Can’t retire? Semi-retirement is more fun anyway!

My recent blogs on Semi-Retirement seem to have struck a chord.  After I wrote this online piece for MoneySense.ca: Semi-Retirement is the Future (and a version here on the Hub, under the headline The Next Boomer Wave: Semi-Retirement), I was interviewed by Peter Armstrong at CBC TV’s On the Money Show.

The context of the CBC’s Tips for Boomers segment was in part my new book Victory Lap Retirement, written with Mike Drak, who describes it as a “retirement book about NOT retiring.” The first of several excerpts ran in the Financial Post on Monday.

After the CBC segment aired, Peter published his own blog covering similar territory, which you can find under the headline You’re Never Going to Retire — and Here’s Why. He picked up on my statement that the Millennials are going to live a long time and therefore will have an 80-year investment time horizon. I mentioned that a few weeks ago, when I gave a talk to T.E. Wealth in Ottawa about financial advice for Millennials.

Long-lived Millennials need to be mostly in stocks

Citing the book The 100-Year Life (reviewed on the Hub here by Mark Venning of ChangeRangers.com), I suggested that anyone with an 80-year time horizon should be 100% in equities and certainly avoid fixed-income investments that pay virtually zero rates of interest net of inflation. I subsequently wrote a blog for Motley Fool Canada that came out of the T.E. Wealth session: it features an investment veteran in his late 60s who is himself still 100% in stocks and sees himself as having a 50-year time horizon even now. See Stock Pickers Rejoice: Markets aren’t Efficient, Investors aren’t Rational.

Meanwhile, I wrote another blog on Semi-Retirement for the Retirement and Good Living blog, which it ran simply under the headline Semi-Retirement. I had previously written a blog for them that made the distinction between Financial Independence (aka Findependence) and Retirement. That was before the Victory Lap concept so I updated them, pointing out that Findependence and Victory Lap Retirement constitute a sort of Yin and Yang: Findependence is a prerequisite to the Victory Lap.

Then last Saturday the Hub republished an interesting blog by Retireby40’s Joe Udo. In his review of Victory Lap Retirement, Udo made the revealing confession that really his site is about SEMI-retiring by 40, NOT fully retiring! Of course, he admitted, Retireby40 is a catchier marketing name but who really wants to be fully retired when you may be facing more than half a century of life ahead (and without paycheques, no less)?

At least one Millennial, Sean Cooper, thinks the book should appeal to both that generation and their parents, the baby boomers. See Sean’s review at Retire Happy: Will Your Retirement be Your Victory Lap? See also LSM Insurance’s review of the book.

Both Mike and I have begun doing radio interviews on the book, and you may have seen Mike’s segment with BNN here a few weeks ago.

See you at the Zoomer show this weekend

As noted at the end of the Post excerpt, we’ll be at the Toronto Zoomer Show this weekend (Oct. 29/Oct. 30th). Look for us on Saturday at Booth 916 at the Enercare Centre (formerly the Direct Energy Centre at the Exhibition Grounds). We’ll be selling and signing copies of both Victory Lap Retirement and the prequel, Findependence Day (at a discount for those who buy both books at once). I’ve included links to where you can buy the books online: while the new book (VLR) is supposed to now be in Chapters Indigo and other major bookstores and places like Costco, some locations may not yet have them yet or be sold out.

Finding the optimum balance of Work and Play

I have described elsewhere that my vision of Semi-Retirement is to find a balance that’s neither too busy and stressful nor too leisurely and boring: or as the subtitle of the book has it, Work while you play, Play while you work. (Link is to another Hub blog on this theme, with a few photos of my recent trip to Ireland.)

The irony of all this activity surrounding the book launch is the not unwelcome circumstance that we’ve gotten fairly busy. And that’s a good thing!