Never Retire - 1.7 Million Have Un-Retired In The Last Year

Just over 3% of workers who were retired at this time last year have come out of retirement. More than half of the 1.7 million have reentered the workforce in part-time jobs.

Why?

Let’s speculate.

• They’re bored.

• They’re getting into a line of work they always wanted to, but never had the chance to get into.

• They’re want more social interaction.

• They recovered from a physical or mental illness.

• They want extra spending cash.

• They need spending cash.

• They need additional income to make ends meet.

Probably not exhaustive, but a close to comprehensive list.

We’ll briefly focus on the last three points.

It’s probably safe to assume that the last three points apply to significant numbers of people who took the path to traditional retirement, got there, then realized it just wasn’t going to work out.

This is one reason why it’s critically important to accept, embrace, and deal with the reality that you will Never Retire the second you see the writing on the wall. If you end up wrong, who cares? You still win, plus you’ll have your personal financial ducks in a quack-free row.

You can use our complete Never Retire checklist to help prepare yourself—financially, professionally, and psychologically—for this reality.

It’s got to be difficult to get your hopes up for retirement, only to get there and realize you have no choice but to backtrack.

This underscores the importance of planning.

At the same time, large swaths of people probably went back to work after taking a break. Maybe it was a mini-retirement. Depending on the type of work you do, this can be a viable option.

It’s one reason to keep a temporary retirement fund as one of your pots of money.

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In the coming weeks, we’ll continue our series on strategic alternatives to traditional retirement. We’ll also do an installment with the Q&A I’m conducting with a traditional retirement planner, who is also a subscriber to the Never Retire newsletter.

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