How are you planning your retirment

Prasham

Armchair Traveller :(
Wish to spend summers in Himachal / Uttranchal. Somewhere in a village near a larger city, so that we can get necessary medical attention quickly. As of now Winter / Monsoon seem decent in Gujarat itself :D
 

Anil_S

Member
The idea of settling at tourist places after retirement appear to be very fascinating. One of my friend bought a house at Shimla & maintained it for appox 10 years with a desire to settle there after retirement.
But did not settle there. The reason given by him are:

01. They could not could not connect with the house & people there.
02. Their children, relatives & friends found it too difficult to visit them because it always required lot of time, money & planning.
03. Travelling for them to meet their children, relatives & friends was also too difficult because this also required lot of time, money & planning. Because of this they started missing family functions , started feeling lonely & left out.

Decided to shift back to Pune, where their children stay & also started visiting for few months in year to their native place, where they could connect with place, people & friends. Visits to other places including hills are as tourist.

Hope it answers.
 

Prasham

Armchair Traveller :(
I have same doubts in mind. My thoughts are....

1) Instead of purchasing a house, I'd rather be happy to rent one. Rather I'd be happier to rent just a room like the foreign tourists do. It will give more freedom. I'd prefer to spend some time at each location and then move somewhere else, if I don't find it interesting.

2) & 3) Staying away from the family and friends to spend time with yourself is one of the agendas of travelling after retirement but shifting permanently may not be a great idea. I think of going away in Hills during scorching heat of Gujarat's summer and then returning to home in monsoon. This way I think I can balance between "My Time" & Family time.
 

Big Daddy

Super User
I hate to say this but people in India really need to plan their retirement to reduce stress on their children. My parents have a pension but realistically they took money from my grandparents and their children and even then it is not enough. Health care costs are substantial. Many parents in India go and sit in their children's home when they get closer to death. Had I lived in India, my life would be a mess because my parents would not leave me much and even consume whatever resources I had including my time and productivity.

The most important question for retirement planning is how much it is going to cost you? When you estimate this number, you will realize that you cannot achieve the target. As a result, most people do not think about it. It really is a bad idea because most likely kids of today are going to throw their parents out in the future. Job stability is lower today. No kid would want to take on additional expenses. Furthermore, this generations of ancestral land and resource divisions have left little to inherit for most people. Parents of most adults today have taken money from both sides (their parents and their children) and are not going to leave much to their descendants.

Retirement planning requires fights on multiple fronts. First, you have to fight the government to lower inflation in healthcare costs and taxes. You also have to put pressure on higher wages as most of the future retirement will be funded from savings and not inheritance. For investment returns, the government takes too much in taxes and it needs to learn to do with less.

For the most part, the current and future generations are on their own. Indian government has washed its hands off the problem by giving entitlements to parents by passing a law where children are supposed to take care of their parents. Modern wages and tax structures are not going to help. People need to wake up.
 
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