Planning for Retirement // Living Generously, Part 8

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Retirement, now there’s an interesting subject. It’s not a concept you find anywhere in the Bible, so should we be saving for our retirements or does God call us to do something quite different with our money? It’s not an easy one, is it?

Berni: Alex, welcome.

Alex: Hi Berni, great to be with you.

Berni: Hey mate, I said before money's not in the Bible. I often joke with people who are at retirement age and say, “Well if it’s not in the Bible it must be a sin!” Well what’s your take on retirement?

Alex: Look, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with retirement in the sense of stopping paid work. However, the Bible is silent on the topic. There’s one obscure reference in Numbers where God is giving instructions to Moses to tell the Levis to stop working at aged 50. That’s the only reference you’ll find. Apart from that ...

Berni: Mind you, Moses starts his ministry at age 80.

Alex: Exactly.

Berni: Right?

Alex: Well my view is very simple. Each of us has a calling; we have an assignment that God wants us to do. And that calling does not stop the moment you reach, say, the magical age of 65 or whatever the retirement age is in your country. To me retirement really it’s not a biblical concept and the problem is most modern culture pushes this idea that you enter this period of leisure.

Berni: Yes.

Alex: Whereas I think in what I’ve seen, both as a financial planner and also from a Christian perspective, is firstly the longer you work the longer you’ll live. It’s actually much healthier to work.

Berni: You’re just obsessed around that, right?

Alex: Absolutely. And in fact the scary stat is that most men die within five years of retirement. So retire later and you’ll live longer basically. But it’s a statistical fact and I think the reason why is you’re kind of telling your body that you’re shutting down.

Berni: Yeah.

Alex: That’s it. But that shouldn’t happen at all. As I say as a Christian you’ve got a calling, you’ve got an assignment that doesn’t end at an age. Now that doesn’t mean you have to do paid work till the day you drop.

Berni: Right.

Alex: And it may well be that we all have different circumstances. So we don’t need to necessarily work. But it’s about using the second half of your life and fulfilling the purposes for which God has called you.

Berni: So, should Christians retire is somewhat of a moot question as far as you’re concerned?

Alex: Exactly right, yeah.

Berni: OK, we’ve got an aging population. What are some of the challenges that we’re going to face as a society with more people getting older?

Alex: It’s putting enormous pressure on governments around the world and on their budgets, if you like.

Particularly, most countries unfortunately over the last 50 years have racked up enormous debts so now they’ve got a massive headwind. The headwind is that people are getting older, so there’s less tax payers because they’re no longer in the workforce. So the government’s got to fund it. And of course they’ve got to pay back the debts that they’ve already accumulated. So there’s enormous pressure.

The other thing is we’re all living longer. We now live 26 years longer than what we did 100 years ago. So if you think about it: retirement’s really sort of a fairly modern day concept. 100 years ago most people would have worked till they dropped.

Berni: Yeah.

Alex: But now, you know, it’s now seen as this divine right. That you have this period of leisure. And I always take the view you should be enjoying life as you go along not just from 65 onwards. But not only that, of course we’re meant to be using our life to fulfil our calling, whatever that is right to the very end.

Berni: One of the things I’ve noticed, and please I don’t want any retiree to take offence here. But one of the things I’ve noticed sometimes, particularly among some men, is that when they retire their view and their outlook become a lot narrower that it was when they were working. Am I missing the point here, or ...?

Alex: No, you’re very accurate. Not only that, I’ve found it does all sorts of terrible things. Firstly, many people are lonely, OK. They say 80% of a man’s social life is through work. And so when you retire, essentially your social life drops by 80%.

The second thing is I find people worry about money. Previously you had a job, you had income coming in. The moment you cease work you’ve then got to fund yourself in some way. And so people start worrying about money.

And they can become very inward. When people are in the workforce they tend to be more engaged, more interesting, lots of things going on. And busy. And I think that’s the way we’re meant to be: not too busy, but you know we’re meant to be doing things.

Berni: Active.

Alex: Active, yeah.

Berni: Engaged.

Alex: And that doesn’t happen when you retire. And many people, as I say, they become lonely and what I’ve witnessed: I’ve had many clients who had plenty of money and could retire but they actually ... six months later they were back in the workforce.

Berni: Yeah.

Alex: Bored out of their brain. So I think it comes back to the point that we have a purpose. God himself worked and He rested on the seventh day. So we’re the same. We should be working and occasionally we rest so ...

Berni: Even, even Adam tilled the land in the garden. He wasn’t sitting on his backside having a holiday on a beach with a Pina Colada. Right? He was working too. I mean find ... I love what I do. I’m 57 years young. One day I guess I won’t be doing this. One day, God will move me on, bring someone younger, whatever! But my calling is to preach the gospel, right.

Alex: Yeah.

Berni: I can’t help myself. As long as I draw breath ...

Alex: Yeah.

Berni: I want to be sharing the good news of Jesus with someone. Even though it may not be ...

Alex: Yeah.

Berni: In the way that I’m doing it right now.

Alex: Yeah, well in fact there’s a psalm that you would love. I think it’s Psalm 71 but I wouldn’t quote me on that necessarily, but ... and then as it says:

Even when I’m old and grey, may I preach your word to the future generations.

That’s paraphrasing it. But essentially it’s saying, you know, no matter what age you are, keep passing the gospel on to future generations. Which is obviously something you’re passionate about.

Berni: Amen. OK, so how does this move, this transition from paid work to maybe non-paid work, how does that change your financial management planning?

Alex: Yeah, look, I think for every person this is going to be quite different. So for some people, in terms of the finances, your finances obviously potentially dictate what you’re able to do. For some people they may be able to go to unpaid work and work, you know, for the local church or some sort of ministry or so forth. For others it may well mean you change career. Nothing wrong with that. These days that’s becoming more common; you could have three or four careers in your lifetime.

Berni: Some of these young people have three or four careers by the time they’re 30 mate.

Alex: 30, yeah. I did. Also you might transition to your own business.

Berni: Yeah.

Alex: Or you may transition into some sort of ministry or to part-time. Maybe you love what you do and you don’t want to cease. Why cease? But you lose a bit of energy so perhaps you just go from full-time to part-time. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong on this. But I do think it needs to be planned.

Berni: Yeah.

Alex: And actually thought through carefully.

Berni: One of my neighbours was quite senior with an international airline and retired. It was appropriate, he was a pilot, but involved in other things, safety. He now works as a consultant to multiple airlines around the world. You know, a couple of days a week, two or three days a week he’s off to here or off to there. It seems to be a lovely way of transitioning when you’re at that age you don’t want to be working in the corporate world, you know 70 hours a week any more.

Alex: Yeah.

Berni: Yeah, totally.

Alex: But also you’ve still got a lot of value to add.

Berni: Totally.

Alex: Now while you’re still drawing breath you’ve got value to add to the world.

Berni: Particularly with your age and your experience and your knowledge.

Alex: Even more so.

Berni: More so, yeah.

Alex: Then you’ve got to pass that wisdom on.

Berni: OK so what about finances? What happens?

Alex: Well I believe that Christians should still aim to be what I call financially independent. Now you have to be very careful with these words because independence is one of the things that as human beings we’ve tried to fight against God if you like and be independent from God. And that’s sinful, that’s ... you know that’s man ...

Berni: Pride.

Alex: Pride, yeah. So that’s wrong but when I talk about the words financially independent what I ... because I’m trying to throw away the word retirement and what that means to people. But I still believe you need to have sufficient finances to make sure that you’re not a burden on any future generations, on the government and so forth, as best you possibly can.

So Christians should use their money, try and build up so that perhaps you own your own home. And then you have enough money left over so that you can fund yourself. So it’s not about hoarding money away and building up vast wealth. But having just enough so that you can get yourself through without being a burden on others.

Berni: Of course that’s different in different cultures and different countries. In Western culture we throw old people away, right?

Alex: That’s terrible, terrible.

Berni: We ultimately stick them in nursing homes. Whereas in a lot of Asian cultures, middle eastern cultures, African cultures, old people become part of the family and they’re looked after in the family. And indeed they have a role in bringing up the children and helping boys to become men.

Alex: Yeah and it should be that way. I actually think that some of those cultures ...

Berni: Get it right.

Alex: And they have a lot to teach us ...

Berni: Absolutely.

Alex: In my experience.

Berni: Absolutely. Look, it’s exciting stuff. Retirement’s not an easy one for many people. What do you say to someone who’s working hard and knows they’re getting to the end of their working life and they simply don’t have the resources?

Alex: Well I say try and discard the word retirement from your psyche. Because it’s putting pressure on you and making you feel uncomfortable about where you’re at. So instead try and replace it with how you’re going to use the second half of your life for God and for glorifying him. And thinking, well OK, if that’s what it’s going to look like, how do I transition to that? And that may well mean if you don’t have those resources that you know, that you keep working. But in a different role.

Berni: And God is an amazing provider.

Alex: Amen.

Berni: Amen. Great stuff. Thanks for that Alex.