Never Retire - The (hopefully) Fluid Nature of Working in Relative Old Age

Paid subscriber post #13, Working in Retirement Series, Part 4

In this part four of our working in retirement series, we consider how post-retirement work can look and feel.

Hopefully it’s fluid. As in, you have choice in the matter.

Before we toss around some thoughts, ideas, and strategies, here are links so you can look back at the first three installments:

Health and Well-Being Research on Working in Relative Old Age, Part 3

Money Strategies To Help Facilitate Working in Relative Old Age, Part 2

Work in Retirement Introduction, Part 1

I have started and will continue to review academic research relevant to the key components of our Never Retire theme, particularly working in retirement.

While there’s rarely broad general consensus on issues such as how working less now or working in retirement affects your physical and mental well-being, the literature seems to make one thing at least somewhat clear.

If you make decent or better money (and/or have decent or better money saved), you benefit more from working less now and/or working in retirement. It’s obvious why. You’re more likely financially able to make the choice to reduce the number of hours you spend working.

There’s less stress associated with the decision.

If you make decent or better money, but are of relatively modest means (like me and, I presume, many of you), you can’t simply be semi-retired without thoughtful financial planning.

So it’s all about having the luxury of choice. Most of us must make big money-related decisions to put ourselves in this position of relative financial strength.

In this installment, we review a Medium article I wrote about the luxury of choice and tie it to how working in retirement can look and feel along with a strategy for how to allocate your cash to help facilitate semi-retirement. We’ll compare the challenges you might face against those common in traditional retirement.