Our Biggest Retirement Mistakes - How To Avoid Them

for all our long-term viewers you might actually notice that here we are back in our old YouTube Studio we're back in the dining room this is where it all began yes it is so anyways we just absolutely love these video sessions that we do we do and we're so grateful to all of you for joining us we do look forward to this every week we do so what are we going to talk about today team I Think It's gotta be some of those lessons we've learned Norm that perhaps we'd have been better off if we'd have known before we retired part of our story and we've touched on a few points of this in the past but the the real story is I retired between 54 and 55 from my main career as a sales representative I was self-employed a sales agent being a representative for multiple manufacturers selling to retailers Tina was a sales representative as well working for a company selling computer supplies to the federal government in Ottawa and various other high-tech companies at 55 I'd had it I'd had enough of selling on the road the the industry was changing and it just wasn't fun anymore and selling always used to be fun for me so the photography that I was doing stock photography stock video had replaced my salary so I didn't have to drive around 50 to 60 000 kilometers every year to to earn a living it I had a studio at home we used to photograph in the studio as well as on location as well at that point Tina should have retired but at the time it was a huge step for you wasn't it yeah it was um I will be honest and I couldn't see us being retired I couldn't personally see myself in this retirement um new chapter of our life uh it was funny because I always thought that it was just old people that retired and I didn't think that I was old in my mid-50s I thought we you know went to West Hills you were still very charming and beautiful too so I didn't I couldn't visualize being retired that was the problem so yes I am to blame that we could have possibly retired maybe three years earlier had I been able to see us retired because she couldn't what we're really trying to share is there is a mindset it's not fear of retirement it's not the fear of losing your career losing your identity it's a mindset that you have to be able to accept yourself and I easily could do it because I'd be in a sales rep since I was 18 years old on the road selling and loved every minute of it and until I didn't Tina I think you felt you still had more to offer didn't you yeah yeah it it was the timing just didn't feel right for me I thought I could do more things um and but once we had had the conversation about retiring and I sort of gave us a sort of two-year window wasn't it so mentally I managed to picture it when we put the house up for sale and it did take us about 18 months to sell the house so that fitted in with me mentally accepting it all in hindsight looking back from where we are now as being retired seven years um in hindsight we should have done it but we didn't and so we're really just trying to warn you that the money was never going to be an issue for us because we'd already since our early 20s always regarded the house as being our retirement savings plan so it was no big deal to sell it we we conditioned ourselves all those years in the end we'd sell the house and retire and we did that so we could have done that three years earlier it wasn't the money that was holding Tina back it was the mental process of Crossing that boundary from being in the workforce to being not in the workforce I'm bearing in mind Tina and I had been working ever since we left school yeah we definitely did our Fair show of working didn't we it was a it was a long long ingrained career so we're just saying to you be careful about wasting those good years of retirement if you can retire at 55 56 57 and the numbers will work for you do it because those are vital years you're healthy you're ready to travel or do whatever you want to do and that that kind of brings us back to the fact that now we're going to get a lot more back into traveling aren't we Norm we are and no and the one thing that we um one of our secret weapons to planning these trips is to use a VPN and we use nordvpn to do the research so when we go on booking.com or Airbnb VRBO looking for accommodation in Portugal for the winter time we use it through a VPN and then they're no longer able to track us or put a cookie on our computer which locks in the price that they previously quote this is especially good for cruises because Cruise companies have Dynamic pricing depending on how many bookings per hour per day they get they adjust the price if it's going bad they reduce the price if it's going good they increase it not VPN is your secret weapon that they cannot see the price they quoted you in any of the cookies that they put on the tracking cookies to your computer and I think another thing too Norm is we like the security often when we're away we'll log into our banking will we but we have to we're away so long yeah so if there's the Odd Bill we need to make sure that gets paid or we need to check things it gives it gives us that extra security knowing that with the VPN we feel a lot safer don't we we do indeed and if you um like us have multiple devices we have iPads we have laptops we have a streaming device that we stream our TV through which is the Nvidia Shield we can put a link to that in the description um it's an app that will go down you download on each one of those and gives you an added level of protection and if you'd like to try nordvpn they're very generously going to give you a 30-day trial for free and if you don't like it you can get your money back so nothing to lose but everything to gain so thanks nordvpn for sponsoring this video we only have one cutting yes we do norm and it's no big deal is it none whatsoever and what a little bit of advice would be we should have got rid of our second car a lot earlier you're probably getting the impression uh around about now that we're procrastinators yes and you do and you'd be right it kind of takes us we come up with the idea but it actually takes us a long time to follow through with the idea so we did downsize as Tina said our house took around 18 months to sell it was out in the countryside so we had 18 months to downside um it was it it wasn't long enough we thought we did a great job in downsizing but we didn't no we brought way too much stuff with us to the apartment and one of the things we should have downsized was the car yeah although it was handy in the move Norm because as well as the removal van we filled both cars with stuff and we drove down didn't we and one of them was a big SUV and that was packed to the gills but we yeah we should have got rid of one and it and then the time we moved in here it took us what probably nearly 18 months to decide the second car has to go once we'd got rid of it things worked out a lot better and you saved so much money it it works it's just one of those things that do you need it or do you want it and we felt we didn't need it anymore um and I knew having two cars became more of a problem we would have to rent two parking spaces in the apartment yeah one would have to keep moving the other out before that's right so yeah get rid of that extra car and you're doing your bit to save the environment too yes you are driving less I think another thing to know one of the biggest things that we probably didn't do quick enough was getting rid of the debt before we retired we did have debt and we did get rid of it with the sale of the house but it's again it's a process that if you can look into in sort of the two or three years coming up to retirement actively get rid of that debt is a big thing I think I I think we should have looking back yeah uh to that age if I was 55 and 10 is two years younger than me we should have worked harder at paying debt down than we did we we got rid of the mortgage which was a great achievement but the line of credit was there that was um yeah and that was all incurred primarily maintaining the house yeah we had to put a new roof on new garage doors that sort of stuff you get the idea um we we should have started spending less consuming Less in our mid 50s and putting that money towards debt repayment we should have maybe gone to Costco less yeah and still buying consumable items we've learned our lesson now in retirement yeah yeah Tina came up the other day uh just saying is it something we need or is it something we want like that it's uh a great way of deciding whether you need it or not I want a new camera is it a need or a what no I think it's a one one last thing I think is um time and everybody is so focused on having to save enough money getting the biggest nest egg and things like that oh that's the million dollar Nest Egg but it it's a myth that is not true you need to concentrate more on what is going to be the monthly amount of money that you need and that can come from Canada pension plan from Social Security old age pension British pensions if you work there any of those income streams that come in per month that's what I think you really need to focus more on that's what we firmly believe having been retired for these seven years we see the key which we never saw prior to retirement is income first yeah Capital second yeah because believe it or not we haven't touched our capital other than a few trips um early on in retirement we haven't taken any of the house money as income we get enough income from our Canadian pension plan our old age pension plan and our British pension old age pension and we make do on that for daily living it clears our rent it pays our food yeah and we think you need to put more emphasis onto where's your income coming from and how much is it going to be rather than having this isoteric belief that you need one million 1.5 million 2 million if you do that you'll never have enough in your own mind I think you'll always be chasing is it enough chasing unicorns but chasing it it never will be enough because you'll find another reason to say oh it's not enough we need to work one more year and you will take away those precious years and that time that you can't buy back and yeah those healthy years as well because you can't buy your health back no anyway thanks for watching bye-bye

Channel: This Is Our Retirement

Views: 63,277

Keywords: retire, retirement, baby boomers, retirement travel, retirees, retirement lifestyle, retirement planning, this is our retirement, retirement fear, norm and tina, norm and tina retirement, retirement mistakes, retire early, retirement budget, how to retire

Id: y2mvf7dc6Sc

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023