What Is Retirement?

Retirement Planning?

Who me?
You've got to be joking….

Retirement planning gets bad press. The consequence is that a majority of 45 to 64-year-old Australians have entered the land of denial when it comes to this issue. And there seems little to get them out of denial when most retirement planning information is full of references to aged care, going grey, becoming dependent, and dying. Clichéd photographs of grey haired couples drinking lattes or walking hand-in-hand on the beach suggest singles don't matter, and happily retired couples just play.

How does this affect you? If you're feeling fit, healthy and happy to work for a few more years at least &ndash can't your retirement planning wait?

Bad idea!

It would be a mistake to allow these outdated notions of retirement planning turn you off. There is now sufficient research to prove that those with a clear sense of direction for their later years, and intentions of active social engagement, intergenerational connections, and life-long learning, will be clearly ahead. But these positives don't just fall into your lap the day after you leave full-time work – they need to be created. The good news is that it's not all hard work. When retirement planning becomes life planning it is a challenging, fun and fulfilling task.

Goals for your next life stage

Positive planning is based on the recognition that leaving full-time employment is a great opportunity to enter a new, and very rewarding, life stage. It's all about starting, not stopping. Until now you may have been working, paid or unpaid, to fulfill obligations to other people, or to pay off a mortgage, raise and educate children, put food on the table. Now you are entering a time when it will be your turn to be who or what you've always wanted to be , devoting more time and energy to fulfilling life goals you've always longed to achieve, but have been simply too busy to contemplate. These goals are as individual as you are – some high achievers will have a list of 100 – others will be happy to work away at one particular task, such as organising the family snapshots, or creating a vegetable garden. It's entirely personal.

It's not about the money, yet…

Income streams, superannuation, and tax are all important. But there is no point in putting the cart before the horse. Until you know what you plan to do when you leave work, how can you usefully anticipate what type of income you will require? And until you assess how you really want to spend your time, you won't have a clear idea of a typical week, out of the workforce, and the associated living expenses.

Getting started?

To plan successfully, you will need to:

• clarify your issues and goals
• benchmark your current position
• convert your goals into a plan
• convert this plan into achievable steps.

Those used to setting and meeting business deadlines will be familiar with such a program. But it can be much easier to plan objectively when business targets are involved, than when considering personal objectives. The first concern is often, “But I don't really know what I want to do…”.

You're not alone

Not knowing how you might fill 50 hours a week if you cease fulltime work too abruptly can be a major issue. This is why a staged transition to retirement is usually the best strategy, cutting back to three days a week, and then fewer days as time, and income demands, change. But continuing with part-time work may not be an option for everyone who wants it, despite the avowed skills shortage Seeking new directions can also be frightening – some people thrive upon change, others are unsettled by it.

How can you ascertain how you will want to spend your extra time?

First, you need to know yourself. Who are you, where are you at, what sort of roles do you currently play? What's good, bad, or just okay about your existence? Where would you like to be in five years' time? How do you really want to use your energy and time? To balance the different aspects of your life?

Defining your roles

Many of us perform across a range of different roles on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. When we are working fulltime it is easy to feel as though we are just skating across the top of these obligations, never really performing satisfactorily in a variety of areas. Now is an ideal time to review how you are performing, and how, if you had more spare time, you might change your emphasis to achieve a higher sense of satisfaction.

Click here for [http pdf ex rob] two life wheels, with 10 spokes for the different roles you might currently fulfill. On the 'current' wheel, name each spoke for the different roles you undertake (there is a sample to get you thinking), and rate your performance on a scale from 1 to 10 with 1 a poor rating, and 10, excellent. Then connect the crosses to make see how well your life wheel is working – the rounder the wheel, the smoother the journey.

Next, use the ‘future' wheel to plot your future roles – which could include some current ones, but might also have new jobs, new areas of responsibility, new fun – and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 for the ‘perfect world'. It doesn't particularly matter if connecting these ratings creates a less-than-even wheel; the purpose is to free your thinking to include some new activities and to give you a starting point on which to create a sustainable life-plan. Smoothing the wheel, (i.e. tweaking the balance) is something you can work toward.

Your goals in retirement

Next list 10 goals you would really like to achieve during the first five years as you transition into retirement. They might include enhanced personal relationships, improved health, intellectual pursuits, sport and fitness endeavours, and business or career ambitions. They might be extremely ambitious (start a new CV franchise business) modest (tidy desk) or in-between (complete a Workplace training course). It doesn't really matter. What matters is to find 10 things which thrill your soul and commit them to paper. Then prioritise them from most important to least.

Remember that if your wish list includes activities promoting physical health, mental wellbeing and stimulation, community involvement, spiritual exploration, and satisfying work, you will ensure an ongoing sense of engagement.

Time to get SMART

Applying the SMART test to these goals is your next step. Each goal needs to become:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-based.

Goals which conform to these five points usually can and will be reached. Those which don't are likely to remain dreams, and not a reality.

Click here for a goal planning table to list your main goal, and apply the ‘smart' test to it.

For example, your main goal may be to start a CV franchise business. Simply listed like this, is an example of a 'non-smart' goal. It is not specific, measurable, nor does it have a deadline. To covert this into something more attainable, you could make it specific in terms of size of business, number of employees (even if only one), expected hours of work per week and location of business. The measurable aspect could be the dollar turnover, and the deadline could be within 18 months. To help with more specific planning of your main goal, try thinking about it as a series of small steps. This is based on a quote by Vincent Van Gogh, Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together. Breaking your major goal down into such a series of steps will achieve two main outcomes. Firstly it will allow you to organise your information gathering, seeing your potential strengths and possible weaknesses in achieving you goal. But perhaps more importantly, when organised into 'bite-sized' chunks, it will be encouraging to see that the first step is just a phone call, a conversation, a visit to a website, and easily done. Once this step has been achieved, you will have made a start. And nothing will feel more powerful than that!

When your goal has been tweaked to satisfy the 'smart' criteria, then you will, with the other life planning detail you have recorded, be able to predict with a degree of accuracy accurately what a regular weekly timetable in your (semi?) retirement might look like. Fill in the table below to reflect the different activities you have listed, bearing in mind the balance of work, fitness, mental, relationship and spiritual activities which will give the best life balance. Don't forget some timeout, to recharge the battery.

More
Read
Your Best Year Yet Jenny Ditzler
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey (Fireside, New York, 1990).
What Should I do with My Life? Po Bronson, Seker & Warburg, 2003
Get a New Life Kaye Fallick
It's Only Too Late if you don't start now , Baraba Sher, Hodder Headline Australia, 1999

Defining your roles

1. Now
2. In five years time
3. Example of Stephen

• Soccer club treasurer
• Accountant
• Jogger
• Spouse
• Father
• Son
• Family/Friend
• Reader
• Gardener
• Home maintenance

Click here for more steps

Planning your smart goals

Is your goal smart? Can it be broken into a series of small, achievable steps?
Check here!

Sample – Starting a bookshop

Time to rethink

Don’t sell yourself short – 60 is not the new 50, but it’s not the old 60, when you were ready to be turned out to grass, Kaye Fallick explains.

The life stage called retirement is a false proposition. And now, at last, many are recognising the ‘retirement’ label for what it really is – an obsolete term for ‘end of meaningful life’ that has always been more about marketing than substance. But what will replace the ‘golden days of retirement’ concept, and how can we prepare ourselves for what comes after full-time work?

Before considering the ways we might rethink our own transition toward a time of less work and more meaningful pursuits, it helps to understand how the idea of ‘retirement’ first came about – and why it no longer applies to active adults in their 50s, 60s and beyond.

In 1909, Australians were awarded an Age Pension equivalent to $1 per week. At that time life expectancy was 55, so few were expected to live long enough to claim this income, let alone enjoy it. A social service payment for older Americans was first instigated in 1935. Ironically the recipient, a lady named Ida May Fuller from Vermont, lived until she was 100. But Ida was highly unusual. Most older Americans and Australians turned up their toes long before they received any form of government benefit.

Marketing the golden years
As time went by, improved nutrition and medical science delivered increased longevity. American property developer Del Webb created Sun City, the first retirement village, in 1966. It was a runaway success and the ‘formula’ for selling retirement was struck; just tell older people that they’ve earned their right to rest, play golf and associate with other silver-haired friends, in splendid isolation from the worries of the real world.

This formula has been emulated time and again across many industries – financial services, cosmetics, medical aids, travel – and images of middle-class retirees enjoying the life of Riley abound.

Sadly, such images and superficial marketing messages have reinforced the notion of a separate life stage that comes after childhood, education and a productive working life. This stage is all about retreat and withdrawal.

Unsurprisingly, many thinking adults have simply never bought into this message. And now, with rapidly ageing populations in most developed nations, swollen by the baby boom of the 1950s and 60s, governments are starting to realise that the exclusion of older workers from the workforce is economic suicide. The funding of pensions will become unsustainable unless workers remain engaged and productive well into their 60s and 70s.

The big picture
The numbers speak for themselves. Australia’s population is now tipped to rise to 35 million before 2050. Of this number, 22 per cent will be aged over 65 (the current pension age). Average life expectancy for men (79) and women (84) means (for most) 14 or more years of active living. With fewer younger workers contributing to the tax base, and competition for migrant workers hotting up amongst countries facing similar skills shortages, it is becoming increasingly apparent older workers will be needed badly. This is the ‘macro’ picture of retirement, which is of great relevance to governments, business, labour, nongovernment organisations and the message makers – media and marketers. Predictably, it is the financial issues which are captivating governments worldwide. Put simply, the latter will be bankrupted if there are insufficient workers contributing to the tax pool. Legislation outlawing age discrimination has been filtering through in recent years – it is now illegal in Australia to be refused work on the grounds of your age.

Treasury has warned us that between 2017 and 2023, the Age Pension age will gradually increase to 67 years. Workplace reform includes a huge push to encourage workers to ‘transition’ to retirement by cutting down hours or moving to contractual projects rather than leaving the workplace entirely. This has many advantages for all parties, but in particular could offer an ongoing income stream for individuals (which delays application for an Age Pension) and, for employers, an opportunity to stem the loss of skills and experience possessed by mature-age workers.

Attitudinal change may be legislated for, but it is one thing to legislate, quite another to change people’s minds and actions, as attempts to outlaw racism show. Media and marketers still insist on portraying older people as frail, dependent and passive – it is only when more writers, photographers and advertising managers themselves hit 60 and beyond that they will ‘get’ how potent such mature adults really are.

What about you?
But not everything is about the big picture. The retirement rethink needs to occur at a very personal level as well, although it is important for us to understand the overview in order to decide our own, individual, approach to what comes next.

So how does this discussion affect you personally? You’ve worked hard, maybe even raised and educated a family, and now you’re exhausted and think some ‘time out’ sounds fair enough. If other people choose to call that retirement, well so be it.

This is a common attitude for those who have been in the workforce for three or more decades without a significant break. You’ve earned your rest, so take it. But don’t forget that the common ‘retirement’ experience, even for the superexhausted, is, as George Bernard Shaw suggested, ‘a living hell’. Why? Because most of us still have a lot to give and find that active engagement with the world around us is what makes us happiest. So how will you rethink the key aspects – money, work and attitude – of your life?

Do you have choices?
The later years of our lives have the potential to be the most fulfilling of all. If we remove the notion of a formal stopping point called retirement and reconsider how we can best mix work, play and family, the outlook is likely to be either very good – or very bad. Good, if you have choice and independence.

Bad, if the reverse is true. Our sense of choice is usually based upon good health, sufficient income and strong career and family connections. Put simply, if you have enough to live on, feel fit enough to tackle new challenges and enjoy the support of friends, colleagues and family, you have every reason to be optimistic about your later years.

Those who view this time of life more negatively often lack such choice. It may be that poor health prevents them from being as actively engaged as they would like, and that this has also had an impact on income, further reducing their options.

Such people may have always worked in a low-paid job, or spent time in and out of the workforce and not been able to save very much. There are 1.3 million Australians who describe themselves as carers. Some spend upwards of 10 hours a day caring for someone in need. For such carers, financial and career choice is a longed-for luxury.

Being physically or socially isolated can also impact on attitudes towards later years. The above scenarios represent the two ends of the scale for adults moving into their 50s and 60s and you could be anywhere along this scale. What is most important, when trying to rethink your retirement possibilities, is to recognize those aspects of your life you are able to change, those you cannot and, as the saying goes, accept the difference.

Rethinking retirement applies to those things you believe you can change. They will probably fall into one of three different categories: money, work and attitude.

Rethinking money
This may seem difficult if you are already scrimping and saving to exist on a very low income. Ideally, the earlier we review our saving and investment plans, the better. The single most important thing any of us can do is to separate our sense of self from our income and savings: to understand that the money we have does not reflect the type of person we are. Confusing money with status is a nowin situation – you’ll never have enough to feed that inner ego.

Understanding money as a means to an end – a tool to provide shelter, food and clothing – is the starting point for happy financial planning. The less you need extra money for luxuries, the longer you can live on less, thus freeing up your time and energy for the things you really love, whether family, travel or an important cause. One of the world’s richest men, Warren Buffet, still lives in the same house he bought when he got married 50 years ago. He sees no reason to upgrade. There are always resources for those prepared to embrace the old-fashioned idea of living within their means. In a consumer driven society this may seem a scary proposition, but living within your means can also be incredibly liberating.

Rethinking work
Taking a fresh approach to work is becoming easier as more flexible employment opportunities emerge. The bad news is that the ‘job for life’ no longer exists – your company may or may not want you on Monday morning. The good news is that the new flexibility of parttime, contractual or project arrangements means you can leave and re-enter the workplace to better suit your situation. Recent research tells us that 70 per cent of current workers would like to work fewer hours before eventually leaving the workplace.

Most employers are happy to support this transition. But very few employees seem prepared to raise the topic – perhaps fearing they will lose their jobs if they appear unwilling to work any less than full-time. If you are in this situation, do an objective audit of your performance and how you believe you can downsize your job, and then start a discussion with your employer. No matter how well we have prepared for our financial futures, it is highly likely many of us will outlive our retirement incomes. So planning for a supplementary salary as we grow older makes very good sense – and downsizing your current job can be an effective way of going about this.

Rethinking your attitude
We’ve considered the ‘macro’ attitude and wooing of older workers now they are seen as vital to the economic futures of their countries – but what is your attitude towards your own future? Do you see yourself as vital, engaged and a valuable resource? Or are you, too, guilty of telling yourself that your best days are over?

Many of us ‘fell into’ our current careers, our decisions shaped by parental influence, perceived skills or random opportunities which came our way. But career planning is not just for teenagers. If, for reasons financial or vocational, we plan to work longer, we owe it to ourselves to do something which is both satisfying and meaningful. Now is our opportunity to reconsider all our options and decide to take on new challenges, new careers, new opportunities. Deciding we are ‘past it’ will only ensure life gets duller by the day. But tackling our ‘recareering’ will not work if we think we know it all already. Being open to new ideas, new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking is essential to staying relevant. For too long older adults have been forced into retirement way before their time. Our 60s, 70s and 80s have been portrayed as a time of decline and loss. We no longer need to accept such a negative view of our potential. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to give a new life stage – that of NON retirement – a really good go.

MORE
Centrelink offers financial information to anyone, regardless of their age or financial status, via face-to-face appointments, telephone or in public seminars.
Ph 13 23 00
Web: www.centrelink.gov.au
For information on retirement income planning, turn to the Special Report and Finance section in this issue of YOURLifeChoices. For information on career planning,

Time to rethink

Don’t sell yourself short – 60 is not the new 50, but it’s not the old 60, when you were ready to be turned out to grass, Kaye Fallick explains.

The life stage called retirement is a false proposition. And now, at last, many are recognising the ‘retirement’ label for what it really is – an obsolete term for ‘end of meaningful life’ that has always been more about marketing than substance. But what will replace the ‘golden days of retirement’ concept, and how can we prepare ourselves for what comes after full-time work?

Before considering the ways we might rethink our own transition toward a time of less work and more meaningful pursuits, it helps to understand how the idea of ‘retirement’ first came about – and why it no longer applies to active adults in their 50s, 60s and beyond.

In 1909, Australians were awarded an Age Pension equivalent to $1 per week. At that time life expectancy was 55, so few were expected to live long enough to claim this income, let alone enjoy it. A social service payment for older Americans was first instigated in 1935. Ironically the recipient, a lady named Ida May Fuller from Vermont, lived until she was 100. But Ida was highly unusual. Most older Americans and Australians turned up their toes long before they received any form of government benefit.

Marketing the golden years
As time went by, improved nutrition and medical science delivered increased longevity. American property developer Del Webb created Sun City, the first retirement village, in 1966. It was a runaway success and the ‘formula’ for selling retirement was struck; just tell older people that they’ve earned their right to rest, play golf and associate with other silver-haired friends, in splendid isolation from the worries of the real world.

This formula has been emulated time and again across many industries – financial services, cosmetics, medical aids, travel – and images of middle-class retirees enjoying the life of Riley abound.

Sadly, such images and superficial marketing messages have reinforced the notion of a separate life stage that comes after childhood, education and a productive working life. This stage is all about retreat and withdrawal.

Unsurprisingly, many thinking adults have simply never bought into this message. And now, with rapidly ageing populations in most developed nations, swollen by the baby boom of the 1950s and 60s, governments are starting to realise that the exclusion of older workers from the workforce is economic suicide. The funding of pensions will become unsustainable unless workers remain engaged and productive well into their 60s and 70s.

The big picture
The numbers speak for themselves. Australia’s population is now tipped to rise to 35 million before 2050. Of this number, 22 per cent will be aged over 65 (the current pension age). Average life expectancy for men (79) and women (84) means (for most) 14 or more years of active living. With fewer younger workers contributing to the tax base, and competition for migrant workers hotting up amongst countries facing similar skills shortages, it is becoming increasingly apparent older workers will be needed badly. This is the ‘macro’ picture of retirement, which is of great relevance to governments, business, labour, nongovernment organisations and the message makers – media and marketers. Predictably, it is the financial issues which are captivating governments worldwide. Put simply, the latter will be bankrupted if there are insufficient workers contributing to the tax pool. Legislation outlawing age discrimination has been filtering through in recent years – it is now illegal in Australia to be refused work on the grounds of your age.

Treasury has warned us that between 2017 and 2023, the Age Pension age will gradually increase to 67 years. Workplace reform includes a huge push to encourage workers to ‘transition’ to retirement by cutting down hours or moving to contractual projects rather than leaving the workplace entirely. This has many advantages for all parties, but in particular could offer an ongoing income stream for individuals (which delays application for an Age Pension) and, for employers, an opportunity to stem the loss of skills and experience possessed by mature-age workers.

Attitudinal change may be legislated for, but it is one thing to legislate, quite another to change people’s minds and actions, as attempts to outlaw racism show. Media and marketers still insist on portraying older people as frail, dependent and passive – it is only when more writers, photographers and advertising managers themselves hit 60 and beyond that they will ‘get’ how potent such mature adults really are.

What about you?
But not everything is about the big picture. The retirement rethink needs to occur at a very personal level as well, although it is important for us to understand the overview in order to decide our own, individual, approach to what comes next.

So how does this discussion affect you personally? You’ve worked hard, maybe even raised and educated a family, and now you’re exhausted and think some ‘time out’ sounds fair enough. If other people choose to call that retirement, well so be it.

This is a common attitude for those who have been in the workforce for three or more decades without a significant break. You’ve earned your rest, so take it. But don’t forget that the common ‘retirement’ experience, even for the superexhausted, is, as George Bernard Shaw suggested, ‘a living hell’. Why? Because most of us still have a lot to give and find that active engagement with the world around us is what makes us happiest. So how will you rethink the key aspects – money, work and attitude – of your life?

Do you have choices?
The later years of our lives have the potential to be the most fulfilling of all. If we remove the notion of a formal stopping point called retirement and reconsider how we can best mix work, play and family, the outlook is likely to be either very good – or very bad. Good, if you have choice and independence.

Bad, if the reverse is true. Our sense of choice is usually based upon good health, sufficient income and strong career and family connections. Put simply, if you have enough to live on, feel fit enough to tackle new challenges and enjoy the support of friends, colleagues and family, you have every reason to be optimistic about your later years.

Those who view this time of life more negatively often lack such choice. It may be that poor health prevents them from being as actively engaged as they would like, and that this has also had an impact on income, further reducing their options.

Such people may have always worked in a low-paid job, or spent time in and out of the workforce and not been able to save very much. There are 1.3 million Australians who describe themselves as carers. Some spend upwards of 10 hours a day caring for someone in need. For such carers, financial and career choice is a longed-for luxury.

Being physically or socially isolated can also impact on attitudes towards later years. The above scenarios represent the two ends of the scale for adults moving into their 50s and 60s and you could be anywhere along this scale. What is most important, when trying to rethink your retirement possibilities, is to recognize those aspects of your life you are able to change, those you cannot and, as the saying goes, accept the difference.

Rethinking retirement applies to those things you believe you can change. They will probably fall into one of three different categories: money, work and attitude.

Rethinking money
This may seem difficult if you are already scrimping and saving to exist on a very low income. Ideally, the earlier we review our saving and investment plans, the better. The single most important thing any of us can do is to separate our sense of self from our income and savings: to understand that the money we have does not reflect the type of person we are. Confusing money with status is a nowin situation – you’ll never have enough to feed that inner ego.

Understanding money as a means to an end – a tool to provide shelter, food and clothing – is the starting point for happy financial planning. The less you need extra money for luxuries, the longer you can live on less, thus freeing up your time and energy for the things you really love, whether family, travel or an important cause. One of the world’s richest men, Warren Buffet, still lives in the same house he bought when he got married 50 years ago. He sees no reason to upgrade. There are always resources for those prepared to embrace the old-fashioned idea of living within their means. In a consumer driven society this may seem a scary proposition, but living within your means can also be incredibly liberating.

Rethinking work
Taking a fresh approach to work is becoming easier as more flexible employment opportunities emerge. The bad news is that the ‘job for life’ no longer exists – your company may or may not want you on Monday morning. The good news is that the new flexibility of parttime, contractual or project arrangements means you can leave and re-enter the workplace to better suit your situation. Recent research tells us that 70 per cent of current workers would like to work fewer hours before eventually leaving the workplace.

Most employers are happy to support this transition. But very few employees seem prepared to raise the topic – perhaps fearing they will lose their jobs if they appear unwilling to work any less than full-time. If you are in this situation, do an objective audit of your performance and how you believe you can downsize your job, and then start a discussion with your employer. No matter how well we have prepared for our financial futures, it is highly likely many of us will outlive our retirement incomes. So planning for a supplementary salary as we grow older makes very good sense – and downsizing your current job can be an effective way of going about this.

Rethinking your attitude
We’ve considered the ‘macro’ attitude and wooing of older workers now they are seen as vital to the economic futures of their countries – but what is your attitude towards your own future? Do you see yourself as vital, engaged and a valuable resource? Or are you, too, guilty of telling yourself that your best days are over?

Many of us ‘fell into’ our current careers, our decisions shaped by parental influence, perceived skills or random opportunities which came our way. But career planning is not just for teenagers. If, for reasons financial or vocational, we plan to work longer, we owe it to ourselves to do something which is both satisfying and meaningful. Now is our opportunity to reconsider all our options and decide to take on new challenges, new careers, new opportunities. Deciding we are ‘past it’ will only ensure life gets duller by the day. But tackling our ‘recareering’ will not work if we think we know it all already. Being open to new ideas, new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking is essential to staying relevant. For too long older adults have been forced into retirement way before their time. Our 60s, 70s and 80s have been portrayed as a time of decline and loss. We no longer need to accept such a negative view of our potential. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to give a new life stage – that of NON retirement – a really good go.

MORE
Centrelink offers financial information to anyone, regardless of their age or financial status, via face-to-face appointments, telephone or in public seminars.
Ph 13 23 00
Web: www.centrelink.gov.au
For information on retirement income planning, turn to the Special Report and Finance section in this issue of YOURLifeChoices. For information on career planning,

Redefining retirement

At Primelife, we recently completed an online survey to see how people over 55 plan to spend their future years.

We asked a simple question about what retirement means to people – reinventing or rediscovering yourself?  Relaxing?  What about rebelling?

With some surprising results, it’s clear that retirement, or the ‘R’ word as we like to call it, means different things to different people.

11 per cent of respondents said they want to rebel
24 per cent want to reinvent
25 per cent want to relax
40 per cent want to rediscover

The prize for the best entry was a New Year’s Eve midnight flight for two over Antarctica and our winner and her husband tell us they had a fantastic time.

Our next survey will start in February so watch this space to find out more about how you can share your thoughts on retirement with the chance to win another fantastic prize.

In the mean time, to read about how others are redefining their retirement, please visit www.rword.com.au