Going Back to Work After Retirement?

Retirement is a time to kick back and relax after years of hard work. It can also be a time when you realize that while you may not want to return to your previous job or career, you do want to be productive, and you might miss a daily routine and a regular paycheck. It’s fairly common for people to retire and then discover they need or want to find an enjoyable way to fill their time.

There are a variety of reasons this happens. It can be difficult to get accustomed to being home full time if you’ve had a long career or are hardwired to wake up, fill your travel mug and commute. Having someone to talk to besides your spouse or pet is another reason you might decide to jump back into the job market. If you go back to work and your personal or financial situation changes, you can always retire again!

Of course, there are benefits to post-retirement gigs. Consider the following:

• Working full time or part time enables you to slow down but remain productive by either fulfilling a passion, starting a business you’ve always dreamed of, or volunteering, which could potentially lead to a paid position.
• There’s nothing wrong with getting a part-time job or even going back to work full time, whether it’s for personal or financial reasons.
• Post-retirement jobs/careers can provide you with more flexibility to do something you feel strongly about because you likely aren’t tied to as many financial requirements such as earning a certain salary or hourly wage.
• And for corporate executives the transition from having scheduled, structured days and monthly travel to having every day free can be more scary than liberating.
  
  

The truth is, it’s OK to return to work. And many Americans do; one in three say they would work past age 70.

• One way you can continue working is to stay in your current job and just reduce your hours. You can also work in retail, freelance, consult, or find seasonal or temporary work. Planning ahead and researching any certification requirements for your next move can be done while still working to make the transition easier. And you may find that your retirement savings won’t last as long as you thought or that you didn’t save enough, or start early enough. That’s when you will need to take stock of what kind of retirement you can afford.

Don’t forget to complete a financial roadmap. Theresa Becker, CFP®, Vice President/Financial Planning Officer at Rockland Trust Bank, advises people to be conscious of how much money they are spending in retirement and to have a financial plan in place before they retire.

• Theresa recommends creating a financial plan or roadmap by trying to look holistically at retirement goals.
  • Do you want to downsize? If you want to return to work, how long will you need the income stream for?
  • If you haven’t met with an advisor previously, you may not realize how much you’ll actually need.
• Because we are living longer, we all need more money to retire comfortably. The average life expectancy today is 84 so someone retiring at 65 can live more than 20 years. That’s a lot of extra cash for holidays, birthdays and dinners out with friends. In addition, medical and health care costs often increase in retirement. For instance, a room in a private nursing facility in Massachusetts is approximately $144,175 annually.
• Becker asks that you start by quantifying all of your expenses whether it’s on a monthly basis or quarterly.
  • One way to easily get a handle on monthly bills, especially if you pay online, is to download transactions into a spreadsheet and total them up.
  • Getting an annual report from a credit card company allows you to see categories of spending. You can also go through all of the uncategorized purchases to determine spending habits.
    
    

Whether working in retirement is out of choice or necessity, Rockland Trust Bank’s financial planners can help create a financial roadmap that provides guidance to meet your long-term needs and goals.