What Do You Do When You Actually Retire?
CPF stonks
BY: JOLENE TEO
(Not) An Art Hoe
Memes by Singaplex
A lot of us have made elaborate financial plans to ensure we have enough money when we retire, be it through investments, savings plans, or just relying on good ol’ CPF savings that we can always count on. Now picture this: It is 2070 and you have retired after working your ass off and are ready to finally spend your retirement funds. What do you actually do with the time and money?
1. Travel duh
There is that saying: when you are young you have time and energy, but no money; when you are middle-aged you have money and energy, but no time; and when you are old you have time and money, but no energy. However, if we happen to retire early and be in the pink of health, one of the top things to do would be to travel.
Not to mention how small Singapore is and there is little domestic tourism you can do, the only road trip you can do is from Pasir Ris to Jurong unlike in other countries where you can drive for hours to get from one city to another for a change of scenery. Surely you would want to live your dreams of exploring the world the moment you retire.
2. Continue working
There are some people who never truly retire and actually continue working even after hitting the retirement age. Some of them do so because they are bored at home with nothing to do, others do so as a result of lack of savings and the need to continue earning money to survive. Too often we see elderly workers clearing trays and cleaning tables at hawker centres, working in F&B or sweeping the streets.
When it is our time to retire, it is unlikely we will still go down the path of cleaning or F&B just to pass time or earn money like the current retirees. Perhaps the kind of work we would want to do during our retirement would be doing investments online or imagine being a TikToker 50 years from now…?
3. Stay home and Netflix
After retiring means it is prime time to catch up on all the Netflix drama series or rewatch your favourite movies. Must be nice to binge-watch a whole season over two days while eating that pizza you got delivered, without any worries of feeling guilty for not finishing your work or getting a random urgent work call from your boss. Maybe it is a good time to finally finish watching “How I Met Your Mother” or become one of those aunties who watch Korean dramas on their iPad all day every day.
4. Living the high life
Love doing pretentious things to act atas? Retirement is the best time to live the high life with the money and time to actually do so. Go shopping for a new branded bag at Marina Bay Sands, followed by high tea with your friends just sitting down and chatting about life for hours. Or play golf for hours and go for wine tasting or grab a glass of Scotch after. Live out your Crazy Rich Asian dreams that you could not while hustling to earn money.
5. New hobbies
With the pandemic now and circuit breaker last year, many of us had a taste of retirement life where we had to find things to entertain ourselves and pick up new hobbies. Besides the usual choices like painting or playing video games, why not try something different like horseback riding or tufting your own rug (which seems to be something quite popular nowadays)? It is never too late to start learning new things and finding something that we enjoy doing in our free time, which we will have plenty of during retirement.
Not to burst your retirement dreams bubble, but it is also hard to say what Singapore and the world will be like in 50 years. Perhaps we will be living in a dystopian world where retirement will be the least of your problems, or we have discovered a way to live forever in a digital matrix and there will no longer be such things as retirement. Who knows?
JOLENE TEO | (Not) An Art Hoe
Jolene Teo is a contemporary and modern art enthusiast, writer, curator, and cultural researcher. She enjoys exploring the areas inbetween art, design, critical narratives, pop culture, and the cult of collecting. She is socially awkward but will talk to you about plants, art, anime, and life. Some part of her still wishes she can become an artist one day. Send her memes @joteo_
