According to some Government stats that I saw recently, the expected average age of retirement for people who are now under the age of 55 will be 74.
Average life expectancy is just over 78. This means that many Brits will, for the foreseeable future, work until they die, most out of financial necessity, some, a combination of preference and financial requirements.
At a recent conference I was at, a leading financial expert told a room full of dentists to add eight to ten years to their anticipated retirement target. The same is true in many other professions and fields.
BIG TIP: Don’t be part of this crowd.
My good friend and EC member, Graham Rowan is much more knowledgeable about these things than I – and he writes more eloquently too, but there’s no escaping the facts. Fifty years ago, in the mid 60s, less than 20% of people retiring were truly financially secure. What’s amazing is that in 2014, fifty years later, that fact has not changed. In fact, it’s got worse because the retirement age has now been pushed from 65 to 74. But look at what’s happened in those fifty years: We’ve had all kinds of technology breakthroughs. There’s greater than ever access to information, education and training. More and more tax payers’ money is being poured into education. The internet has erased start up barriers for second incomes of home based business and, it’s provided ready made money making platforms like eBay and Amazon. Smart phones have put the ability to conduct business, operate globally, trade shares, etc, in the palm of peoples’ hands. We have invested trillions in welfare, raised the minimum wage, made Universities much more accessible.
Whichever way you look at it, it’s many, many times easier to get ahead financially now than it was thirty, forty or fifty years ago.
Inflation adjusted money, air travel, cars and definitely “how to” education of every type are much, much cheaper now than they were in the 70s, but with all this the success and failure statistics are stubbornly unaffected. Arguably there is more financial distress.
Ever wondered how this can be?
Why and how, given all this “progress” can people’s financial wellbeing have got worse?
I think there is a profoundly simple answer: People’s quality of thinking is poorer and their behaviour is worse. They get what they themselves cause.
It was Dan Kennedy who taught me the fundamental premise that “Whatever thinking or behaviour you see embraced by the majority, you must opt out of it, reject it and avoid it like the plague”.
To deny this would be to deny the economic facts, which is why I’m so glad that I’m an entrepreneur with full control of my own destiny.
What happens to me and my family, when, where and how well I retire is down to how I think and what I spend my time doing. And, for me, I find that hugely liberating and I know that you probably do too…
That’s why it’s the final word.
