Creative retirement

Are you an” ageless explorer” determined to retire your way? Are you already living or planning your own creative retirement? Are you a baby boomer whose big screen of life is showing retirement as the next feature movie? If so, retire your own way is very likely the title.

There are about 77 million baby boomers in North America, people born between 1946 and 1966. Many of us are already in our fifties or sixties. About a quarter of us will be the ageless explorer type.

Retirement – ageless explorer style
If your baby boomer retirement style will be the ageless explorer type, you're more likely to be out hiking or trying white water rafting than sitting at home "taking it easy". Chances are when your adult children phone you can't chat long (much as you might like to) because you're busy. You're working at your full time job, your part-time job, busy with your consulting service, or starting up the business you always wanted to run. Some of you are doing several of these at the same time.

Your retirement ideas are laced with action and dream fulfillment plans. You're excited about the idea of creative retirement. For you, retirement years will not be the so-called golden years at Sunset Villa.

If you are out touring retirement homes it's likely for your own parents.

When you're not on your Blackberry or your cell phone, you're listening to your ipod or playing the latest Brain Game to keep sharp.

You’re not interested in the stereotype of rocking chair retirement living. You want to pick and choose the pieces that form your creative retirement tapestry. Like snowflakes that are all different, your creative retirement map will be different from everyone else’s.

You see that marketers still haven’t caught up with today’s realities about aging. They are still thinking of people in their fifties and sixties as frail and aging “seniors”. But you’re savvy enough to pick and choose the services they’re marketing to seniors simply because many are convenient for you. You’ll take advantage of their convenience to help you to make transitions in areas like financial planning, housing, or moving.

You plan to design a new lifestyle, not resign from life. In every aspect of living, you are inventing your own transition from full time work during your fifty plus and sixty plus years. You are designing your own unique creative retirement lifestyle.

You’ll pick and choose from ideas like these:
You see the 50 plus years as years that stretch luxuriously in front of you. They're creative retirement years. They are years that wrap up the gift of time and hand it to you on a silver platter - time to pick from:

Continued work: Some form of continued work may be in the cards for you. Many boomers plan to continue some form of continued work, either because of financial need or because of personal preference, or both. You may decide to keep working, change your work arrangements or even start a new career.

Retirement coaching: You can choose from many forms of retirement coaching, even if you’re already retired. There are quizzes, exercises and workshops to help you map out your creative retirement tapestry.

Hobbies and projects: You have time and desire for projectslike learning to fly, starting a book club, taking landscape painting lessons. You dare to think about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, starting a garage band or becoming a wine expert.

Housing options. You're willing to toy with creative, even zany housing options. When you contemplate your retirement living/housing options you don’t limit yourself to the traditional options like downsizing, moving to a retirement community or researching the best retirement cities. You also toss in options like creating a co-housing community with friends, living on a houseboat or RV, or putting your things in storage and sailing around the world.

Services for “seniors”: You’ll use these services because you’re savvy enough to recognize convenience, not because you’re frail and elderly. When you move you intend to take full advantage of a new breed of modern moving services. You’ll use real estate agents and movers specializing in helping seniors. And you’ll welcome services like home staging that increase the value of your biggest asset when you go to sell it.

Memory and mental fitness: You intend to keep your mind and memory sharp with brain gyms, brain games and memory exercises.

Physical fitness: You plan to keep fit by doing tai chi in the park, taking Nia dance classes, going to fitness boot camp.

Maybe you'll learn Latin dancing by buying some dance instruction videos, or taking Latin dancing classes.

Or maybe you'll just learn by flying down to Rio to take tango lessons in Brazil.

For you, retirement planning tips are more about projects that tap into your creativity and zest for change than about retirement financial planning. For you, good retirement tips are tips on best soft adventure travel, volunteering in local theater, on archeological digs in Turkey or helping aid workers in Nicuaragua.

And forget the stereotype of older folk always sitting by the fire in their slippers or rocking away in their rocking chair. You’re at your home computer planning your next whitewater rafting adventure.

Your retirement income is about having enough to live the creative retirement lifestyle you want. For most of you, that simply won't cost the millions retirement planners say you need.

It's about supplementing your income with work of your choice - designing your own web-based business, working in a field you always wanted to be in.

So your idea of useful retirement planning services is services that show how much you need so you can afford to live life creatively during the retirement years. You don't want financial planning advice that says you need a million or more in the bank. You want enough in the bank to finance your creative lifestyle, not to buy more stuff to impress the Joneses. You know that satisfaction comes from living the life that appeals to you.

Did you recognize yourself in some of the above descriptions? Are you an “ageless explorer”? Chances are pretty good that if you were interested in a website called Retire Your Own Way, you’re on the ageless explorer wavelength. And chances are pretty good that you plan a creative retirement, you plan to “retire your own way”.

And retiring creatively is what this website is all about.

I hope you get inspired by the many retirement ideas and ways that ageless explorers are reshaping middle and later life work patterns, travel, housing, hobbies, finances, fashion. I hope they inspire you to build that rich retirement tapestry that is yours alone. And as I create my own retirement tapestry, I hope you enjoy reading these retirement ideas as much as I am enjoying writing about them.

You might be 65 and older, still working, or working part time. (Technically you're part of the "silent generation" or the "forgotten generation" just ahead of the boomers. It's a generation that shares many boomer traits and views.)

Whether you're 50 or 60 or 70k it's not your age. It's what you’re thinking about your retirement lifestyle.

Scan through the topics below, launch your surfing journey through the website, and enjoy!

I'll be looking forward to your feedback.