Retirement never gets old

Two mock ads. Opposite points of view. Head-to-head. Which is better? That's The Pitch - part of Aussie TV show Gruen.

The ads are just for fun, but the topics are real. The latest episode focuses on retirement. Hiring more elderly workers versus compulsory retirement at 65.

Here's the ad in favour of retirement.

It features retired people making (pretend) regretful statements about work. None of which are in the least bit convincing - especially when said while the person is enjoying their post-work life.

"I wish I'd spent more time at work"
"I'd kill for a conference call."
"I miss my emails"
"What I'd give for one more rush hour"

The ad ends with the slogan "Retirement never gets old". While it's talking about retirement at 65, the same point could be made for 60, 55, 50, etc.

For many the only reason to continue as far as 65 is monetary. Basically, we spend too much money on questionable purchases along the way. As a result, we need to keep working in our older years to re-earn the wasted money.

Give ourselves a gift

While we might get some joy from our current-day purchases, it's worth asking if they are worth the pain that our 65-year-old self will go through in the future to earn back that lost money.

Perhaps it's better to discover today the joy of less.

Less, or smaller, purchases give us less clutter in the here-and-now, and give our future selves the gift of an earlier retirement - less email, conference calls and rush hour traffic.

Comments

How to waste a year's wages

A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c

Don't dump on charities

Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot

This could all be yours

This cartoon kind of happened to me on the weekend. Joking about death My dad has his own unique sense of humour. Flippantly he joked that when he passes away, the first thing I'll need to do is get a rubbish skip (maybe two) and jam it full with all the junk from the garage. I was reminded of Marie Kondo, who says in her book that we have to deal with items either now or later; so it might as well be now. For people who have retired, I guess there's a third option: Ignore it for a few more decades and let descendants deal with it. Don't get me wrong - my dad has plenty of years left yet. But from his joke I'm guessing he's reasonably happy to let it all sit there while he enjoys retired life. Why not deal with it? I can kind of understand. It's an overwhelming task (even to look at). There's also the "I might need that" factor. Which is fair enough, but even if an item is needed, is it findable in amongst everything else? About half the

But wait... there's less!

Search This Blog