13 years ago I took a retirement/redundancy package from Gallaher Tobacco. A no-brainer due to the package and many used to hope for similar!
As part of it I was sent on a pre retirement course at a Cardiff consultancy. It was to get your mental attitude fired up for your plans. The format was to stimulate your brain into a lateral thinking style to get your aims, options, desires in focus.
Do you want to work again? If so doing what? Similar role, different type of work?
Hobbies? Expand and develop including turning into a business/ money maker? One person I knew took up flying and got his PPL.
Education? Open Uni, re-skilling at colleges etc.
Travel?
A major thing to embrace was not to just sit back and vegetate. The sudden “shock” of not having a work routine and creating a void was the main content of the course. Do what you are happy with be it family, work, hobbies....
My plan was find a new job in a different field and invest the cash to retire when finances developed. Did some part time work for Mori whilst waiting to start in our Police Ops room on call taking/incident management. A REAL eye opener! Enjoyed it in the main.
Finances sorted and retired fully 5 years ago.
In the few years running up to retirement some prep work was done on spending before retirement on bigger value spends. Bought the first Morgan for one! This meant less spending on retirement income.
The biggest mistake I have seen over the years is people not forward planning with goals to reach. They work, retire, nothing set up and are lost.
DON’T settle down on the couch to watch daytime crap TV!
