There are plenty of people I know who are starting to count down the months until they're able to retire -- even though they're only in their 40s. I, on the other hand, am sort of dreading retirement.
Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of working less than I do now. It's not easy managing a full-time workload while juggling the schedules of school-aged kids.
But if I'm being honest, a big part of me dreads retirement because I fear I'll hate certain aspects of it. Here are three in particular I don't anticipate being a fan of.
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1. Dipping into savings
Since I'm not old enough to raid my retirement account without facing an early withdrawal penalty, I've yet to take money from it. But I do maintain an emergency fund for unplanned expenses. And over the past few years, I've had to dip into those cash reserves on multiple occasions to pay for things like unexpected home repairs.
Every time I have to pull money out of my savings account, it's mentally painful. Even though that money is specifically there for emergency expenses, I find that I'm stressed and upset after taking withdrawals.
And if that's the case, I'm not sure how kindly I'll take to consistently withdrawing from my long-term savings in retirement. Even though the money in that account is supposed to pay for retirement, I just know I'm the type of person who has a hard time spending their savings.
2. Having too much downtime
My schedule these days is pretty intense. I get up at 6:00 in the morning to start my workday, take a break to walk my kids to school, resume working for a block of time, and then spend the hours of roughly 3:30 to 8:30 shuttling children to activities, putting dinner on the table, checking homework assignments, and breaking up the inevitable fights that tend to erupt between siblings. After that's all done, I commonly return to my desk around 8:30 at night for another hour or so of work before calling it a day.
As such, I definitely do not mind the idea of a lighter schedule. But I worry that retirement will result in too much downtime for me.
I'm certainly someone who can curl up on the couch with a good book or watch a classic movie -- but not for multiple hours day in, day out. And while I know that there are plenty of ways to stay busy in retirement, some of those cost money. And we just discussed the fact that I'm not someone who's chill about tapping her nest egg.
3. Paying a fortune for healthcare
These days, I routinely shell out hundreds of dollars a month -- sometimes more than $1,000 -- to cover medical bills and health insurance premiums. As such, I'm no stranger to spending a large chunk of my income on healthcare.
But I'm well aware that retirees tend to spend a lot of their income on healthcare between Medicare premiums, deductibles, coinsurance, and non-covered services. And frankly, I anticipate that bugging me tremendously, even if it's an unavoidable expense.
Taking steps to avoid being miserable in retirement
Clearly, I'm coming off as kind of a downer in the context of retirement. But while the above points are concerns of mine, I'm taking steps to address them.
First, I'm saving as much as I can every year. The way I see it, the more savings I'm able to bring into retirement, the less worrisome individual withdrawals might be.
Also, I haven't yet landed on a specific withdrawal rate for my savings. It's too soon for that. But it's something I plan to do rather than tap my nest egg at random.
Next, I'm aiming to continue working in retirement. I'm not saying I'll put in 40 hours or more a week like I do now. But I do hope to keep my skills current and hold down a job in some capacity.
Finally, I'm pumping as much money as I can into an HSA, which my high-deductible health insurance plan renders my family eligible for. More so than that, I'm paying for my near-term medical bills out of pocket instead of tapping my HSA balance. That way, my HSA funds can continue to grow tax-free so that I'll hopefully have a nice sum of money earmarked for medical expenses in retirement.
You may have your own fears when it comes to retirement. But it's important to identify those ahead of time and take steps to work around them. And like me, you may want to hire a financial advisor to help alleviate some of your concerns and work with you to come up with a well-thought-out retirement planning strategy. It could make an otherwise daunting concept a lot more palatable.
