Retirement is not just about choosing a number on the calendar. The right retirement age can affect your finances, health, relationships, sense of purpose, and overall happiness.

Research and retirees’ experiences suggest that preparing for retirement involves much more than simply saving enough money.

From paying down debt and protecting your health to building meaningful relationships and finding purpose beyond your career, the years leading up to retirement can make a major difference in how you experience this next chapter of life.

How should I think about what’s the right age for me to retire?

1: Worries in retirement

Which of these causes the most concern when you think about retirement? And there are some gems in this list.

Money – about half of pre-retirees are concerned about this issue, compared to only one quarter of people who already retired.

So we are all so concerned, and rightly so, because is there enough money for me to retire? This is a good question, but there are so many more questions.

I believe our whole society has over-focused on this question, and we should be looking at other issues too. Health issues – look at what the statistics say.

Retirement boredom – about one quarter of pre-retirees are concerned about this issue.

2: Getting ready for retirement

But, so you know, the data is what it is, but I would caution you against putting too much importance on saving money.

I think that the probability of us having to cut back on expenses later in our life when we are not able to do things anymore will cause us to regret the times when we had our health, when we had our mental sharpness, and when it was easy to do certain things.

And the last thing I want to say before I dive into the age of retiring is that we must make sure we are happy in our retirement.

As a MassMutual study suggests, and I fully support that, it is important to focus on improving your financial and physical well-being before you retire.

And the third thing I would like to point out is that it is important to diversify your sense of purpose, which might sound confusing.

3: The ideal age to retire

Financial well-being, physical well-being, and broadening your sense of purpose are important since, for many of us, after working for 20, 30, or 40 years, a large portion of our identities are linked to our employment, which we must give up when we retire. This may be very difficult, especially for men.

I don’t want to be gender biased, but in my experience, guys find this more difficult.

I’ve definitely witnessed a lot of women struggle with this as well. I’ll just leave it there, though.

So when is the perfect age to retire? Now, again, this study by Mass Mutual surveyed a thousand people who are in retirement and a thousand people in pre-retirement.

And what they found in that study, when they asked retirees and pre-retirees, “What do you think is the perfect age to retire? On average, 63 is the ideal age of retirement according to that survey.

4: Financial planning

However, it is crucial that you remain with me in this article, as there are some more equally important findings in the study which I would like to tell you about.

The first one of them is that the retirees retired sooner than they had planned originally.

Sometimes it was due to the fact that they could afford to do so; however, sometimes it was due to the fact that they had some health problems or they were fired from work.

It is crucial that, in addition to planning for whatever age we will retire, we should also plan to retire at an even younger age if needed due to factors beyond our control.

The thing that I have found out and which I would like to tell you is that those retirees who have taken care of their finances and prepared themselves financially for at least 5 years before retirement are happier during their retirement.

5: Social health and purpose

Again, I would add to this list diversifying your sense of purpose, finding who you are outside of work.

But 61% of retirees who reported being much happier said that they worked to pay off their debt at least 5 years before retirement.

And I think that’s the key. I know it’s hard to do, but particularly if you can pay off your credit card debt and if you can pay off your mortgage before you retire.

And again, I know that’s hard to do, but it just takes this pressure off of your shoulders.

Sacrificing for three, four, or five years to make that happen, we’re just focusing on the things that bring you Joy and how you spend your money so that you can pay off those debts early.

I have seen that in my practice as well; that brings a lot of Joy, being able to free ourselves from the shackles of debt.

Okay, on the subject of Happiness, many retirees who are not happier in retirement admit to experiencing loneliness, and I think this is one of the key killers of joy in retirement.

There are really two key killers of Joy. One is that lack of purpose that we talked about earlier, but the other one is loneliness.

So let’s see what we can learn from that. Nearly half of retirees who are not happier in retirement agree that retirement has made them lonely at times, compared to just 16% who are much happier in retirement.

6: Expectations VS reality

And so this says it’s worth our time, it’s worth our effort, it’s worth the work that we put in to build relationships, to nurture new relationships, to rekindle old relationships – high school, college, maybe previous jobs for friends that we really enjoyed spending time with, but for whatever reason, we drifted apart.

So that’s something that I think many people would find, you know what? They’re really glad that they did that and they reconnected.

Okay, this, this now, I’m going to share with you two tables that I think have a lot of really good data.

The first one is: Which of the following are you most looking forward to in retirement? And they talk to pre-retirees, and then they talk to retirees.

And there’s one big takeaway that I want to share with you in here. You know, the travelling 34s of people are really looking forward to travelling. It’s about 60% of people who are in retirement who are looking forward to travelling. So there’s that Gap there.

I can tell you, as a retirement adviser, when I ask people what they plan on doing in retirement, there are three kinds of just easy answers that, when I hear them, trigger me to think, okay, let’s explore really what this person is planning on doing in retirement.

And the default answers are travelling, spending time with friends, family, and grandkids; that’s really the answer.

So, travelling, spending time with grandkids, and gardening – those are the three default answers.

And when I hear that, I think it’s probably worth us investing time to think more, more deeply, about what that person wants to do in retirement.

So travelling is the first one; the next one, let’s just go down. You can see this list: spending time with family and friends.

You can see pre-retirees and retirees. That’s about 65%. Having new experiences: pre-retirees, they’re much more interested in that than retirees.

Not working, of course, that’s what we’re going to look forward to. Interestingly, romance and dating, and then building a legacy. So those are, that’s that table.

7: The risk of boredom

The typical retiree watches television for more than thirty hours a week. I believe that none of us are thinking, “Gee, I’m really looking forward to watching a lot of television,” when we consider retiring.

Thus, it’s a sort of default. If we don’t plan, we’ll likely spend a lot of time doing that.

Therefore, if watching a lot of television is important to you, then don’t make plans since that’s what will happen.

However, it’s not for me or most others I talk to.

And that’s why planning and thinking about what we’re going to do in retirement is so important.

8: Joy and regrets

First, the fact that retirees are content in retirement is the study’s most significant finding.

Most retirees say they feel happier and more at ease now that they are retired. That is a significant discovery, in my opinion.

Additionally, only 8% of respondents claim to be less content in retirement. That’s useful information, and you should be aware of it while deciding when to retire.

It’s very likely that you will be relieved to be retired as soon as possible. The most prevalent regret among retirees is that they had not saved enough money.

I’m not surprised by that. The next is failing to look after their health. That, in my opinion, is also crucial. Additionally, they did not cut back on their spending.

9: Using spare time

But only around a quarter of pre-retirees have such a concern; that is 10 % points lower.

And only around 15%, only 1 in 7 pre-retirees, are concerned about boredom among those who have already retired.

Adjusting to a new identity, yes, frankly speaking, I’m surprised that it is just 16% of pre-retirees who have such a concern, and it gives me great pleasure to see that it is only 7% among the retirees.

Then social isolation is another issue that we need to be concerned with. We need to fight, we need to work, and we need to invest in order to ensure that doesn’t happen.

How do you plan on spending your time when you retire? We talked about travelling, but this is what I would like to present.

There’s exercising and spending time with your loved ones, but the main thing I would like to mention is watching movies and television.

About half of people before they retired said that, you know, that’s how they’re planning that’s SP.

Look at what the numbers are for actual retirees; it’s over 80%. Again, I shared about this earlier, but that’s the default.

That’s what happens if we don’t plan. I want you to have the richest, most enjoyable retirement possible.

So I just want to put that caution out there. At some point, we all have to worry about that; it’s the default on how we’re going to spend our newfound freedom.