me into retirement. But I think that a smooth transition is certainly worth the effort. I continue to try and sort my activities into a regular schedule that produces a routine. Fortunately, whenever I feel that I’m wasting my time, I can take my daughter (who’s not in school yet) and play with her. Nurturing my kids is time well spent.
Do you have plans to ease the transition from one stage of life to the next?
