What’s your actual retirement dream? The moment a dream gets that specific, something useful happens: you can actually plan for it. You can cost it, time it, build the money around it.
Back in May we ran an evening at Blackheath Sports Club about what an active retirement really looks like. The invitation had a number on it: £60,000 a year, the going figure for a “comfortable” retirement for a couple.
We talked about that number all evening. But the thing that stayed with me afterwards had nothing to do with money – it was a question I end up asking clients more than almost any other: what’s your retirement dream?
It sounds soft. It’s the opposite.
A wish is not a plan
Here’s what I’ve noticed. There are two kinds of answer to that question.
The first is a wish. “Retire to the sun.” “Travel more.” “Slow down a bit.” Lovely ideas, all of them, but vague enough that they tend to stay ideas – the sort of thing you hope drifts your way one day.
The second is specific. A place, a thing, a shape to the week. And the moment a dream gets that specific, something useful happens: you can actually plan for it. You can cost it, time it, build the money around it. A specific dream isn’t a wish any more. It’s a project.
Turning the first kind into the second kind is most of my job, frankly. A lot of what I do in a first meeting is help someone move the fuzzy version into focus.
What’s your retirement dream?
We ask everyone who joins Ginkgo this question, and the answers are wonderful – and far more specific than you’d expect.
Daren, our co-founder and chartered financial planner, who you’d think might never switch off, doesn’t dream of stopping at all. He pictures popping into the office a couple of days a week, staying mixed up in local charities, and – the bit I love – keeping bees.
Debra, who founded Ginkgo alongside him, wants a place by the sea with a pottery studio, where she’ll throw big parties and serve home-grown wonky veg on home-made wonky plates.
Elaine, on our client care team, has the one that stops you. After seeing how much a bit of company meant to her dad in his care home, her dream is simply to spend her time sitting with older people and talking to them.
And mine? To run an animal rescue somewhere up North. I have a French Bulldog called Tommy who would be appalled at the competition, but there it is.
None of those is “retire to the sun.” They’re all retiring to something. Every one has edges you could draw round.
So how do you turn a dream into a plan?
This is where the money comes in – and second, not first.
A specific dream gives the plan something to aim at. Once you know it’s the rescue, or the pottery studio, or the bees, you can work backwards: what it costs, when it becomes realistic, what has to be true for it to happen. The numbers stop being abstract and start serving something you actually want. And once that side is sorted, you stop thinking about it and get on with the life.
You can’t really plan a “retire to the sun,” because nobody can plan a fog. You can plan a dog rescue up North.
So before the figures, before the date, the most useful thing you can do is make the dream specific. What is it, exactly? Where? What does an ordinary Tuesday look like inside it? Get that down, and the £60,000 stops being the point. The dream becomes the point – and the money becomes the thing that gets you there.
We filmed the whole evening, so if you’d like to see the rest of the conversation, you can watch it on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/xqvT3rXNhhk
Catriona Bryden Financial Adviser
