The thought of retiring can be a conflicting one for many people. Yes, pretty much everyone would agree that they’d rather be sipping cocktails on a beach than at their desk at work. However, once people have actually retired they can grow tired of their “easy” life rather quickly. What are the keys to maintaining that happiness in post-retirement life? A new study has shed some light on the issue.
To no one’s surprise, the survey conducted by PSB Insights for MassMutual Retirement Solutions showed that money is one of the key indicators of happiness! That may be a bit of an overstatement, but it’s important to point out that only people with over 50,000 in savings were polled. About 82% of the participants who are already retired reported that they feel much more relaxed on a daily basis. The easy conclusion with this data can lead anyone to believe that the key to happiness in retirement is having enough in the bank and a steady stream of money flowing in. When you have that, and you remove the worries of a daily work life, most people will feel happy.
This simple conclusion, however, is not all that the data shows. In fact, one of the investigation’s concerning elements has to do with people in their pre-retirement years. Of those polled, up to 77% expected to be much happier once they finally didn’t have to go to work every day. This “boost” of happiness only found about 65% of those people. While that’s still a decent number that can indicate that, in fact, retired life is more pleasing, it may also show that people can’t expect a massive shift in their lives to occur. Particularly right after calling it quits from their day job.
If having enough money in the bank is the key to happiness post-retirement, then it should be no surprise that financial planning pre-retirement will be equally as important. Ironically, though, only 30% of those polled in the study attributed their financial well-being to the fact that they worked with a qualified advisor pre-retirement. Still, the number of people in pre-retirement ages currently working with a financial adviser has jumped to 41%.
Retirement is also not necessarily the end of someone’s work life – at least, it doesn’t have to be. A third of the people polled mentioned that they are certainly planning on scaling back their work hours when they decide to retire. However, their aim is to pursue passion projects that they may not have been able to fully invest their time in yet.
The key takeaway from all of this information is that financial stability is king. That’s what will weigh heaviest when evaluating if retirement is a happy stage of life or not. While many people do experience a spike in “happiness” when they retire, that may not be the case for everyone. One of the more concerning facts is that over 30% of people in the late pre-retirement stages feel they are falling behind. Yet less than half of those people are actively seeking help from a financial adviser. It’s better late than never, but anyone in their early 40s reading this may want to start really early!
