Making your Retirement Bucket List
Planning out our retirement living is a big deal nowadays, and before we get into the details, let’s make sure everyone is aware of the most important detail; money. Having a bucket list full of things you want to do, and places you want to travel won’t do much good if you can’t afford to do any of it. This is why planning for retirement living beforehand is so important. However, just as important is trying to figure out how you will fill all that time you will have.
After all, a person retiring in fairly good health at the age of 65 means they have a great chance of living until at least age 85, or much longer. That means at least 20 years, or 7300 days of retirement living that you will want to fill with meaningful, fun and exciting activities. You could always choose to spend your retirement living being bored out of your mind, but where’s the fun in that?
BUCKET LIST
This is the time when your own Bucket List comes into play and helps to plan out your retirement living. What is a Bucket List? Well, most of us have seen that movie, “The Bucket List,” but if you haven’t, a Bucket List is merely a list drawn up consisting of things we want to do before we “kick the bucket.” However, retirement living should be rewarding, and there is no need to procrastinate until our later years.
Ideally, you would have created this list of 25-30 different things you want to do long before you retire. If you have already retired, it still isn’t too late to draw one up. The first thing to take into account is time, and how much retirement living time you will devote to each activity.
You could begin your retirement living with the more extreme activities like skydiving, scuba diving off the coast of Australia or navigating the Appalachian Trail. You can then add in some of the following:
• Taking up a different language
• Starting a business
• Taking musical lessons
• Running for a local office
• Residing in an exotic location
• Becoming a volunteer
• Taking a trip across the country
From there you will want to organize your retirement living activities, while figuring how much time you plan to spend on each. There are many things that can be done in conjunction with each other. Furthermore, if operating a business is on your to-do list for retirement living, keep in mind that online businesses require far less time commitment and can be much more fun.
BUCKET LIST FOR COUPLES
For couples, drawing up individual Bucket Lists can be very beneficial and very revealing as well. You may find upon comparing your retirement living lists that there are vast differences in what you each would like to do. Your retirement living years can be decades, and it makes sense to get these differences on the table upfront, so you can negotiate and work out the best retirement living Bucket List for both of you to share.
