Your Money Milestones: A Guide to Making the 9 Most Important Financial Decisions of Your Life

9. Retirement: When Is It Time to Shutter the Well and Close the Mine?

A few years ago, one of my older colleagues at work decided to retire at the age of 65 after a distinguished teaching career. He had been anxiously anticipating this for many years and had even bought a “countdown clock” for his desk as the official date loomed on the horizon. And so, with much fanfare we, his friends and associates, arranged a large retirement party in his honor a few weeks before his scheduled last day at work. As you might expect, he gave a brief but emotional speech detailing his mixed feelings about leaving the place where he had spent more than 25 years of his working life and talked about his plans to move to a warmer climate, take up sailing, and ...