An Unreasonable Retirement Plan Combined with Creative Action Will Beat Any Reasonable Retirement Plan

The new retirement keeps changing and likely will keep changing for quite some time.

An article entitled 11 Signs You Won't Be Retiring in 2011 (on InvestorPlace.com) gave the following signs why your retirement plan will not allow you to retire next year:

1. You Have Set a Date With Death.
2. You Never Worry About Scams.
3. You Have Credit Card Debt.
4. You’re Still Supporting Your Family.
5. You Don’t Know What Your Social Security Benefits Will Be — Or Won’t Be.
6. You Have a Significant Mortgage Balance.
7. You Don’t Have a Budget.
8. Your Budget Depends on Investments Appreciating or Paying Dividends.
9. Your Budget Doesn’t Cover Medical Expenses.
10. Your Retirement Plan is Just a Plan.
11. You Love Your Job.

This was the comment that I posted (but rejected, likely because the author of the article is too hard-headed or too much in denial that unorthodox retirement plans may just work a lot better than conventional ones):

You are being too reasonalble.

For the record, I have never had a budget and I don't ever intend to have one.

I am pretty good at saving money and have been able to avoid debt, however.

I certainly won't be retiring completely in 2011 but I did semi-retire in my early 40s when my net worth was MINUS $30,000.

Based on my financial position today, I am in much better position to retire in 2011 than most Canadians and Americans my age.

I decided to work only 4 hours a day when I semi-retired 20 years ago and forget about any company pension plan or government pension plan as part of my retirement plan.

I am now 61 and I don't anticipate many financial problems in retirement.

Of course, most "reasonable" people will say this it is impossible to semi-retire when one is in debt — and it is for reasonable people!

My retirement plan is unreasonable but it works.

As Jack Canfield says, "Results don't lie."

These creativity quotes give an indication of the philosophy on which my retirement plan is based on:

"The wrong way always seems more reasonable."
— George Moore

"The more you reason the less you create."
— Raymond Chandler

"Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one."
— Bertrand Russell

"I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's; I will not reason and compare: my business is to
create."
— William Blake

"The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them."
— Mark Twain

In short, an unreasonable retirement plan — one that defies convention — combined with creative action will kick butt over any reasonable retirement plan espoused by traditional financial and retirement planners.

Retirement planning should be left up to the individual and not to financial planners, many of whom themselves likely have not saved enough to ensure an adequate retirement income and are ones who just a few years ago were telling people how great of an investment a house was and how accumulating debt was a great way to live.

Ernie J. Zelinski
Author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)