There has to be an extremely dark side of Retirement which does not get reported at all. Indians without money but retired has to be a big number, but we just do not have enough data. Let us look at the dark side of retirement in USA and assume that Indians fare no better.

Some of the shocking facts:

• many Americans have about US $ 1000 for retirement
• about 80% of Americans cannot afford to retire at all
• 56% of Americans do not know how much they require for Retirement
• a shocking 80% of Americans can’t retire at all

The stats in America looks very bad if you remove the data of the top 2% of the American population.

Welcome to India. Do you think the data is very different when it comes to India. We have no “need” or “money” to do Retirement survey. So in most cases we have no data for India.

Apart from the financial loss, there is a loss of identity – and that could lead to depression in old age. Imagine loss of power, strength, status, and all this combined with boredom is an awesome ground for depression. One has to be careful about mind and money. Just looking after money is not enough. For many others, retirement diminishes their sense of well-being by reducing the social contact previously enjoyed at work.  When people have spent the majority of their time fostering relationships with colleagues at the expense of people outside the workplace! This is a financial website – you should be looking for websites on how to Retire – with healthy options.

What are some of the simple things that you can do –

1. Make sure that your Retirement is a PULL retirement (your hobbies are puling you home) and not a PUSH retirement (your employer is asking you to go).
2. Create a lot of friends – of either gender – and of a big age group – elder and younger than you. These are the friends/cousins/classmates with whom you are going to grow old TOGETHER.
3. Find a lot of non work related activities to do – especially with friends OUTSIDE the work place. Remember not all colleagues become friends. Only a few do.
4. Take care of your health. Join a gym. Get a diet consultant.
5. Focus on what is REALLY important in your life – spiritual, religious, ….whatever.

Do all this when you are under 45 years of age. It takes a lot of time to develop hobbies and friendship groups.