Getty Images
Welcome to ‘protirement’. The days of finishing your career and settling back to spend your twilight years knitting booties and playing bridge are over. Today, women in their 60s, 70s and beyond are redefining the way they live exploring new passions and continuing to make a contribution to the community—and often to the workforce too.
Here’s how to start planning the ultimate protirement, in five easy steps.
- Start a planning journal—a place to list your ‘some day’ ideas. Include pictures of places you’d like to travel, how you’d like your hoe to look, or your interests.
- Think about how you see your life in 10,20,30 years. Where are you living? How do you stay healthy? What are your hobbies? Are you working or not?
- List the things you enjoy doing. Do you do them now? Have work commitments edged out your hobbies? What have you always wanted to do but never really had time for?
- Pretend you’re a fly on the wall at your funeral. Is the life that you’re currently living on track with how you want to be remembered? If not, what can you do in the future to become that person?
- Draw up some budgets; the first should be your current budget, to look at where your money is going. Then think about the future; what isn’t in your current budget that you’d like to have in it? What can you do without? Do you need to supplement your income somehow? They’re the big questions that can make a big difference.
