I’m getting a little older, and because of that I’m starting to think about retirement. Of course google knows this, because google knows everything about everyone. So naturally In my google feed an article came up from a website targeted at giving investing advice for retirement. There was a twist though. The article was about retirement planning for medical doctors. The article offered mostly the same advice as other online investing media with the one caveat being that high income was assumed. I don’t have a high income but I did glance through the article looking for anything that could help me plan for my own investing and retirement better. Surprisingly there was something, specifically it was that the article didn’t look at retirement as one big thing. It broke up retirement into stages and that was a new concept for me. It espoused three phases of retirement. They were: Go-Go, Slow-Go, and No-Go. The author assumed high activity in the Go-Go years of retirement. Moderate activity in the Slow-Go years and of course limited activity in the No-Go years. The author estimated approximately one decade each, so 65-75 would be Go-Go, 75-85 would be Slow-Go, and 85-95 would be No-Go. The point of the article was that when planning on retirement, plan to spend more earlier when you can be more active, and less later in retirement when travel and activity isn’t much of an option. It was all very logical, but it got me thinking about what my own retirement looks like and that got me thinking about the complexity of it all.
The challenge with this theory is that people, and life, are very multi-faceted. The three phases are great as a broad concept, but of course different people will enter the different phases of retirement at different times. As an example, at the time of this writing, I’m 52 and I’m already starting to experience health problems that make some of the things I wish to do a bit of a challenge. We also have different levels of resources to do the things we would like to do. Still, it’s worth exploring what could be through this multi-part lens of retirement. Of course I’m going to look at the three phases for myself, but also in hopes that it’ll get some of my readers and podcast listeners to think about what these three phases are going to be for them as well.
What is my Go-Go?
Go-Go, for me at least, means working that perfect retirement job. The big Go-Go dream for me is a business in the Caribbean. I’ve always envisioned a very small beach bar. It’s not that far-fetched. I was emboldened by several stories I read about others who’ve had the same dream and realized it, one of whom I actually met. I think the first time I had an inkling that this would be a possibility was when I read an article years ago about a couple who left the cold of Michigan and moved to Eleuthera, one of the Bahamian family islands. They called it “Project No More Winters” and they opened a beach bar on a virtually deserted stretch of Bahamian beach that was a seasonal hotspot for yachters. It was very small, colorful, and they added a couple of beachfront tiny house style bungalow rooms that they rented out. The rooms for those who wanted to get off their boat and stay on land for a few days. All in all, it had everything I wanted. A beach view every day with a small and low maintenance business to keep me busy. There were other stories like a couple that bought an island near Belize that had an abandoned bar and convenience store on it which they promptly reopened. Then, I met Big Lee, an entrepreneur in the Dominican Republic who did everything I wanted to do. He told me his story, and although it gave me a great deal of things to consider, both good and bad, it also was hugely inspirational. I have a tendency to dream big and in a perfect world, I’d have something like Happy Island, although that kind of thing is very rare and I’d be satisfied with any little beachfront bar.
What makes this period of my life potentially so interesting, at least to me, is that having the safety net of healthcare and a regular income from my pension and social security, it allows me to run a business without making a penny for the years it will take to get it off the ground. When I asked Big Lee about how he was successful he credited something similar. He didn’t have to make a profit for a long time, then one day he did. I’m really excited about the possibility of this Go-Go retirement phase, but even if I achieve it, it can’t last forever.
But what about Slow-Go?
I was surprised to find out that my dream of a business in my early retirement years is not what most dream of in retirement. For most others I think my Slow Go will be a bit like many people’s Go-Go phase. It’s more about not having to work and enjoying doing ‘whatever’.
For me, maybe I’ll get an RV so I could go visit grandchildren and travel the country. I could go on a ton more cruises. This is more likely as I recently decided I’d like to do 52 weeks at sea over the course of my life. Based upon everything I’ve gone on already or have planned, it would take approximately another 36 week long cruises. Retirement would mean I could travel in the lower cost seasons which, over several years, means hitting my goal is a real possibility. Ultimately, as I said, Slow-Go means little to no work other than spending my time with the next generation of my family and traveling.
No-Go is a No-Go
There is no question in my mind that No-Go is going to be exactly that for me. If I have health issues in my late 40’s and early 50’s, there is no question they will get worse as I age. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t make it to the No-Go years or if they were forced on me early. I do try and take care of myself but there is never a guarantee. If I did make it to my mid 80’s I can see myself mostly staying at home with much less travel, excepting maybe multiple visits to the doctor’s office every week when I hit the No-Go years. So, looking at it, I can see why the original article said that we don’t have much we need to spend on in these years.
Planning The Three Phases
The original whitecoat investor article talked about retirement starting in the mid-sixties which is when most people target retirement to coincide with eligibility to receive Medicare benefits. I’m a bit more unique as I’ll have healthcare starting at sixty. But I’m targeting earlier. Specifically, I’m trying to start a quasi-retirement now insomuch as I have a ton of time. Yes, I work full-time, but as a teacher I do have winter breaks and summers mostly off. My problem, unlike the target MDs of the article, is that I don’t have the free cash that they do. To make matters worse, or more properly said, to make budgets tighter, because I have kids still relatively young and living at home, all of my vacations cost roughly double as I’m paying for the kids as well as me and my wife.
Speaking of my wife, that leads to another problem with my plans. My wife is not a teacher and does not have summers off. In fact, her job is busiest in the summers so her time off is limited even if she did have the vacation days. So, I either travel by myself, with my kids, or don’t travel at all. I’m perfectly ok with this and to be completely honest, I enjoy this one on one travel much more than going as a family. My wife isn’t as much of a fan of everyone traveling separately. I get it, she’s normal and I’m not. That being said, looking at it through the lens of retirement, or starting a retirement lifestyle, it’s a tricky thing to work around.
But wait, there are more challenges.
Unfortunately, even when I hit 60 or 62 and the kids are hopefully out of the house, all is not white sand and women in bikinis suggestively holding visa cards I get to charge overpriced drinks on. My wife is younger than me and won’t let me just skip off to Cozumel or the DR and open a beach bar without her. Then there are my kids, one of which is only 9 years old as I write this article. Yes, her 18th birthday aligns very nicely with my timeline for retirement but there is a real probability she won’t be ready to move out right when I’m ready for her to move out. All of this leads to delays in the start of my true Go-Go years not to mention the thing I’m most worried about. The thing I’m most worried about, my biggest fear, is that when my wife is ready to go on the Go-Go dream with me, I’ll be moving into Slow-Go territory. Like I said earlier, I have health issues. None of them are fully debilitating, but we are human meat bags. We deteriorate with time. Nobody is immune from this.
All of this means I have to get creative with my Go-Go years. The first thing I have to do is figure out how early I can start my Go-Go years in a credible way with the limitations I have including my wife’s career and my kid’s leaving the nest. I’ve thought about it a bunch. One option is to open up a seasonal beachfront establishment here in North Carolina. Another is for my wife to make a career change or find a mostly remote job. I’m sure there are other options but that’s not the point of this article, at least not completely. My restrictions are mine, but everyone’s got their own. I’m certain I’ll figure something out. I doubt it’ll be exactly what I dream of, but I’m sure I can get creative and get close to it.
The real big point here is that the inspirational article I discussed at the beginning of this piece is spot on. Retirement isn’t one singular big blob of time where every day is the same. It’s a journey like every other part of life, one with ups and downs. Well with retirement, if your considering health and your ability to be active, it’s invariably going to go down. That’s simply the human condition. So, the author is right, you need to take that into account. When I read the article the thing that went through my mind is that those early years are much more critical than I gave them credit for. I need to be bold early on and maybe more importantly, I need to communicate the importance of having that boldness with my family. I’m going to need their support if I’m to do the things I want to do when I am capable of doing them. Otherwise there is a very good chance I’ll never be able to have those life experiences. So, at the very least we are going to have to get creative.
That part I’m not too worried about. I’m good at being creative. It’s getting others to appreciate my ideas that often gets to be the problem. I’ve already started those conversations and the brainstorming of solutions. Obviously if you are reading or listening to this missive, if you are of a certain age where you can see retirement in your near future, then I’d recommend you start planning as well. I say this because that planning will help you make sure you get to do the things in retirement when you are still able to do them.
That beginning said, regardless if it’s Go-Go or Go-Slow, if travel is a big part of your planned retirement, and you find yourself visiting the Caribbean, then keep an eye out for a beach bar with “Peluso’s” as part of its name. If you find it you’ll know I also found a way to make my Go-Go years everything I wanted them to be.
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