Derek Coburn argues that retirement planning focuses too much on money and too little on relationships. Working until 75 instead of 65 can slash your required monthly savings from $2,400 to a fraction of that. Start building the life you want now, not when you stop working.
People spend so much time focused on, well, I have enough money to retire, and they think about where they're going to be at financially in retirement. They don't spend any time thinking about who do I want to retire with? Who do I want to spend time with?
Derek Coburn is an entrepreneur, community builder, and author of Let's Retire Retirement. He built and sold a thriving financial advisory practice, co-founded Cadre, a premier network for top entrepreneurs, and now challenges the way we think about success and retirement, showing people how to design lives so rich they'll never want to retire from them.
I would say, what do you want What do you want to do when you retire? And they would say, I want to travel the world with my spouse. And the couple, they're sitting right here in front of me. And I would say, wonderful. When was the last time you two went out on a date? And they would just look at each other. I want to be wherever my grandkids are. I was like, all right, how often are you home at dinner? Like with your kids right now? When is this going to happen? Why don't we start trying to do more of this now? I want to help people realize that they shouldn't opt into this idea where they're supposed to sacrifice their health, their happiness, their relationships in the name of saving a lot of money so that they can one day get back to do that. I want to show them that once they realize they'll probably want to be working longer than what currently thinking, that means they don't have to save as much. And then that means they have more money and more time they get to spend on the people and things that are most important to them right now. I share a story called A Tale of Two Tonys in my book about a guy who's 45. He meets with his financial advisor and his financial advisor says, what age do you want to retire? And he's like, I don't know. It's like, well, how about 65? Because that's the age that everyone else picks. And he's like, okay, that works for me. This is, by the way, this is how it usually goes. 65 was first deemed like the official retirement age in 1889 when life expectancy was 65. So people are not thinking about it. They're just opting and they're going along with it. And the financial advisor tells him that he has to save $2,400 a month, every single month, adjusted for inflation for the next 20 years in order to stop working. If you do the math, that's about 20% of what he's making. And that's a non-starter for most people. In this alternate universe, Tony's wife says to him, oh, you know, you said that you wanted to stop at 65, but you kind of like what you do and you like the people that you do it with. And even if you're not going to be doing that same work, I can't imagine that you're going to just sit around the house and not do anything. He's like, you know what? You're right. She's like, I think you'll probably work until at least you're 75 years old. So Tony, calls the financial advisor up and he says, you know what, like, can we make the age 75 instead of 65? And the number that Tony has to save on a monthly basis goes from $2,400 a month to
