Blog
Weekly articles about how to live a secure, fulfilling retirement.
The fierce urgency of now
What are you waiting for? Permission? Extra time? Enough money? What’s holding you back? Fear? Laziness? Uncertainty? I’ve struggled with all of those things at one time or another. In fact, I’m struggling with most of them right now as we get ready to head out...
How to simplify life in retirement
“The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It’s so easy to make it complex.” ~ Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia Minimalism and a Meaningful Retirement I recently sat down for a conversation with Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist to...
Two things on a crash course for your retirement.
As we go through life, there seems to be a natural progression. When we’re young, we tend to be hungry and passionate. We have a fire in our belly. We’re willing to take risks and blaze new trails. We accept things like moving, changing jobs and making new friends...
How to accidentally disinherit your kids
I help a lot of clients with their retirement planning and anytime I come across a situation that I think we can all learn from I like to change the names to protect the innocent and then write about it here at Intentional Retirement. Today’s installment is brought to...
The secret to doing big things
It’s no accident that this site is called Intentional Retirement. Being intentional with this brief, but beautiful life is one of the things I’ve tried to weave into the DNA of the site since day one. I preach that sermon every chance I get and I work hard to...
Why retirement will be cheaper than you think.
Will retirement be cheaper than you think? Maybe. A lot depends on your income replacement ratio. What’s that you ask? It’s the percentage of your current income that you will need during retirement to maintain your standard of living. Some people will need 100%...
15 retirement words that don’t exist, but should.
I’d like to take a moment to thank the good people at Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionaries. Each year they faithfully add hundreds of new words in an effort to help us all communicate more efficiently and effectively. After all, without those additions,...
Two proven ways to delay or prevent dementia
Last summer we visited my wife’s grandma in Oregon. Even though I’ve known her for nearly 20 years, I had to introduce myself because dementia has slowly erased her previous memories of me. Dementia affects millions of people as they age and often robs them of an...
How to be happy: Part 4
Greetings from frigid Omaha. One upside to this comically cold weather is that I’ve had a little more time than usual to just sit by the fire and catch up on my reading. As I worked through my “articles to read” pile, the results of a recent study caught my eye and...
Most popular posts of 2013 plus retirement rules that work
Most Popular Posts of 2013 Happy New Year! I hope your year is off to a great start. I’ve been on the road (a little R&R in Colorado with friends and family), so my apologies for a less than prolific few weeks at Intentional Retirement. I just have two quick...
Annual Review: 2013 Edition
Well, it’s that time of year again. As many of you know, each December I spend a few days reflecting on the previous 12 months and planning for the coming year. Going through this exercise helps me to reflect on past successes, fix problems, set priorities and...
Mini-retirement update: And the winner is…
As many of you know, I took a bit of a risk recently and committed to taking a mini-retirement sometime before the end of next year. I say “risk” because I hadn’t talked to either my wife or my boss before I wrote this post, but sometimes ready, fire, aim is the best...