7 Reasons to Never, Ever Retire (even if you can)

it would seem that the Holy Grail of Financial Freedom is the idea of early retirement there's an entire movement dedicated to the concept it's called fire financial Independence retire early we've talked about it on this channel and in fact many books have been written about it my own book retire before Mom and Dad has early retirement themes throughout but I've actually retired three times yeah three times and each time I've gone back to work and it's taught me that not only is early retirement not for everyone but I would argue that traditional retirement say at age 65 isn't for everyone either in fact my current plan is to never retire and what I'd like to do in this video if you'll give me a few minutes of your time is to walk through seven reasons or benefits if you will of never retiring I think it's a viable strategy that more of us should consider so let's get right to it the first one is simply this it's okay to keep working there's no rule that says you have to retire earlier or otherwise and yet we're kind of programmed to believe that retirement is this Nirvana that once we retire Our Lives can really begin we have complete control over what what we do we don't have to answer to a boss we don't have to commute to work and yes there are certainly some advantages to retiring but it's not quite that simple in fact a recent study that came out last year was called Financial regret at older ages and Longevity awareness released last November found that 37 percent of the retirees they surveyed actually regretted retiring when they did and yet the entire sort of system is aimed at getting us to retire if not early in our 60s we have social security we have Medicare and it's kind of been ingrained in us I think from our earliest years working that yeah that's just what you do you retire but well you don't have to and not everyone does and many people keep working not because they have to but because they want to and so the first of seven things I want to share with you is just simply this it's okay to keep working there's no rule that says you have to retire and there's no guarantee that you'll enjoy life more if you do retire now that brings us to number two and that is it's absolutely wonderful to get paid to do work that you love and here when I think about a person that sort of embodies this I think of Warren Buffett certainly someone that probably doesn't have to work he's in his 90s and worth about 100 billion dollars so he could probably retire if he wants to and yet he goes to work as the CEO of Berkshire every single day for a salary of one hundred thousand dollars I doubt he's doing it for the health benefits or the 401K matching he's doing it because he does work that he loves and I do work today that I love including this YouTube channel and other writing online and it happens to pay the bills and in some ways for me that is an ideal situation to get paid to do work that you love and in my case it's not the career I started out with and spent 25 years in I was a lawyer well I don't I'm not a lawyer anymore in fact I have no desire to continue practicing law but that's one of the nice things about getting to that age where you have some level of financial Independence is you can keep working but it doesn't mean you have to stay in your career you could do something entirely new in fact my mom was a teacher for many many years now she's retired she still works and she's still in that field but she's a substitute teacher it gives her a lot of freedom she works when she wants to she doesn't work if she doesn't want to it's a perfect example of continuing to get paid for work that she loves to do and so that's the the second benefit of never retiring if you can find work that that pays you and that you love doing to me that is an ideal situation the third reason to consider never retiring is that I think it's much easier today find work that you love that's lifestyle friendly now this may or may not be important to you go back to Warren Buffett he seems to like going into the office every single day I'm not sure that would be something that I would like to do I prefer a lifestyle friendly work like I do here where I can work from home I can work from anywhere where there's an internet connection I can choose to work one day and not work the next if I don't want to or work for just a couple of hours a day if that's what I choose to do but there are more and more opportunities to earn an income in a lifestyle friendly way that I think is very consistent with the idea of retirement I don't think anyone would consider me retired my business pays for our living expenses but frankly I feel retired I feel like I have all of the freedom in the world to do pretty much what I want when I want to do it and I think that's becoming more and more available particularly with the kind of online businesses that are available out there today again it's not the only way to continue working but I think it's one way that makes working later in life frankly very enjoyable number four and this is really important is that we get a lot of our social contact and social networks from our work of course it's not the only way uh to have to have friends but a lot of our friends come from our profession and our work and I think when folks retire they they often lose that that social network and it becomes a big issue in retirement in fact there was one study in the Journal of economic behavior and organizations it was actually published this year and it actually looked at a new pension program that was set up in China to help ease the economic burden of retirement that's certainly a good thing but there was a surprising result they said that participants in this this program this pension program reported substantially lower levels of social engagement with significantly lower rates of volunteering and social interaction than non-beneficiaries those those people in China that didn't have this uh pension program it's certainly something to think about before you retire again I'm not suggesting we keep working just for the the friendship and the social networks but I do think for many people myself included it's an important part of the work we do we get a lot of benefits from our work Beyond just a paycheck and social networks can be one of them and that kind of leads into the the fifth benefit of never retiring and that is cognitive and it actually relates to the social networks that we often have through our work that same study out of China said or concluded we find that increased social isolation is strongly linked with faster cognitive decline among the elderly and this is something that I've seen reported many many times you know folks retire they lose their social network they're not engaged cognitively the same way they were when they were working and they they experience pretty significant cognitive decline uh as a result in fact there was a 2021 study here in the United States and it was out of the SSM population Health journal and here's what it found they said our findings suggest that postponed retirement is beneficial to cognitive function listen to this for all genders races ethnicities education levels and regardless of professional or non-professional occupational status clear implication is that the more recent cohorts who have an older statutory retirement age May indeed enjoy an enduring protective effect of postpone postponed retirement against cognitive decline in other words you keep working you stay sharp now again it's not the only way to stay sharp and maybe you can find something in retirement that replaces those cognitive challenges that you experienced with your work very important if you do decide to retire but I've found that working even this YouTube channel keeps me cognitively sharp at least as sharp as I've ever been which may not be that sharp but I'm working with what I've got it does keep you focused it keeps your mind active and working and I think that's a huge benefit of never retiring all right the sixth reason is for the money now this doesn't mean you have to work full time in fact even a part-time job I think can go a long way not only for all of the other reasons we've just described but to earn a little extra income you know we talk a lot about safe withdrawal rates on this channel and sort of the uh the one that most people are familiar with is the four percent rules if you had a million dollars saved you could spend forty thousand dollars in the first year of retirement well having even a part-time job and making five or ten thousand dollars a year even for someone with a million dollars saved can go a long way in either spending a little bit more money each year or protecting that safe withdrawal rate in case maybe the markets turn out to uh be worse than we've ever experienced in the past and so even small amounts of money can go a long way in sort of Shoring up your retirement resources and that's true even if you don't work forever maybe you just work into your 70s or 80s why not if you can that extra money can go a long way all right the the seventh and final reason to never retire is to make a difference now of course you don't have to keep working to make a difference you can volunteer maybe you make a difference within your family very important but I also think if we're doing work that we love we can make a difference in other people's lives I I like to think that this channel makes a difference in the lives of people that watch it maybe I'm thinking a little too much of my own YouTube channel but I hope I helped a lot of people that certainly a goal of this Channel and it feels good when I get an email from someone that says hey I was really struggling with a retirement issue or a financial investing issue and your video helped me work through that that's a good feeling to help other people and I think if you've got a certain skill or talent that allows you to do something that makes you money but also helps other people I can't think of anything better than that that's terrific and another great reason to never retire look at the end of the day we each have to make our own decisions about what's best for us for you it may be early retirement it may be a traditional retirement I guess the big takeaway from today's video is that maybe you also consider either never retiring or working much later than a traditional retirement as I've walked through in this video I think there are a lot of benefits for doing that so there you go those are seven reasons why maybe you should never retire if you have any questions or comments leave them below this video be happy to help you out any way I can until next time remember the best thing money can buy is not early retirement Financial Freedom

Channel: Rob Berger

Views: 63,356

Keywords: never retire, retire, early retirement, retirement, financial freedom

Id: 2QOGNOhN35o

Length: 11min 28sec (688 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 11 2023