Welcome to 50ButNotFinished – My Journey So Far
I just turned 53 and I feel like this has crept up on me almost from nowhere, it only seems like a couple of years ago that myself and my wife were having our kids and now all of a sudden we have a grandchild. This was a really big moment for as it started me thinking about my father, he loved my kids so much and would spend hours playing with them but then he passed away in his 50’s when my kids were still very young. At the time I thought it was a young age to go but now that I am in my 50s I realize just how young he was. This really got me thinking and for the first time in my life I actually started to think about how I want my life to be in the next 20 years and hopefully more.
I had always been reasonably fit and healthy as I played a lot of sport, I have a good income from my job too but unfortunately wasn’t very good at financial planning so hadn’t really looked too far forward. I have a pension that I started when I was very young but I hadn’t focused on it enough for it to be big enough to provide me the life I want in the future. When I sat down to think about what I wanted mine and my wife’s future to be like once we retired I came up with two main goals:
- Be Fit and Healthy enough to play with my grandchildren and to have an active retirement
- Be Financially able to take holidays and be able to do things we have wanted to do but never had the time
When I sat and looked at what I wanted I realized that while I was looking ok in some areas, there were other areas that would need a lot of work.
Health & Wealth: Preparing for a Fulfilling Retirement
Having worked in a senior management position for a lot of my career I knew that if something didn’t get planned then it usually didn’t happen and definitely not on time. So I decided to use the same strategies to plan for my retirement that I had used to help companies to grow and achieve targets. Once I started putting my plans together I was really surprised with what I found, both from a Financial and Health perspective. The biggest shock for me was finding out so many things that we take for granted and think are normal that actually don’t need to be like that and with a little effort can be improved massively.
- Health – Most people think that aching joints and a lack of mobility are normal as we get older but I have found that this is just not true and we can all grow into old age without feeling like we are made of stone. This is one of my biggest goals
- Wealth – If you come from a working class background like I do then most people think it is normal to struggle financially when we retire and leave our 9-5 employed job. This also isn’t true and I have already identified many different options to secure some financial independence that are not tied to an employed role
I was really happy with some of the things I have discovered but also a bit frustrated and even angry in some cases as to why this information is not more readily available and why we are still being told the same things we have been told for decades
Join the Community at 50butnotfinished.com
Once I started speaking to some friends and colleagues I realized that there are so many people in the same situation or worse than me, many of my friends are already struggling with various health issues even though they are only my age. Many more are actually scared of retirement as they say they only just get by now with a full time salary and are really worried about what will happen in a few years when they lose their jobs and have to rely on a government pension.
This encouraged me to start this platform as I wanted to do three things:
- Create some accountability on my actions – One of the best ways to ensure you do something is to tell people what you are going to do as this ensures you feel accountable and responsible for your own actions
- Share what I learn with others in similar situations and hopefully be able to help others to have a better life from 50 onwards
- Learn as much as I can – I am hoping that by sharing this with others I will get feedback from other like minded people and I will be able to learn from them.
Over the next few months I will be sharing as much as I can but if you have any feedback or ideas, platforms that you find useful or just want to share your findings please feel free to leave a comment below as I would love to hear what is working for you
Thanks for reading
Pete
E: xxxx