What is a decoupled retirement and what different…

Transcript

You've probably heard me talking about decoupled retirements here on the channel before. I'm in a decoupled retirement, which is when one partner continues to work and the other retires. And it's difficult to get answers to your retirement situation from someone else who's in a decoupled retirement because there are so many reasons why people are in decoupled retirements. And I'll kind of break down the way I see it happening. So on each side, working and retired, you have voluntarily or involuntarily. Voluntarily or involuntarily. So in a decoupled retirement, you might have a person who continues to work for involuntary reasons, meaning they can't afford to retire. They must remain working because they can't afford to stop working. And then on a volun- volun- volun- voluntary side, you may have someone who loves working. They just love their job and they expect to continue doing it until they don't love it anymore. And then there's kind of an in-between on the working side. And that is, maybe they like their job, but maybe they fear what a post-work life might look like for them. Maybe they don't really have a solid feel for what retirement would be like, and they're afraid of what that lifestyle may look like. like. And I think that happens to people as well. I've had people on the channel tell me like, I want to retire, I can retire, but I'm terrified that I'll just become sedentary and sort of wither away. So that's on the working side. You have people who are doing it because they have to, doing it because they want to, and kind of in between. On the retired side, you have people who retired because they just felt like they did it, they're done. They put in their work and they're ready to rest. And that's probably the most common form of retirement. And then you have people who have to retire, maybe for health reasons. They just can no longer work, so they have to retire. And then you have kind of an in-betweener, someone who is retired because they were forced out of their job, for example, like a forced retirement, and they wanted to reenter the workforce, but they couldn't really find that work and they couldn't find the job. So they had to retire. And that's kind of the one thing that's kind of the insane thing of this. It's kind of like, I want to work, a place in the workforce where they could belong anymore. And those people, you know, wouldn't mind working, but they just can't seem to find the opportunity. But you can break it down broadly as for each side, is it voluntary or involuntary? That's the easiest way to look at it. And you have to say, in one scenario, you might say, so like my scenario, I'm voluntarily retired. Amy is voluntarily working. I've had lots of people come on the channel and say, I'm voluntarily retired, but my spouse is involuntarily working. Those scenarios are completely different. So when I tell stories about my decoupled retirement, you need to keep in mind that we're both doing what we're doing on a voluntary basis. And that's the only perspective I can give because other than that, I'm just giving an opinion and you don't want to hear my opinions. Opinions aren't right. Opinions are just somebody's feelings on something. So I try to just share my perspective. And my perspective is coming from someone who is voluntarily retired, married to someone who is voluntarily working.