What the paycheck was really giving you

For 30 or 40 years, your job handed you far more than a paycheck. It gave you a reason to get up, a place to be, people who counted on you and a clear answer to the question “what do you do?” When all of that ends on a Friday afternoon, the money may be in place, but the scaffolding of your day is gone. Researchers have found that retirement can measurably raise the risk of depression, and that a strong sense of purpose is one of the best buffers against the anxiety and drift that can follow. This is not weakness. It is simply what happens when a major source of meaning disappears overnight.

How the gap drains the account

Here is where it reaches your wallet, and it pulls in two opposite directions. Some retirees fill the empty hours by spending — a new gadget, another trip to the home-improvement store, an impulse purchase, anything to feel busy and useful again. I call it panic-spending, and along the Wasatch Front, where the cost of living already runs above the national average, it adds up faster than people think.

Others swing the other way. Studies of retiree behavior have found that a large share struggle to spend at all, frozen by fear of the unknown. That same anxiety is what makes people sell good investments at the bottom of a downturn, lock in losses and abandon a sound plan at the worst possible moment. Whether the gap shows up as restless spending or fearful selling, the root is identical: Emotion, not strategy, is steering the money. And emotion is an expensive pilot.

The Utah wrinkle

We Utahns pride ourselves on self-reliance, and that is a strength. But it can also keep folks from admitting, even to themselves, that they feel adrift after leaving work. The good news is that this is one place where our culture gives us a real head start. Utah is rich in the very things that close the purpose gap: deep traditions of faith community, tight family networks, a strong volunteering ethic and some of the most spectacular country in America right outside the door. The same retiree who feels lost on a Tuesday morning is an hour from five national parks, a temple or congregation that would welcome the help, and grandchildren who would love the time.

Milestones that are not measured in dollars

This is why I tell people that true financial stability starts with a question that has nothing to do with money. Financial planners talk about the “go-go years,” that first active decade of retirement when your health and energy are at their peak. Most people plan those years around a dollar figure. I want you to plan them around milestones instead.

What do you want to learn, build, see or give back during your go-go years? Maybe it is mentoring at a local school, finally hiking all of the Mighty Five, taking up a trade you never had time for, or showing up every week for a grandchild. Write those down. Give your week a shape and your years a destination. When you have real reasons to get up, the urge to spend out of boredom fades, and so does the panic that makes you bail on your investments at the first scary headline.

Where structure protects the soul

Here is the part that ties it all together, and where my work fits in. It is very hard to chase purpose when a corner of your mind is always watching the account balance. That low-grade money anxiety is exactly what feeds both panic-spending and fear-based selling. When your essential expenses are covered by guaranteed, predictable income you cannot outlive, the kind a fixed index annuity with a lifetime income rider is designed to provide, that daily worry loosens its grip. You are freed to actually live the plan. The structure protects your peace of mind, and your peace of mind protects the structure from emotional mistakes.

So before we talk about rates of return, let’s talk about what you are retiring to, not just what you are retiring from. If you have been feeling the drift, the answer is not another purchase, and it is certainly not selling in a panic. It is purpose, connection and a plan built to support both. Get that right, and the dollars tend to follow.

Lyle Boss, The REAL BOSS Financial, a native Utahn and retirement specialist who has spent decades helping families across Utah and the Mountain West build secure, income-focused retirement plans. Boss Financial, 955 Chambers St. Suite 250, Ogden, UT 84403. Telephone: 801-475-9400. https://www.safemoneylyleboss.com/.