Uncle Ebo Whyte PLANNING FOR YOUR RETIREMENT

Uncle Ebo Whyte
PLANNING FOR YOUR RETIREMENT
Whether you like it or not, you will one day you will
go on retirement. You will not work forever. Do not
wait till that time to notice that you haven’t put
much thought into it. Plan now to have a great
season outside your working years.
1. No condition is permanent.
A week after the MD of one of the banks in Ghana
went on retirement, I happened to go to the head
office on business. I got into the lift and 3 others,
mostly staff of the bank joined me. Just before the
door of the lift could close, a man hurried to join
us. I recognized him immediately. He was the just-
retired MD of the bank. To my surprise, the others
in the lift pretended they did not know him. He was
going to the same floor with me. We rode the lift
together in silence and when we got to the floor I
had pressed, the door opened and he stepped out.
I followed him to watch how the staff will relate to
him and how he will conduct himself. And again to
my surprise, nobody paid any attention to him.
People walked past him without even greeting him.
He happened to be going to see the same officer I
had come to see so we entered the same office
where the secretary to the officer was busy at
work. When we entered, she lifted her head from
her work and said, “Yes, can I help you?”
The just-retired MD said, “I am here to see So and
so.”
And the secretary said, “Please take a seat. I will
let him know you are here.”
I was shocked. Note, only a week ago, this man
would not have needed the services of this
secretary to tell her boss that the MD wanted to
see him. Only a week ago, no one would have
dared walked past him without a very pleasant and
respectful greeting. Indeed, from what I learnt later,
when he was MD, no one rode the lift with him. If
he met you in the lift, you stepped out for him.
That day I learnt anew the meaning of the words:
no condition is permanent.
: 2. Pay attention to those things in your life that
will not change. It is true that no condition is
permanent but certain things don’t change.
Unfortunately, we often give all our attention to the
things that do change and forget to give any
attention to those that do not change. Let me give
an example. Your relationship with your children
does not change. You are their father, no matter
where they go and what they do. You remain the
father of your children; they can never retire you as
their father. Your wife remains your wife and she
cannot retire you as husband.
Unfortunately, there are people in active service
who are sacrificing their relationships with their
children and their spouses for the work they are
doing; the work that will send them on retirement
sooner or later. Those are the people who have a
miserable time in retirement because having
sacrificed their relationships for their career, they
cannot have the support and love of their spouses
and children in retirement and that is when they
need them the most. It pays to invest in your
retirement by ensuring that you pay attention to
those things and relationships in your life that will
never change. Then when you need to fall of them,
they will be more than happy to support you.
: 3. Develop a life beyond your work. Unfortunately,
many people sink themselves so completely into
their work that they forget to develop a life outside
their work. For such people, when retirement
comes, they are traumatized because they do not
know what to do with their time and with the rest
of their lives. I know a few people who on
retirement are busier than they have ever been
because they had developed interests outside their
careers and now they are free to devote
themselves completely to those interests.
What fills your life today? For many people, their
lives have become: office- home-office. If that is
your life, you will have a very miserable time in
retirement. Today, begin to develop a life beyond
and outside your career or profession. Get involved
in more than your work because your work will not
always be there for you. And don’t use the excuse
that you are too busy. No matter how busy you
are when retirement comes, your life will come to a
sudden stop.
So, do yourself a favour today. Develop a life
outside your work and your career. Don’t let your
life be only work work work. There is more to life
than work, you know?
: 4. Develop the habits of savings and investments.
There are not that many reliable investment
platforms in Ghana but there are few and I suggest
that you investigate them and decide which of
them will work for you. I also suggest that you
explore some non-traditional savings options. For
instance, a land never depreciates in value. Buy a
land anywhere in Ghana today and you will be
amazed how much you can sell it for in ten years.
Also, adopt a healthy lifestyle today. When you are
young, you tend to be reckless with your choice of
lifestyle. Unfortunately because the effects of
unhealthy lifestyles may not show immediately,
many of us don’t see the need to change them.
But unhealthy lifestyles come at a price but
payment is delayed. Quite often, the payment
comes during retirement when you find yourself
having to spend all your savings on medical
treatments. Today, adopt a healthy lifestyle so that
in your old age, you will not become a burden on
yourself and on others.
: 5. A married couple should not both be working for
salary. In my father’s time, it was rare to find a
man and his wife both in formal employment. More
often than not, it was the man in the formal sector
and his wife would be self-employed or a trader.
In this way when the man is sent home on
retirement, his wife will still be actively earning
some income and that is how a lot of men survived
back in the day. These days, the norm is to find
both the man and his wife in formal employment.
And since we are marrying close of our ages, it
means that there are situations when the man and
his wife could be sent home on retirement at the
same time. And that puts a lot of pressure on the
couple in their old age.
I recommend that young couples should plan to
have one of them go into business or self-
employment whilst the other remains in formal
employment. And when the private business really
takes off, the one in formal employment should not
hesitate to resign to join fully in building that
business. BE THE DIFFERENCE