Daily Money - Take Your Retirement for a Test Drive

You wouldn’t dream of buying a car before taking it for a spin. You wouldn’t buy an outfit for an important event without trying it on. Why do we stand in bookstores flipping through the first few pages of a book before buying? Because we want to know something about the experience of driving that car, wearing that shirt, reading that book. Why plunk down your cash before seeing if it will be well-spent?

Yet nearly all of us go into retirement practically blind. Sure, we spend decades saving for it, and most of us dream about how amazing it’s going to be. (Sleeping late! Traveling! Unlimited pastimes of your choice!) And it is amazing…. at least for a while.

But plenty of people are unpleasantly surprised by the reality of those obligation-free days. We’ve all heard the horror stories of those who died within a few months of retiring, but it’s more common for retirees to find themselves bored and at loose ends after the first few months of freedom. For many people, identity is closely linked to work. When that work ends, they struggle to find purpose and meaning, and boredom and depression can set in. This malaise can happen anywhere, as an expat living in Mexico points out, even while living on the beach and reveling in her newfound freedom from deadlines.

You can head off such trouble and take charge of your coming retirement by testing the waters of the post-work world. Here’s how to do that.

Before you retire, seriously scout out possibilities for how you’ll spend your days:

• Part-time work, which brings cash and some structure, might be an option.
• Volunteer with a nonprofit organization that would welcome your skills in grant-writing, events planning or bookkeeping.
• Meet with a therapist who can act as a sounding board for your ideas.
• Discuss your plans with friends and family members.

Next, do a retirement test run for as long a time as you can manage. Use as much vacation time as possible — at minimum, you’ll need a few weeks to a month. Follow these guidelines:

• Avoid extensive travel. Your retirement test-drive should not be a trip to a dream destination.
• Live mostly at home, exactly as you would if you were actually retired.
• Plan a few short jaunts to visit friends or nearby sites.
• Most important, create a retirement budget and live on the amount you’ll get from Social Security and whatever you’ll withdraw from your retirement accounts.

When your test retirement comes to an end, you’ll have a better sense of how to leave full-time work without losing purpose in your life. For more about your pre-retirement to-do list, read our editor Julia Glum’s story.

— Jill Cornfield, deputy editor

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