Retirement News : Seniors : Choose your own path to retirement

Choose your own path to retirement

Date Added: 11-04-2005

Retirement: Nothing brings on the panic more than wondering what you will do with all that time on your hands and less money in your pocket.

At the start of the new millennium, I was entering my 50s. Even though I knew that at some point during the coming decade I would be faced with the question of retirement, like many people in my age group, I was not actively planning for it.

However, a decision I made in the late fall of 2001 forced me to think about my options. I had decided to leave the Toronto firm where I had worked for three years as a senior audit manager to return to Montreal.

I knew that as the twentysomethings inundated the business world with their computer savvy and boundless energy, I would be facing an upward struggle to stay competitive while looking for a new job. At the top of my earnings potential, there was the very real threat of outpricing myself in the job market.

The possibility of landing a full-time job only to be eased out of it in a few years either by mandatory retirement or through layoffs of more expensive, senior workers was not appealing. I did not want my retirement decision to be made by anyone other than me.

But after having spent practically all my adult life in the work force, the thought of leaving it permanently seemed to me almost like jumping off the end of a cliff.

There was another option, however: something more like gliding down a gentle slope.

I decided to plan a gradual retreat from full-time work by switching to contract work. A happy retirement is all about managing time and money.

In my close circle of friends, almost all of whom are 50-plus, I have watched as some of them struggled to add meaningful time to their days after retirement. Others were trying to cope with money shortages as they tried to downsize without a rehearsal of how to do it.

The key to my obtaining and successfully completing contracts with the chartered accounting firms that I had worked for was to use the networks that I had built up over the years as well as my technical and people skills that I had honed during my professional career as a chartered accountant.

Some of the things I've learned about contract work are:

I call up people in the higher echelons of the corporate structure who are decision makers, which eliminates several rungs of decision making. I also encourage word-of-mouth recommendation from partners and principals of the accounting firms that know me, which increases the comfort level of the officials of the company contracting my services.

I only accept assignments within my expertise so that I do not have to learn on the company's time.

I learned that my people skills and my ability to work as a team member are far more valuable than my technical skills. People where you work on contract can either help you complete an assignment efficiently or sabotage your work.

I bill regularly and in small amounts rather than submitting one big invoice at the end of an assignment, which takes the hassle out of collecting for services rendered and has smoothed out my cash flow.

I stay in contact with the companies and firms that have used my services. This keeps me on their radar screens and has gotten me repeat assignments.

I pick and choose the job assignments that come my way. For example, I usually do not accept out-of-town assignments or ones that entail a long daily commute. By doing this, I feel more in control of my time.

It hasn't been easy sticking to my plan. On three occasions, I have been offered full-time jobs as a controller. But no matter how tempting the offer, I stayed focused on my goal to glide my way into retirement. Accepting offers would have put me back on the edge of that cliff.

As I slide into retirement, I have found that time is like an accordion. When I worked full-time, the accordion opened about 80 per cent on my workday and the rest of my life was tightly compressed into the remaining 20 per cent. I did this long enough that I was ready to switch those numbers and make my life all about the 80 per cent.

I'm not there yet. I now work full-time five or six months of the year and I am gradually opening the space on the rest of my life and finding that my priorities are changing.

When I began my glide into retirement, I loved to say that I had given up 50 per cent of my income for 100 per cent of my health.

The migraine headaches that plagued me during my career mercifully stopped. To combat them, I used to use a mix of medication and massages that had cost me upward of $200 a month. Today, I go for a long walk every morning, earning health benefits that are almost staggering and cost nothing.

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