Key Takeaways
- The current generations heading in to retirement no longer like to use that word as it holds a negative connotation, instead, think of that life transition as freedom from to freedom to.
- The Millennial generation has a different outlook from previous generations in terms of how they want their life to look and when they want to retire. They are also saving more money than any of the previous generations.
- It’s important to have a plan and a path set out to achieve your “freedom to” future, and making good decisions about your money throughout that plan is a big part of it.
A lot of life is about freedom from something and freedom to something. You can envision that in the tangible world as a room in your home. If you empty everything from that room, it is almost impossible not to fill it back up again quickly because we really dislike empty space.
This can be applied to what’s happening now with this generational change with the Boomer and Silent Generations wanting to retire, but the idea of retirement, and even the word itself, has become an ugly word that nobody likes anymore. So instead of retirement, we’re going to talk about freedom to something.
When we look at where you may be today, especially according to what many studies have found on Millennial preferences, you might be saying to yourself, “I want my dream job, I want to travel the world, all in advance of getting married and having children, and I want to be out of my dream job by the time I’m in my fifties, so that I have the freedom to move on to something else, some other reinvention.” Now, to do that, it’s great to have goals and ideas and a plan in place to achieve these things, but you also need to have the money.
The good thing about this is that Millennials are actually saving more money than previous generations. With that in mind, there is certainly the capacity to go to a “freedom to” version of the future. It’s a matter of being clear about what that future looks like to you, so you can set down a path and a plan to ensure you make good decisions on a continual basis from where you are now, to where you want to go.
You also need to be careful to not let garbage and junk fill in the space when you go from one transition to the next, your freedom from to your freedom to. This happens often to people who don’t have a clear plan, because other people tend to fill that space in for you if you don’t fill it in yourself. You won’t be able to enjoy this next stage and lifestyle that in the past we called retirement on an earlier basis like you want to. You’ll be stuck in a job long term and maybe even longer than your parents, and that’s no good.
Until next time, enjoy!
Gary