Balancing Life and Finances for a Fulfilling Retirement
About the Guest(s):
Amy Irvine is a seasoned financial advisor and the host of the "Money Roots" podcast. As a passionate advocate for holistic retirement planning, Amy leverages her extensive experience in financial advising to offer practical insights and strategies. Her focus spans beyond traditional financial security, embracing a wide view of retirement that includes health, relationships, personal growth, and community. She is known for helping clients design fulfilling retirements that are balanced across all facets of life.
Episode Summary:
In the latest episode of "Money Roots," hosted by financial expert Amy Irvine, listeners are invited to explore the multifaceted nature of retirement planning. Amy emphasizes the importance of balance in designing a fulfilling retirement. Rather than focusing solely on financial security, Amy argues for a holistic approach that considers intellectual engagement, health, relationships, and personal growth. This episode is crucial for anyone preparing for retirement or reevaluating their current retirement lifestyle.
Throughout this insightful episode, Amy discusses the "wheel of life" concept, encouraging her audience to set retirement goals across various aspects of life such as leisure, healthcare, personal growth, and community involvement. Key elements of a balanced retirement are dissected, providing listeners with a roadmap to assess and align their personal priorities. She emphasizes that retirement, being the longest vacation of one's life, should be meticulously planned to embrace a balanced and purposeful lifestyle.
Key Takeaways:
- Holistic Retirement Planning: Retirement planning should encompass more than just financial security, factoring in health, relationships, personal growth, and intellectual pursuits.
- Wheel of Life Approach: Amy introduces the wheel of life, which allows individuals to evaluate their engagement in various life facets, ensuring a balanced approach to retirement.
- Setting Goals Across Life Facets: She stresses the importance of setting goals for intellectual engagement, productive pursuits, leisure, healthcare, and community involvement to ensure a fulfilling retirement experience.
- Personal Growth and Engagement: Retirement is an opportunity for continued personal growth and learning, vital for maintaining intellectual sharpness and life satisfaction.
- Redefining Retirement: Whether you are approaching or revisiting retirement, it’s important to visualize and define what this stage should look like for personal fulfillment.
Notable Quotes:
- "Money can act as a tool for achieving goals in other areas of life, but financial security alone cannot bring about happiness."
- "Retirement is the longest vacation of our life. How do we want to spend that time?"
- "Each part of your life contributes to the quality of the life that you experience."
- "It's time to reevaluate, not just your financial portfolio, but your life portfolio as well."
- "Visualizing retirement: What does retirement look like for you?"
Resources:
- Retirement Visualization Worksheets: Amy provides listeners with worksheets to assist in visualizing their retirement goals.
- Visualize Your Retirement
- Personal Insights about Life Balance
Listen to the full episode to immerse yourself in the concept of balanced retirement planning and ensure your future is not only financially secure but also rich in personal fulfillment and growth. Stay tuned for more enlightening content from "Money Roots," where financial harmony and life satisfaction go hand in hand.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:This is Money Roots, the podcast where Amy Irvine and her team keep money conversations real, relatable and rooted in your goals.
Speaker B:Let's grow together.
Speaker A:Hello podcast listeners.
Speaker A:So glad to have all my Money Roots listeners back with me today as I continue this series on designing your retirement.
Speaker A:Today we're going to be talking about balance.
Speaker A:It's a big word.
Speaker A:Balance, balance and general is a big word.
Speaker A:We often think of retirement planning in terms of the financial factors that will provide us economic security in our retirement years.
Speaker A:For example, we analyze our retirement income sources, double check our company's retirement benefits, we reevaluate our insurance needs, and so on.
Speaker A:However, a successful and fulfilling retirement experience requires planning and preparation in all areas of life.
Speaker A:Money can act as a tool for achieving goals in other areas of life, but financial security alone cannot bring about happiness.
Speaker A:That we've heard that phrase money can't buy happiness.
Speaker A:It also can't bring good health and it can't be bring meaningful relationships and activities, life satisfaction, or even a sense of purpose.
Speaker A:So when we think about balance, think about different pieces of your life.
Speaker A:We do this with clients.
Speaker A:We have this wheel of life, we call it, whether it's when you're still working or whether it's when you've actually retired.
Speaker A:And we kind of check in with our clients just to see where they're at, somewhat on an annual basis with this.
Speaker A:But instead of sort of looking at everything financially based, we need to look at things from a standpoint of intellectual, intellectual engagement, productive pursuits, leisure and recreation, health care and physical fitness, close relationships, community and social relationships, home and location, personal growth and financial well being.
Speaker A:That's life.
Speaker A:That's the all the facets of life, right?
Speaker A:You can't look at one of those without looking at all these other things holistically, in our opinion, you can't.
Speaker A:So our lives both before and after retirement are multifari faceted.
Speaker A:We have to consider how the transition to retirement will affect all of those aspects of life that I just mentioned.
Speaker A:And again, just to repeat them, that's intellectual engagement, productive pursuits, leisure and recreation, healthcare and physical fitness, close relationships, community and social relationships, home and location, personal growth, and that financial well being component.
Speaker A:It is also important to set retirement goals for each life facet and to assess how your current status will affect the realization of those goals.
Speaker A:So what's going on within retirement?
Speaker A:It's not like we go in retirement and it's consistent.
Speaker A:Things happen over the course of our retirement.
Speaker A:If you think about it the way I've said in the Past retirement is the longest vacation of our life.
Speaker A:How do we want to spend that time?
Speaker A:We can continue to seek growth and development in each of those nine areas and strive for balance in a way that's, you know, like how what is important to us about our home, what is important to us?
Speaker A:Personal growth.
Speaker A:Because just because we're no longer in a quote unquote working environment doesn't mean that we don't want to continue to grow as people, doesn't mean that we don't want to continue to learn, doesn't mean that we don't want to continue to have intellectual engagement.
Speaker A:The following are characteristics of individual who prepare for challenges and opportunity of the future by improving and balancing those particular areas.
Speaker A:So if you think of intellectual engagement, this includes activities and educational opportunities that increase understanding, knowledge, skills and mental acuity.
Speaker A:You want to commit to being a life learner.
Speaker A:This is the type of person you are.
Speaker A:You're committing to be a life learner.
Speaker A:You're seeking informal or formal education opportunity.
Speaker A:You engage in regular intellectual stimulation and challenge that keeps the mind sharp.
Speaker A:You strive continually to strengthen problem solving skills, and you step outside the comfort zone to explore new topics and experience new challenges.
Speaker A:That's the type of person that is preparing for challenges within intellectual engagement.
Speaker A:I know for a lot of people stepping outside that comfort zone is really super uncomfortable, but it can stimulate a lot of intellectual engagement.
Speaker A:Now, if you're thinking about somebody who is productive pursuits focused, this can include paid or unpaid work.
Speaker A:So engaging in pain or volunteering activities that brings self worth to the table.
Speaker A:So you feel the benefits of the, the service that you're providing.
Speaker A:If you receive monetary, great.
Speaker A:I mean, if that's what you're looking for.
Speaker A:But it can also be intrinsic reward for the volunteering or the work that's performed.
Speaker A:And you seek to get a sense of purpose and accomplishment from the, the quote unquote fruits of your labor.
Speaker A:It also can help, like when you're thinking about bringing purpose to something or meaning to something, like productive pursuits can help with that personal sense of meaning.
Speaker A:You're giving back in a way that you've always wanted to, but maybe never had the time.
Speaker A:Now again, somebody who's seeking specifically or preparing for leisure and recreation, this includes activities for personal enjoyment and for refreshing the body, mind and spirit.
Speaker A:Now, you might be participating in hobbies and recreational activities that are based on personal interest.
Speaker A:What are those personal interests?
Speaker A:How do you define what are personal interests to you?
Speaker A:Not what somebody's telling you should be a personal interest, but what Are your personal interests.
Speaker A:And you would understand the importance of rest as well and leisure in creating a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Speaker A:You may want to enjoy time away from productive pursuits without feeling guilty or having all these loose ends hanging out there.
Speaker A:And leisure and recreation is, you know, having fun.
Speaker A:It's participating in those leisure activities of choice.
Speaker A:Again, not what somebody tells you need to do.
Speaker A:When you're thinking about healthcare and fitness, this includes medical and self care, good nutrition and exercise.
Speaker A:It's really important.
Speaker A:When you think about several different areas, it's medical and dental.
Speaker A:I mean I.
Speaker A:If you've read any studies, dental care actually ties back to many, many medical care related, I guess incidents, if you want to call it that, or medical diagnosis.
Speaker A:You want to seek professional medical and dental dental care on a regular basis.
Speaker A:You want to exercise regularly to feel good, look good, to protect and improve your health and your fitness, choose foods and promote feeling that promote feeling good, looking good and protecting against health and fitness.
Speaker A:You may have more time to be more selective.
Speaker A:Maybe you spend some time going to some of the local markets, especially in the summertime.
Speaker A:I know a lot of places will have some nice little markets that you can get fresh produce from even in the wintertime.
Speaker A:You can find that in some places.
Speaker A:And you might be somebody who seeks to control stress and reduce stress producing circumstances that can compromise good health and fitness.
Speaker A:For those looking to grow in close relationship, this includes one's inner circle of family, friends and colleagues.
Speaker A:You may be thinking of places placing high priority on nurturing those relationships, spending the time with those people.
Speaker A:How do you build that in for balance?
Speaker A:And you may possess the ability to communicate, interact effectively or work on, you know, increasing that effective communication skill skill.
Speaker A:You also probably are somebody who develops satisfying and evolving interpersonal relationships.
Speaker A:If this is an area that's really highly important to you, you're going to be looking at how do I spend the time and how do I give back as much as I get from the relationship.
Speaker A:Somebody who's looking for community and social relationships like that's a higher priority on their balance scale.
Speaker A:This includes formal and informal networks, social circles, associations and affiliations that provide a sense of belonging and opportunities.
Speaker A:Social interaction and contribution could be informal or formal affiliations with individuals and groups that share similar interests, needs or goals.
Speaker A:It develops a helps you develop a network of relationship and community members, service providers and professionals.
Speaker A:And to continue that relationship, especially once you leave the working community, because a lot, you know, that is your community, that is a portion of your community.
Speaker A:So once you leave that community Community, you're still going to have connections with some of those people, but not at the same level.
Speaker A:You're certainly not going to engage with them every single day.
Speaker A:So it's like, it's that opportunity to grow a different community and social relationship and to seek to give back or contribute, either local, national, or global.
Speaker A:And, you know, how.
Speaker A:How do you draw that in and how do you actually work within the resources that are available to you?
Speaker A:Now, if you're somebody who really values home and location is one of your top priority.
Speaker A:And when I say balance, like to be balanced, you may need to spend a little more time and focus there in order to bring you balance.
Speaker A:So this includes the type of housing, the ambiance of the house, and the geographic location.
Speaker A:This is somebody that makes housing and location decisions that are financially sound and not in conflict with other retirement goals often, too.
Speaker A:And you could choose the physical and emotional needs, needs could be supported, as well as other lifestyle goals if this is your top priority.
Speaker A:One thing that's really important for a lot of people that focus on home and location is that it creates a personal environment that is aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker A:So it's not just, you know, a home, like, it's not just a place to live, but it's.
Speaker A:You walk in, like for some people when they walk into their home.
Speaker A:When you've walked into their home, you think, oh, my goodness, this is just so warm and comfortable.
Speaker A:It's aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker A:It reflects personal interest and taste.
Speaker A:I mean, you actually get to know the person when you walk into their home.
Speaker A:And from a personal growth perspective, maybe be thinking about your, you know, just thinking, what makes me happy?
Speaker A:Not what makes other people happy, but what makes me happy.
Speaker A:It's the emotional health, the character development, personal insight, and the spiritual growth.
Speaker A:So much of our life, we think, you know, we should be doing this or we should be doing that.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And sometimes we have to take a step back and say, but what am I happy doing?
Speaker A:So if personal growth is an area that you really want to focus on, you know, that's something that you're going to have to.
Speaker A:You're going to have to look at maybe a little bit differently.
Speaker A:A lot of people that want to focus on personal growth or when they do focus on personal growth, they're looking at it from the bright side, you know, views.
Speaker A:How do things look good?
Speaker A:Even when there's a situation that happens, what's the bright side of that situation?
Speaker A:There's the glass half full, glass half empty.
Speaker A:Well, people that are really focused on personal growth to do well at it, in my opinion, need to be looking at things genuinely optimistic and strive to be a better person.
Speaker A:I mean we're not perfect, not one of us, but we can try to continue to be better people, live with better supporting personalities or meaning and purpose and make contributions.
Speaker A:Making a difference, that's something that's really important to people that are focused on personal growth.
Speaker A:And finally, financial well being.
Speaker A:This includes money beliefs, knowledge and behavior.
Speaker A:For people that are looking to grow their balance within financial well being.
Speaker A:Some of the things that you can do is explore the roots of any personal money attitudes and belief or understand basic financial principles and terminology.
Speaker A:Now that you might have more time available to you or this might if you're still working, working and you're thinking about these things, focusing on these and making that a little bit more where your time is spent to help you balance other things in your life.
Speaker A:You know, expanding on financial knowledge is really important.
Speaker A:So and then also communicate, communicating confidently and effectively with all of your providers and your family members.
Speaker A:Your overall quality of life means different things for different people.
Speaker A:Each person definition is unique.
Speaker A:But the important, important thing to realize is that your life is multifaceted and each, each part of your life contributes to the quality of the life that you experience.
Speaker A:So it's, you know, it's not just one thing.
Speaker A:As I went down through they're all collectively sections of your life.
Speaker A:And I always say that it's a great time to sit down, put value in in where your you want to be spending your time.
Speaker A:So it's an investment in your own life.
Speaker A:It's, it's time to reevaluate, reevaluate and rebalance not just your financial portfolio but your life portfolio as well.
Speaker A:I'm going to include in the show notes a little practice sheet that is about personal insights about life balance similar to what I have provided in the past with other other podcasts of this series and I'm also going to include include one about visualizing retirement.
Speaker A:So if you're not in retirement I want you to start thinking about visualizing retirement.
Speaker A:What does retirement look like for you?
Speaker A:So those are two things that I will put in the show.
Speaker A:Notes to links that you can fill out to documents that you can fill out just getting you thinking about what do you want your retirement to look like.
Speaker A:If you're in retirement then you can be redefining what it looks like like and if you're not there yet it can be defining what you think it might look like and know that it can change as you change in life.
Speaker A:Thanks everyone for listening.
Speaker A:We hope that you've enjoyed this podcast and this series that I've been working on.
Speaker A:If you have any questions or want to explore this further, hop on over to our website, and if you're not a client of ours, certainly feel free to schedule a discovery call and we can talk to you more about this.
Speaker A:If you know somebody that you think might enjoy this podcast, feel free to share.
Speaker A:We'd love for you to share with your network and see if they get as much value out of it as you do.
Speaker A:Thank you again, everyone, and we hope that you have time to do these wonderful worksheets that we're providing and or reach out to us for us to assist you with them.
Speaker A:Thanks again.
Speaker B:Thanks for listening to Money Roots.
Speaker B:Until next time, keep your finances grounded and your future growing.
