Is Semi-Retirement the Best of Both Worlds? – Liz Weston

Your retirement? You could wing it, but that's not you. Design Your Future.  Join our Design Your New Life in Retirement Program – two new groups start in January. Learn more _______________________ To retire or to work longer? There's another option that may be just right for you - semi-retirement. We catch up with Liz Weston, who retired from NerdWallet earlier this year on how its working for her - and what you can learn from her experience. Liz Weston joins us from California. _______________________ Bio Liz Weston is an award-winning personal finance columnist, speaker, commentator and author of several books about money. She earned the Certified Financial Planner® designation in 2016. Her question-and-answer column “Money Talk” appears in newspapers throughout the country, including the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, Palm Beach Post and the  Oregonian. Liz Weston's  book “Your Credit Score” is a national best-seller now in its fifth edition. The New York Times called one of her other books, “The 10 Commandments of Money: Survive and Thrive in the New Economy,” a “wonderful basic personal finance book…supportive of people struggling to understand these topics and trying to make ends meet.” You may have heard Liz Weston on public radio as she's contributed to American Public Media’s “Marketplace Money,” and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and “All Things Considered.” She's appeared on “Dr. Phil,” “Today Show” and NBC Nightly News, and was for several years a weekly commentator on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” ________________________ For More on Liz Weston Ask Liz Weston _______________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You – Teresa Amabile The Balancing Act in Retirement – Stew Friedman The Portfolio Life – Christina Wallace The Joy You Make – Steven Petrow _______________________ On Deciding to Retire...and Joy "I think what surprised me the most is how fun this is. That was what I was really worried about - what would retirement be like? So many people are rushing towards it, and they don't really think about what life will be like afterwards. And I was thinking a lot about how I would spend my time, what I would do, what the challenges might be, and what's caught me by surprise is just this feeling of joy. I feel like a kid on the first day of summer vacation, and I know this won't last. Everything changes. This is kind of the honeymoon period, but yeah, it's really fun.Well, I'm incredibly blessed and lucky that the financial stuff was in place. It was taken care of, and it allowed me to retire a little bit earlier than the norm. But again, the other thing that surprised me was how hard that decision was to make, because I really loved what I did...And then a friend and former colleague of mine died in a car accident. And he was only 61 and we'd spent a lot of time talking about what we were going to do in retirement. And it brought home the fact that we don't have infinite time." On Semi-Retirement - and Off-Ramps "I think it's the best option, especially, if you like what you do, and you have skills that can continue on in retirement where you don't need to work full-time. I had really wanted an off-ramp from my job at NerdWallet, and they didn't support working part-time. So that was kind of a difficult thing to wrap my head around and realize, okay, I don't have this option, so this was the next best. A lot of companies, though, do have some kind of off-ramp, and I think it helps people a lot because you keep your foot in the workplace, you can have continuing, you know, because social interaction is so important, you can have that part of your identity still remain intact so you have that sense of purpose. You're making some money, which for a lot of people is really important to make their money last, but you're starting the process of exiting. And just as a rant on the side,