Well it's great to be with you all again it's another video day for us - It is - So things that
we wish we knew before we retired almost sounds like a country music song there Tina
- And I guess you must be feeling lucky today Norm - Oh yeah got my lucky shirt
on so because we're filming been to Costco - Got the great deals haven't we
- We have so one of the things that we wish we knew before we retired was how free it is how stress
free no longer having to get up and go through the morning ritual of preparing yourself to go to work
and being accountable to somebody else all day long it's wonderful to be accountable to
your own self and your partner that's it you're your own person and it's such a freeing
feeling and we saw that with Tina when she gave up work the amount of stress we hadn't realized
until a few years after retirement just how different she was she'd lost all that stress of
meeting quotas and all that good stuff - And I think I'll just add Norm that when you're actually doing
the job you actually don't think it is stressful you don't think you are under all this
stress until you stop it do something else and you think wow this is a lot better we like this
it's great so just being accountable to ourselves we love it don't we - It is totally life changing
- One thing that we do think is very important before you retire is you do need to have a
discussion with your partner as to what it is that the ideas that you're both thinking you
have when you're going to retire you do need to have some goals about, do you want to travel do
you want to garden or do hobbies do you want to stay home you really do need to have that
conversation to make sure you're both on the same page - I think it is it is important and
we hear a lot from some comments especially married women who are saying that their husband
their frightened the husband will get under their feet because he'll be hanging around all the time in
retirement but that really isn't the case - Not for us is it - We've been secure as a couple for
the longest time and retirement hasn't changed how we feel about each other and about what
our expectations of each other is it's not as if we've all of a sudden being locked up together in
retirement (no) so it is important to figure out what you both want out of retirement and to have
that discussion a few years before you actually do retire (yeah) one thing to bear in mind is
the first few years of your retirement you'll be your most healthy so just use that health and
strength that you do have in the early years to achieve some of the goals that you want
- Yeah and if you want to be traveling do it while you've got that - Don't think about traveling if
that's on your list just do it right away - Yeah absolutely and that's what we've done isn't
it when we retired we just traveled everywhere didn't we it was great - About two years before we
retired we had an inspector come to the house for I don't even remember what it was but it was
some form of home inspection that we had to and so we got chatting with him because he was a few
years older than us but not that much and he told us that he had a house very similar to ours that
he had sold and now he was living an apartment and he went through the whole process of them
and how they moved to the apartment and how it was such an improvement on their life
and it was something we'd never ever considered - This was big news to us wasn't it we never even
thought about renting an apartment - We had been homeowners since we were 19 years old so to rent
we had that preconceived idea that it was throwing money away but the more that we looked into it so
after he left the next couple of days we spent many hours thinking about this we did a budget
of how much it cost to keep our mortgage free home - Yeah crunched all the numbers - And what the
rent would be and if we had sold the house and it made more and more sense to us to sell the house
to downsize into an apartment bank the money from the house live off that as an investment and
that's what we did - And that's what we did didn't we - But had that guy not come to our house we might
never have come up with that idea - No because originally we had thought that we would just
buy a smaller house didn't we - That's right yeah - So part of our decision when we had actually now
decided that we were going to rent and we realized that would take care of we wouldn't have all this
maintenance and stuff like that to do we decided after we started looking at apartments that if
we moved to a cheaper area could we benefit by getting the same as what we wanted in an apartment
but would it cost us less money so the more we looked into it we did have a family member
who lived in a cheaper place so we looked at the equivalent of renting an apartment
in this new place and it was so much cheaper wasn't it Norm - Because we initially thought
we would just sell our house and stay in the same area so we started shopping for
apartments to find out how much they cost and the availability and we were pretty surprised that
at the expense of them but we were prepared to pay that (yeah) and then we came to a what
you would call it a small town that's cheaper (yeah) we came to visit a family member here and so
we started looking around at the apartments here and they were substantially cheaper about $800
a month cheaper than where we were initially going to - Yeah and not only that Norm there was a lot of
extras with it wasn't that we got there was underground parking and what else a swimming pool
- And laundry facilities in the apartment - And that was one thing the gentleman had told us he didn't
have on-suite laundry he had it in a laundry room so we wanted that - But coming to the cheaper town
it wasn't just the rents that were cheaper everything was cheaper
the Tina's hairdresser as we've said in the past was cheaper
it just permeated everything so our budget became so attainable (yeah) by moving - That gave us a lot
more money to be able to travel didn't it because we thought if we can save money on a daily basis
and it worked perfect didn't it - It did it was great, take a look at that if you do have family
that live in an area that might be cheaper or just consider going not knowing anybody - No it's
like a new adventure isn't it a new chapter in your life because we've made friends here and
they don't have any family just here but they've made it a new place for them haven't they - A lot
of people have moved out of the big cities to a small town because it's it's far more conducive to
retirement (yes) and friendlier another thing that you really need to consider
is where your friends are going to come from in retirement because once you leave work
those friendships tend to wither away because the only common bond you have was your job
your workplace so we've never really had lasting friendships from
work colleagues they've always been outside of there so it's it's critically important
to continue looking for friendships in retirement and being outgoing and prepared to speak to people
Tina when we moved to this apartment building they did have a social room and they did a coffee
morning and so she would go down there and we found out so much information about the town and
businesses to use - It was great wasn't it - It was - It was kind of my mission wasn't it to find out
new information and to try and make new friends which we did and we made some fabulous friendships
- Well in particular there was one couple that Tina made struck up a friendship with and they in turn
have introduced us to another couple yeah and then they in turn have introduced us to another couple
so that's how it goes - Yeah so now we've got a group of really close nice friends that we
socialize with don't we - And the thing that we have in common isn't an employer it's being retired
- It is isn't it - It really is so don't be afraid of striking out to a new city a new town
because it's relatively easy to make friendships - Yeah you just have to push yourself out there
a little don't you and be confident to going to things and it's very exciting isn't it so we hope
that everybody is staying safe - And keeping well - Until the next time bye bye, bye bye