How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free
As many people have said before, retirement can be a challenging life transition, either financially or personally. Many people have lots of time on their hands, but way too little money. Others have lots of money, but don't know what to do with their time.
Of the thousands of books you can read about retirement, most focus on the financial aspects of retirement. One really focuses completely on how to prepare for retirement and what to do in retirement.
"How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor" by Ernie Zelinski
Regardless of your financial means, this book can help you enhance your retirement. Generally speaking, the key to a happy retirement is not to spend a lot more money. The key, instead, is to select enjoyable activities that allow you to get by on the money that you presently have.
One of the activities in the book is creating a "Get a Life Tree". The link is to an example that can be useful in getting started. There are literally hundreds of activities that you can put on your tree. There are over 300 activities listed in the book alone. Get started by drawing out a ’tree’ with branching ideas of leisure activities that you like to do now, liked doing in the past and ones you would like to try. You can add on additional main branches to your tree for areas you specifically want to focus like - like travel or physical activities. Additional categories can be added like activities you can do by yourself, ones to do with others, free activities, ones for a short time frame vs. ones to do at a future point in time, etc. Before long you will notice that your tree is very large, giving you may options in the future.
It’s a great exercise to figure out the things you want to do in your free time. You can make a tree regardless if you are 30, 50 or 70 years old. The really fun part is putting your ideas into action. Regardless of which ideas are on your tree, just get out and enjoy your retirement!