MM Lee’s comments about retirement has highlighted about the changing paradigm of retirement, in that it is increasingly becoming less of an automatic ritual upon reaching a pre-defined age and more of a lifestyle choice.

Traditionally, retirement is an age where one is able to stop working, collect a pension and to take time to smell the roses and to take care of grandchildren. My parents count themselves fortunate in that they were school teachers their entire careers and stayed in the pension scheme (and taking pay cuts in the last few years of their working life) even as it was slowly phased out by the CPF scheme.

However, the Civil Service has all but abolished the pension scheme except for a few select schemes e.g. Administrative service and some specialised services. Majority of public sector and statutory board employees are on the CPF scheme, as are virtually all the private sector and GLC or TLC organisations.

Thus, the concept of choosing not to work becomes one of income versus lifestyle needs than an age per se.

Retirement in the age of CPF

On paper, everyone can choose to retire i.e. to stop working if one has enough money to last them the rest of their lives. In theory you can, but in practice, it’s quite challenging because there are too many variables involved.

First of all, we cannot know for certain our life expectancies and health status over time and thus how much we need for lifestyle expenses and medical expenses. Secondly, CPF may not be enough for many of us have most of our ordinary account monies locked up in our homes and the remainder special account monies are not sufficient for minimum sum.

How then, can we choose to stop working if money is not enough?

Working till death

Not to sound morbid but I intend to work until the day I die. The catch is how I would define “work”. I intend to continue in my career as an auditor as long as I can to accumulate the savings that brings me closer to the target for financial freedom. But there would likely come a time where I would hit the “mandatory” retirement age and get hit with a pay-cut coupled with re-employment on a year-to-year basis. This may or may not be what I will enjoy doing when I’m at that age (probably 67 by the time I hit that age).

I don’t see myself doing the same old thing at that age. Instead, I choose to build possible paths so that when I’m close to “retirement age”, I will have alternative sources of income and a plan to live in a lower cost country other than Singapore. My post on retiring in Thailand talks about some of the considerations of such a plan.

MM Lee’s observations about keeping active resonate with me in that our minds and bodies are such that if you don’t use it, you will lose it. Hence, working until we die is not a “bad” thing if we enjoy what we do. That is the crux of the issue. Would you be able to enjoy what you do and be able to pursue the experiences you want to until the day you move on from this world?

I intend to experience life a bit more each day even as all of us walk towards our destiny with mortality. I intend to put myself in a position to choose what I want to do when I reach 67 and to continue to be active in mind, body and spirit. Working is fine as long as I choose what I want to do. I am prepared to monetise my home to fund retiring in Thailand if needed but am planning to do training and consulting and to be an independent director to fund my future lifestyle post “retirement”.

I don’t know for sure if I will achieve it but I know that I’ll have to invest time, energy and effort today to make it a possibility tomorrow.

The situation many people find themselves in is that when they reach the retirement age, they are forced to continue to work for the income to sustain themselves even when they hate their work. That is the situation that makes work a drudgery. I am thankful that my current job is a balanced one and enjoy coming to work daily. Hence, it is not drudgery but a privilege to be doing what I’m doing now. But I do not take for granted that things will never change so having a back-up is helpful before one needs to activate it.

Do you agree with MM Lee’s observations that we should abolish the retirement age and work until we expire?

What is your own plan towards “retirement”?

Share with Panzer in the comments section.

Be well and prosper.

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