Senior Stories Frederick Lim

  RETIREE’S REALITY CHECK

by Frederick Lim

I retired at 65. That was after a long working life of ups and downs in business and in stockbroking and then a more stable career of twenty years of journalism. As I approached retirement a friend asked me what I’ll do once I retire. 

“Once I retire, I’ll do the things I really enjoy,” I told him. “And I’ll do things I never found the time to do.”

 And those were the thoughts I had been carrying around in my mind as retirement came ever closer upon the horizon. In fact I had a mental list all drawn up of all the things I hoped and wanted to do. 

Now, on my 3-year anniversary of my retirement, as I look back at the hopes, the expectations, the challenges, the reality checks, the dilemmas, and my life as a retired person I can say that retirement certainly didn’t turn out quite the way I thought it would. 

In the weeks and days leading up to my last day at CNA I would sit back in my office chair and think to myself: how good it would be to be finally free of routines, schedules, deadlines, meetings, budgets, year-end appraisals and all the many stressful and strenuous aspects of work life. And along with that, how good it would be to be able to wake up late any day of the week and be free to do whatever I felt like doing for the day. Or to stay up late and watch football and not have to worry about having to work the next day. 

And going beyond that, how good it would be to be able to have the time to travel to places I’ve never been to; to take cruises to nowhere or somewhere; to read and read and read; to take walk after walk or car or bus rides all day long; to catch concerts; to go to the movies; to visit museums—the list is endless when you have an abundance of time to do things at your leisure. On top of all that, I also planned to revive my long-neglected hobbies: to write a novel, to set up a travel blog, to improve my photography and video-making skills and to do some art. And I wanted to do some volunteering work as well.

 When my last few days in office came and as I went around to bade farewell to my colleagues some asked me if I would miss the working life. My answer was a firm “No”. A few said that an active and healthy person like me would probably get bored after a while and like many people they know would return to jobs or do some part-time or freelance work. 

I told them: “No way”. 

One answered me with this: “Don’t say so fast. Things can always change. People can always change. Nowadays, retirement is no longer an end-of-work thing. Many retirees do part-time or freelance or temporary work.” 

Another chipped in: “Yah, after a few honeymoon years of retirement you may get tired of too much travelling and then you may start to get bored and then restless. Or it could be money. Many people miscalculate how much they need to lead a good retirement life.”

I took my colleagues’ comments to heart but didn’t think they applied to me. I had done proper retirement planning after all. As senior editor of Money Mind in my last position with CNA I knew quite a bit about retirement planning. It was a subject we featured regularly on the weekly personal finance TV program. I knew from interacting with financial planning experts that there are four big questions you have to ask yourself when you go into retirement: Are you in good health? Do you have financial security? Will your family ties and social networks provide you with a good source of strength and support when you need it? Will you be able to find meaning and a sense of purpose in the things you do during retirement? I felt that I was good on all four counts.

I was also aware that some people lose their sense of identity once they retire. It’s because they put so much of their life into their work that their professional identity becomes their personal identity. Who they are become defined by the work that they do. And so much of their life happens at work that they feel lost when they retire because it would mean a big change for them. But I knew it wouldn’t be a problem for me. I had always been able to keep the two identities separate.

So, as I was about to leave office for the last time on my last day I sent out a mass email to all my colleagues. I also posted my farewell note on my Facebook page:

TIME TO MOVE ON

It’s time to move on - and time to say goodbye to CNA, MediaCorp, where I have been a journalist for 20 odd years.

Friends and colleagues ask me why I am leaving. I tell them I am retiring. They ask: why retire when you are still fit and healthy? I tell them it’s precisely because I am still fit and healthy that I am retiring. You want to be still fit and healthy to be able to enjoy retired life before your body (and your mind) starts to fail you. I know of many people who suffer more than enjoy when they go on holiday trips because of health issues.

And how I came to this decision has to do with 2 things: time and money. When you are young you think that money is what is most precious, but when you reach my age you know that what is most precious is time. Time with loved ones.

And so I asked myself: Will you run out of money before you run out of time? Or will you run out of time before you run out of money? You can count how much money you have and how long it will last – and you can do something if it turns out that your money will run out. But you can’t count how many years you have and how long you will last on Earth – and you can do nothing about it when your time runs out on you. And if you have lost money you can spend some time to make it back. But if you have lost time, no matter how much money you have to spend, you can’t buy back time. So the reasoning is simple—I give the biggest weight to the greatest unknown. YOLO!

And so I retired in February, 2020.

On the day after my retirement my wife and I went to an expensive Thai restaurant to celebrate. It was also my birthday. We discussed where to travel to and then went on to book an 18-day holiday package to Northwest America for April with a cruise to Alaska and a bus tour around the Canadian Rockies. We discussed going to Korea and Japan after the Alaska trip as well. And I also made an open booking for an 8-night stay in Angsana Lang Co Spa Resort in Central Vietnam. 

Then came a reality check. To have retired and be free to go anywhere in the world doesn’t mean a thing when a global health crisis is underway. You may have all your plans carefully worked out but life can always spring you a surprise, as it often does. And what you want is never necessarily what you get. The COVID-19 outbreak which started in Wuhan, China was spreading all over the world. Country after country was affected. International border restrictions and closures came thick and fast as fear grew over the exponential spikes in infections and deaths. Our travel plans had to be cancelled or put on hold. 

Not being able to travel overseas was a big blow to us. The main reason for me to retire two years earlier than the official retirement age of 67 was to travel. Age was catching up with us and we didn’t want to leave it too late to travel to the faraway places we wanted to visit. Health deteriorates with age. Travelling on 20-hour flights can be stressful. Waking up early to go for sightseeing and coming back late can strain the body. Climbing steep stairs and walking long distances can be a struggle if you have to do it repeatedly over many days. Footing, balance, sight, hearing and stamina are also not so good as you age and just one slip up can result in a bad accident. Long coach rides can strain the back and legs. The weather can make you sick. Absent-mindedness can make you drop, leave behind or lose things—like your passport or wallet—and that can really spoil a holiday. Tiredness is also a factor – we didn’t want to go on a vacation and be too tired to enjoy. Young people can rough it out on holiday and still enjoy but when you are over 65 that’s another matter. 

But as the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a global pandemic we knew that it would take quite a long time before we could travel. 

Then, on April 7, about a month or so after I retired, the government imposed the circuit breaker with strict measures such as stay-at-home orders, remote work, restrictions on social gatherings, takeaway or delivery of food only and compulsory mask wearing. The measures were further tightened on April 21. For my wife and I it meant staying within the confines of home most of the time. Besides the restrictions we were also afraid to go out and catch the virus. It was a blessing in a way however. Having to stay at home I found the time to write my first novel. And it was about the COVID-19 crisis. I decided that since I was constantly keeping up with all the information coming in about the pandemic I might as well write about it. The novel is titled The Pandemic Files. In the novel a Singapore journalist is in Wuhan to do on-the-ground stories of the pandemic. He comes upon hope and heartbreak, fear and fearlessness, selfishness and self-sacrifice and the best and worst of humanity in a crisis. Then, mysterious circumstances behind a man’s death leaves him with a puzzle to solve even as he heads back to Singapore. And he has to solve it quickly to save a life. The book was published about a year later.

 As the year wore on and the movement, group size and other restrictions were loosened, and then further loosened again as the COVID situation in Singapore improved, I began to have a better retired life. We didn’t want to take too much risks however and didn’t want to go out too much. When we went out it was to lower-risk and less-crowded places like outdoor parks. We visited museums and went to movies, malls and supermarkets only at odd times when there would be no crowds. I intensified my daily exercise regime which included swimming, jogging and working out in the gym. Then, as vaccines began arriving the following year, my retired life got even better. While we still couldn’t travel overseas we went on staycations in Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World and visited places like Jewel, Botanic Gardens and Gardens by the Bay. I also went for courses on photography, video-editing and graphic art.

Another thing I did during that period of time was to re-connect with my former Raffles Institution classmates and schoolmates. We met for coffee and lunches and went on hikes in the Rail Corridor, Southern Ridges and other nature trails. It proved to be a really good move. Whenever we met it was always fun. There would be countless stories to tell with a myriad of different lifetime experiences spread over professions, continents and decades to relate. And although many of us hadn’t met for decades the camaraderie was like that of our schooldays.

 Then came 2022. In the first half of the year we still couldn’t travel overseas or were too afraid to travel even though some countries reopened their borders. I had time to write my second novel, The Sungei Road Gang, a crime thriller, which was later published. But I had a reality check and was in a bit of a dilemma during that period of time. Inflation, one of the biggest threats to a retiree’s income, was soaring and making everything expensive. It affected us of course but not too badly. I don’t have a big-spender mentality. I don’t buy branded and expensive stuff. I never bother about “saving face” or worry myself over “losing face” and I never had a compulsion to have to “keep up with the Joneses”. So, spending a bit more wasn’t too worrisome. I have passive income from CPF Life and from some investments. I have six months of emergency funds. I have bank savings which are earmarked for travelling. I have simple needs and live within my modest means. I do pamper myself once in a while and spend more to have a good time, but I don’t overdo it. 

But what concerned me the most was the Certificate of Entitlement prices. My car was nearing 10 years old and to renew the COE to keep it I would have to fork out $100,000 or more. I started wondering if I should go find some part-time or freelance work. My novels were not bringing in much as I had yet to make a name for myself in the minds of reading public. I thought about it but didn’t want to do jobs that would involve too much brainwork which also usually come with much stress and a heavy load of responsibility. I thought about doing jobs that would be mechanical and routine although they may not pay much. Or to drive for Grab. I managed to do some small freelance gigs which paid nothing more than pocket money. I thought about selling off some of my stocks and bonds but that would mean a loss in passive income. In the end I asked myself: Is this what you want? Do you want to do a job you don’t really want to do so as to keep the car? I finally decided that it would be better to just do without the car. 

 In the second half of 2022 life had returned to near-normalcy. COVID restrictions were mostly lifted and travel to many countries was now possible. But would it be safe to travel and if so which countries would be the safest to go to? — that was a dilemma. In the end we made two trips to Malaysia—one by land and another by sea on a cruise ship. We visited Ipoh, Taiping, Kuala Lumpur and Penang. We also spent nine days and eight nights at Angsana Lang Co resort in Central Vietnam and on day trips visited Hue, Danang, My Son and Hoi Ann. We also booked a tour package to Kyushu in Japan for February 2023. But we were not so confident about how safe it would be to go to Europe and America and decided to leave it till later. 

 So here I am, three years into retirement, and feeling that it has only just started. My retirement lifestyle in the last three years had been severely disrupted by COVID-19 but they were not lost years. I managed to do quite a lot of things that I enjoyed doing during retirement. I also did things I never found time to do - like writing and publishing novels. I’m not sure if I can be considered to be in the honeymoon years of retirement, or even if there is such a thing as a honeymoon during retirement, but I’m looking forward to the future with hope. Cautious hope, that is. The reality is that the world has become a much more uncertain place than three years ago. The political, economic and social and ecological environment around the world has changed. A bitter and bloody war is ongoing in Europe, US-China tensions are rising, globalisation is in reverse, inflation is rising, global debt is heading for crisis levels, and equity, bond, forex and commodity markets are volatile. And people around the world and even in the same country are becoming increasingly divided and are taking hard-line or extremist positions on political and social issues. Climate change is also making the weather unpredictable.  

 Still, I have always been a positive-minded person throughout my life. And whatever the future brings I’ll live life as it comes. And try to live the rest of my life, my retirement years, to the fullest.