Retirement can be fun

Don’t put your head in the sand and refuse to think about retirement because you view it as a sad time of life for old people. This is a key lesson the three younger participants in Glacier by Sanlam’s #FutureFWD campaign have learnt.

In fact, they have realised that planning for retirement can ensure you have enough money to make retirement the time you do all the things you never had time to do when you were working.

“Chatting to Michael [Olivier] – and seeing how busy his diary is – has changed my idea of retirement. It’s not just staring out of the window or polishing golf clubs. I can well believe that Michael is busier now than he was while he was ‘working’,” Candice Bresler says. “Michael’s wine collection has inspired me. When I’m 69 I would love to have a good few hundred bottles stored at home. He kindly showed me some bottles from 2011 – the year he retired. I wonder which vintage I’ll retire in!”

Thoban Jappie and Thomas Blake attended Blake’s church, art classes and Grandparents’ Day at Blake’s grandson’s school during their time together.

“Tommy is amazing! He’s very active – working within his church community, as an online doctor dispensing medical advice, and he’s very involved with his family and grandkids, plus doing things around the house. He’s made me realise that retirement is the start of a great period of your life, where you’ll be able to do things on your terms,” Jappie says.

After witnessing Sarah Ravenhill’s active life, and sharing a paragliding experience together, Bailey Schneider comments: “Sarah has absolutely opened my eyes to a world after work. I’m so career focused, but I’m also looking forward to that chapter … I’ll only be able to look forward to it if I plan financially. I’ve stopped spending frivolously and now, more than ever, I want to invest wisely and really save properly. I’ve also looked at my health from a fresh perspective. For so long it was about losing weight … but now it’s about being healthy and fit so that I can hopefully do all the things I want to as I get older.”