We pay taxes and we die. These things are certain,
but they're not the whole story. Many things
in life are less certain and we face uncertainty.
Sometimes what we do is we use this as an excuse
to avoid planning. I mean, you might say, well,
there's no point working out how long my pension
will last because there's no way if we retire
yet anyway. Or we might say it's not worth increasing
my pension contributions because... I might get
hit by a bus tomorrow or we might just say that
everything will disappear in care home fees I
mean uncertainty is a great excuse to push decisions
away into the future a time when we know more
but as we get to know more we find out things
that were other things that were uncertain about
I mean I'm 55 and I've just pushed the button
on retirement I don't know how old I'll be when
I die but that won't stop me from making plans.
So I've called my plan 20 summers and this is
summer number one. When I turn 76 it'll be my
20th summer and I know that I wouldn't trade
a summer when I'm 56 for a summer when I'm 76.
I mean not all these summers will be equal and
they will have a different quality to them and
I'll be able to achieve different things in them.
So My plan is for 20 summers. Now, I could have
worked another 10 years and instead of a 20 summers
plan, I could have made a 10 summers plan. But
not only is 10 summers too short for me, but
the 10 summers between my 65th and 75th birthday
won't be as full of activities as the 10 years
between my 55th and 65th birthday. I mean, it's
always a trade off, isn't it? If I had kept working
until I was 65, then I'd have had a lot more
money in my pension and could possibly have been
more extravagant in the things I did, you know,
maybe traveling first class rather than standard
class, et cetera, or maybe even driving a nicer
car. But one of the things that I have learned
about myself over the last few years is that
actually the things that cost a lot more money
generally are not those things that make me the
happiest. And certainly external shows of wealth,
you know, such as wearing designer brands, et
cetera. They haven't interested me for a long
time, to be honest. So in my internal calculations,
going at 55 with a basic amount of income is
better than going at 65 with a better income.
I mean everyone will have their own calculation
and nobody's calculation will be anywhere near
the same as mine and you know that's fine but
what probably isn't fine in my eyes is not to
do the calculation to avoid thinking through
the options maybe because the uncertainty gives
us the excuse to put off thinking about it. I
mean I think finding a person at the end of their
life who says that I wish I'd worked longer probably
going to be tricky but finding people who say
I wish I'd had more time to do the things I wanted
to do well you know that could be much more common
I mean have you done your calculations yet or
are you putting them off because there's too
many unknowns well I'm in summer one of my 20
summers plan so Keep tuned if you want to know
how I get on and thanks for listening.