The retirement mistakes no one warns you about
Feature: The retirement mistakes no one warns you about From Becâs Desk: Week four of Epic Retirement Month SMH/TheAge: Conversations to have about retirement over the Christmas season Prime Time: Two shows: The Epic Retirement Tick: Whatâs changed and Introducing, the new edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement Ad - Before we start â I want to advertise our next course - which we launched this week. The How to Have an Epic Retirement flagship course kicks off on the 19th February. Itâs a practical, Australia-first program designed for people in their 50s and 60s who want to understand how to navigate retirement (the easy way). And we all do the program together (we call it a synchronous program). It covers the stuff that actually matters: how the systems of retirement really work, how to get money into super, then how to turn your super into income, how to think about spending, tax and the age pension, and how to plan for health, purpose and the long game of ageing in place. Thereâs no jargon. No scare tactics. No sales pitch for products. If youâre serious about shaping a retirement that feels good to live â not just one that looks fine on paper â this course will show you how. One of the biggest myths about retirement is that if you get the money right, everything else just falls into place. It doesnât. Sorry to be the bearer of that news! After years of talking to retirees, pre-retirees, and people hovering nervously somewhere in between, Iâve come to realise that the biggest mistakes people make in retirement arenât usually about super balances, market returns or whether they picked the perfect fund. Theyâre about their expectations and the timing of their retirement. And they often come from underestimating how much life actually changes when work falls away. The first mistake I see is treating retirement as a purely financial problem. Yes, saving money, managing cashflow and reducing the tax you pay matters. But retirement isnât really a spreadsheet exercise. Itâs a complete reshaping of your lifestyle. When the plan focuses only on numbers, people are often blindsided by the emotional side. The days are suddenly unstructured. The sense of usefulness can wobble. Social contact drops away faster than expected. None of this shows up in a retirement calculator. Another common mistake is stopping work too abruptly. Work gives us far more than income. It gives us a real sense of rhythm, identity, purpose and often, a ready-made community. When it disappears overnight, even people whoâve been dreaming of retirement for years can feel unsettled and lost. The retirees who seem to do best tend to taper their work. They work part-time, consult, volunteer, or build a portfolio of activities that eases the transition. Retirement doesnât have to be all or nothing. Health is another really big one. Too many people treat their health as something theyâll âget serious aboutâ once they retire and have more time. In reality, retirement is when health becomes the enabler of everything else. Travel, independence, social life, staying in your own home â frankly all of it depends on our physical and cognitive capacity. Strength, balance, mobility and prevention matter far more than people expect, and far earlier than they think. Relationships also shift in retirement, and this catches many people off guard. Couples suddenly spend far more time together. Some love it while others find it surprisingly hard. Friendship circles often shrink once work drops away, and rebuilding them takes conscious effort. One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming that connecting with others will just happen. In retirement, it usually needs to be actively done. Money mistakes still matter too, just not in the way people expect. Some retirees underspend badly, paralysed by the fear of running out, even when their numbers say theyâre fine. Others spend freely and quite loosely early on without thinking through how long retirement might actually last. Their super gets treated as set-and-forget, tax isnât well understood and itâs important, and income strategies arenât revisited as life changes so people are either struggling unnecessarily, or living beyond their means for longer than they should be. Retirement planning doesnât end the day you stop working. Thatâs when it really does begin. And finally, many people leave the hard conversations about life too late. Ageing, care, housing, support, powers of attorney, wills and estate planning. These arenât end-of-life issues these are middle of life issues. And theyâre quality-of-life issues. Putting them off doesnât make them go away, it just limits your choices or your familyâs choices later. If thereâs one thing Iâd love people to take away as they head into the holidays itâs this. Retirement isnât something you âarrive atâ (or run for). Itâs something you actively shape over time. The people who do it best stay curious, stay flexible, and keep adjusting as life changes. Thatâs not a mistake-proof plan. But itâs a far better one. Week three of Epic Retirement Month is now done and dusted. Just one more week to go. We wrap on the 20th and head off for a break. I hope you are heading off too! Itâs been a really busy month. In fact Iâm not sure Iâve ever squeezed so much into one month! This week was monumental! First, the huge news⊠My completely rewritten UK edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement had it's publishing day on Thursday, and shot straight to #1 on the Financial Retirement Planning category on Amazon when it hit bookstores. Thatâs exciting. Itâs a huge category, and Amazon in the UK controls ~60% of book sales. Itâs been nice seeing it pop up on feeds and in commentary from UK people too. The pensions industry and The Times in the UK have been wonderful. This week I celebrated Epic Retirement Week with Hostplus on the Podcast - make sure you have a listen to the awesome show with Maurizio Lombardi (below!). Heâs one of the leaders in superannuation financial advice, so heâs showing us the way. And then I presented for hundreds and hundreds of members of Brighter Super at their special epic retirement online panel event. The new Australia-New Zealand Edition of How to Have an Epic Retirement has now found itâs way out into the world, and itâs selling very well. You can order here. Itâs week 6 of our current cohort, the Summer Edition 25 of the How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course. The last week of the program! Weâre talking housing, care and travel this week in our course materials and live Q&A. And weâve launched the next 6 week Flagship Course, which kicks off on the 19th Feb and itâs selling like hotcakes. You can learn more or book your place here. If you havenât grabbed the Epic Retirement Starter kit yet, this is the LAST WEEK it will be available for free download. The toolkit is designed to give you a simple, practical foundation for everything weâre covering. Itâs free, itâs easy to read, and itâs on the website waiting for you. Thereâs no Sunday column in The Sydney Morning Herald this week - itâs all finished for the year. Apparently it was read more than 2.2 million times in 2025. Thatâs pretty cool! Iâve still got some interesting columns in The Times to come though if youâre a reader. And donât forget - Iâve really stepped up my game on Facebook and Instagram. Come along and learn with me. Facebook: facebook.com/becwilsonepic Insta: instagram.com/epicretirement Have a lovely Sunday! Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker Itâs hard to believe weâve launched THREE books this year! If you are looking for Christmas ideas, you can order them on Amazon here: Prime Time https://amzn.to/4hE1kFq Epic Retirement Australia / New Zealand https://amzn.to/3WNLfDv Epic Retirement UK: https://amzn.to/4itAu35 First weâre talking goal setting for your epic retirement with Maurizio Lombardi, Executive Manager of Advice Strategy at Hostplus, then, weâre giving you a how-to guidâŠ
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