When I used to contemplate retirement, I pictured a world beyond work where I would be free to do whatever I wanted or even nothing at all. Retirement was not about what I would be doing, but what I would no longer be forced to do: the daily grind, heavy commuter traffic, stressful meetings, and the constant battle to rise higher in the ranks. My retirement would include none of this and good riddance.

I planned to save diligently throughout my working days and pay off big debts along the way. I wanted to be financially prepared by age 65 to rest and relax, enjoy my free time, not worry about tomorrow, and just live in the moment. That wishful thinking was pretty much my plan for retirement.

The reality is quite different for many people entering retired life. No one questions the importance of providing for your financial needs in retirement. We certainly need enough money to live and enjoy ourselves after we leave the workforce. But once you have the money side of things taken care of, there are still other retirement preparations that need to be made. Consider what you will do for the next twenty or thirty years. Assuming you now have the time to do what you want to do, what exactly are you going to do?

Too many people enter retirement with no plans beyond having enough money to make it to the end. Their main goal has been to reach retirement age, while little or no thought has gone into what happens next. If you don’t plan and prepare for your retired life, you may discover yourself just existing rather than truly living. Instead of waking each morning excited about what the day may hold, you could find yourself bored, alone, confused, and unsure. Without planning for your life after retirement, are you even ready to retire? Before you retire, ask yourself:

• What activities do I find most interesting that can occupy my days? Beyond just keeping busy, what meaningful endeavors can I undertake since I have the time to do so?
• Are there interests that I am passionate about? Retirement provides the time and freedom to do what you have never been able to do. Pursuing a passion inspires us and helps keep us feeling young.
• As I slow down over time, how will I adjust my lifestyle and activities to account for the challenges of aging? Our physical and mental condition will change over the years, so we need to factor that into our plans.
• How will I balance relaxing with productive activities? Sometimes it’s great to slow down and escape the whirling activities of daily life. But there is much to be gained from hobbies, volunteer work, and other productive activities. Retirement does not necessarily mean that you withdraw completely from society, even if you want to slow down a bit
• Is there something I have dreamed of doing, but never had the time due to work and family commitments? Is there any real reason why I can’t do that activity in retirement?
• Should my health deteriorate, what options do I have in the area for assisted living arrangements? Will I be able to stay in my home independently? Can I possibly live with other family members? What will I do if the time comes when I need help?
• Do I want to continue living in my current community or would a move be desirable? And, if so, where to?
• Do I have a sufficient support network available in my current friends and family?
• Are there opportunities in my daily life to engage my mind and body so I remain as healthy as I can?

Retirement can be a time for us to pursue passions that have excited us throughout our lives, but it does not automatically happen. We need to put effort into our retirement happiness. Beyond the financials, we must also generate ideas and an action plan for a fulfilling and stimulating retired life.

Dave Bernard is the author of I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be. Although not yet retired, he focuses on identifying and understanding the essential components a fulfilling and meaningful retirement. He shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only The Beginning.

Don’t count yourself out of the fitness crowd just because you’ve moved into a retirement home in Lancashire, where spending your time watching daytime TV and sitting around is the norm. You’re in a retirement home, not a graveyard.

Keeping fit is important no matter what stage of life you’re in, but many older people feel there’s not a lot of exercise they can do without risk of hurting themselves. Wrong! Keeping fit doesn’t necessarily mean getting out on the field for a vigorous game of football every night. Here are our top tips for staying fit as you get older.

Take a Stroll Every Day

Walking is the most basic form of exercise there is, and it’s important, too. Half an hour a day is the perfect amount to maintain basic fitness levels and keep your heart and lungs healthy. Half an hour of walking a day almost sounds TOO easy, right?

Engage in Moderate Aerobic Activity

Moderate aerobic exercise, in which your heart rates rises and you break a slight sweat, is a fantastic way to keep in shape, and is great for older people who want to do something more interesting than take a gentle stroll each day, but don’t fancy vigorous exercise. Cycling, swimming and line- and ballroom-dancing all do the trick! Shoot for two and a half hours per week.

Toss in Some High Intensity Exercises

This isn’t an absolute necessity, but if you’re relatively fit and healthy for your age, you should have no problems, and it can be fun as well as beneficial. If you’re up for it, sports such as badminton, running, squash and tennis will work their magic.

Muscle-Strengthening Bodyweight Exercises

Keeping your muscles strong doesn’t necessarily mean lifting weights at the gym, and it’s such an important element to maintaining your overall health. Your muscles will naturally weaken as you age, meaning regular tasks become harder and harder and you become more susceptible to diseases like osteoporosis – but there’s no reason you can’t fight back by incorporating body weight exercises (no weights needed!) into your week.

The aim is to work all your different muscle groups, including your back, arms, legs and core. Exercises like push ups, pull ups, squats and lunges can help you achieve this, but don’t worry if that sounds impossible: there are easier ways of doing these exercises than the full blown techniques you’re probably imagining right now. Push ups can be done against a wall, for example, instead of flat on the floor.

Hopefully you’re now confident that you can take exercise every day that will help keep you in shape, even if you are stuck in that care home in Lancashire. And just remember: some activity is better than none at all, so don’t immediately try to incorporate all of the above into your life if you find it overwhelming. Start slow, with that gentle stroll each day, and build on your fitness routine over time.

A funny thing happened on the way to retirement. It turns out that not everyone feels the all-consuming need to escape from the working world. Some people actually enjoy the benefits that come from working with others in a company environment toward a common goal. Staying engaged and involved mentally and physically can help senior citizens realize a more fulfilling and exciting second act. And for some, the working world offers an increasingly attractive option.

One obvious motivation for working longer is to counter the financial hardship brought on by a challenging and unpredictable economy. Sometimes we need to work longer than we hoped in order to save enough money, as witnessed in a study by the National Council on Aging that found pre-retirees, on average, delaying retirement by five years due to the impact of the recent recession.

But the appeal of working beyond retirement age is more than just monetary. The council’s United States of Aging Survey report found that of the 1 in 5 seniors still working either full- or part-time, 70 percent ranked enjoyment high on their list of reasons to stay in the workforce.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Although only 4 percent of retirees say they want to work full-time in retirement, 36 percent would like to go back and forth between periods of work and leisure.

Having successfully negotiated a career and satisfied the requirements of raising a family, retirement age historically meant exchanging the stresses of working for a peaceful second act filled with relaxing hours and happy pursuits. But while workers of days gone by may have exhausted their body in physically demanding occupations, today’s workers have many good years left to pursue new and exciting interests. That said, they do not want to miss out on the leisure time they have heard so much about.

One intriguing possibility is to work a bit, retire a bit, work a bit, and so on. For some, an on-again, off-again retirement can be just the ticket. Enjoy the engagement and stimulation provided within the job for a period of time, perhaps a few years. Interact with co-workers, complete projects, and learn new technologies. All the while you remain removed from the sometimes crippling stress of a working situation that you must stay with for better or worse due to financial and other requirements. You know it is for a limited amount of time. Then, when you are ready for the retirement side of the coin, you exit the job and chill a bit.

I find this combination attractive not just for the on-again, off-again aspect, but also for the opportunity to learn new things. Each new company has different processes, technologies, challenges, and opportunities. You meet new people and have new experiences that keep your mind engaged and stimulated.

There are risks when you decide to leave a job, especially as you get older. You may not immediately find something when you are ready to return to the workforce. But if you haveprepared for retirement and are not financially in jeopardy, the lack of an immediate position only means an extension of the retirement part of your on-again, off-again strategy.

And with 10,000 baby boomers reaching age 65 each day, smart hiring companies will have to take notice of this valuable pool of labor. With skills, experience, and a willingness to work, along with the fact that seniors do not actually cost more, older workers can hope to find their employment prospects improving. According to the book Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order, doubling your percentage of 55-year-old workers raises your business’s total compensation costs by a mere 1 percent.

An on-again, off-again retirement may not be for everyone, but it can provide a happy medium for some. It offers the opportunity to pursue one passion for a period of time and then head down the path toward another after a bit of time spent recharging in between. Each of us has to do what is right for our specific situation, but it is good to know there are some interesting options out there.

Dave Bernard is the author of I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be. Although not yet retired, he focuses on identifying and understanding the essential components a fulfilling and meaningful retirement. He shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only The Beginning.

The other day I was walking through the neighborhood, and I spotted a dime on the ground. I paused to stare intently at the coin, yet made no effort to bend down to pick it up. At that moment I realized I must be getting along in my years. A younger me would not have hesitated to swoop in and grab any shiny coin, even a penny. However, on this day I was evaluating the cost and benefit of bending down for ten cents. A quarter would be a no brainer, but a dime didn’t seem worth the effort.

As we get older, changes in ourselves and the way we live our life are the order of the day. We don’t move quite as fast as we used to, and we have to be careful about what we eat or risk the wrath of an upset stomach. We increasingly find ourselves challenged when reading in a less than well lighted place, and sometimes we just do not have the energy for the little things like picking up a stray coin.

Most of us refuse to surrender without a fight, of course. Plenty of people work out and endeavor to eat a healthy diet. We read all the latest studies and discoveries that can help us live longer lives, follow their guidelines, and check in with our doctors regularly. We do what we can to live a quality life on into our later years. But is there something more we can do to age well?

Here are two important concepts that can help us to maximize our fulfillment while allowing us to age gracefully at the same time:

1. Learn to accept the realities of aging. Embrace the new reality of your life. Listen to your body and behave accordingly. Heed warning signs, and adjust your lifestyle as needed. Ignore the dime on the ground, but go for the quarter. Realize that you are no longer twenty but neither are you ninety (yet). You may sacrifice some physical abilities, but in their place you have experience and wisdom learned with time.

2. Don’t just exist, live your life. Aging does not mean you acquiesce to watch life from the sidelines. Although some things may diminish through the years, your passion for living can and should grow and evolve. Once you exit the working world you have time to explore those other areas of living that you could not while burdened with a job and the responsibilities of raising a family. Those wishful thoughts imagined while drudging through your busy career now have a chance to become reality. Travel to a place that interests you for as long as you desire. Discover your artistic side by painting, writing, sculpting, or designing. Unleash your musical talents by learning an instrument. Keep searching for new ways to get engaged, stay active, and pursue your passions.

Aging gracefully should not be a resignation, but a commitment to living the most inspired and exciting life you can within whatever constraints you personally experience. While we cannot ignore the challenges brought on as we get older, don’t miss your chance to embrace something new.

Dave Bernard is the author of I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be. Although not yet retired, he focuses on identifying and understanding the essential components a fulfilling and meaningful retirement. He shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only The Beginning.

The baby boomers have already begun to enter retirement age, and the decisions they make could have profound implications for the economy, health care system, and future generations of retirees. Today, approximately one in eight Americans is age 65 or older. By 2030, one in five people will be considered a senior citizen. And the number of baby boomers age 85 and older will expand to an estimated 21 million by 2050. Here is how this new age mix in America’s population will impact society:

The nature of the work force. The ratio of working-age citizens between ages 15 and 64 supporting those age 65 and older is currently five to one in the U.S. By the year 2050 this ratio will drop to three to one. With fewer people available to hire, expect to see more seniors in the workforce. Smart companies will take advantage of the skilled pool of older workers who are willing and able to contribute. And that seems to be just fine with retirees, since 74 percent expect to continue working in some capacity beyond retirement, according to a recent Wells Fargo survey.

Less money going to charities. Many baby boomers who haven’t saved enough could end up struggling financially in retirement. Those who are having difficult simply paying everyday bills will probably not have much left over for contributions to charities. Many people whose steady incomes allowed them to give money to worthwhile charities may need to cut back once the move is made into retirement. At a time when so many need help, otherwise generous seniors may have to take care of themselves first.

Challenges across the health system. Increasing numbers of older Americans will put a greater strain on the existing health systems. If we take a look at just one area, Alzheimer’s disease, we can get an insight into the impact aging baby boomers will have. There are currently 5.4 million Americans of all ages suffering from the disease, with payments for care estimated to be $200 billion, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. By the year 2050, more than 15 million people could have the disease.

The nature of investments. While they were working full time, baby boomers often invested for long-term growth and were more accepting of risk in exchange for a higher potential return. Once they retire, baby boomers may want to decrease the risk in their investment portfolios. With limited time horizons and fixed incomes, seniors need to be more cautious and their choice of investments will need to change. As baby boomers start to pull their wealth out of the stock market it could have implications for financial institutions and even the overall economy.

Exercise and recreation. Many fitness centers cater to a young crowd with high-intensity programs designed to improve endurance and get maximum results in a short period of time. Although baby boomers have typically been health conscious, the nature of their exercise regime will change as they age. Fitness centers will need to change the mix of their offerings, and instructors will need to become familiar with the challenges and limitations caused by aging as they prepare routines for their clients. Expect to see seniors continuing to work out for their good health, and plan on seeing a bit more gray hair in your Zumba class.

Dave Bernard is the author of I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be. Although not yet retired, he focuses on identifying and understanding the essential components a fulfilling and meaningful retirement. He shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only The Beginning.

When we make the transition from working stiff into the ranks of the retired, we assume the responsibility and freedom to do what we want to do when we want to do it. We can now occupy ourselves with whatever pursuit most appeals to us and no longer answer to the dictates of job and career responsibilities. Exactly how we plan to spend each day of the next twenty or thirty years may not be crystal clear, but we can figure it out along the way.

Many baby boomers view retirement as a time of new opportunity and the beginning of a whole new chapter in their lives. But maintaining some connection to the working world is also important to many people. Some seniors would like to go back and forth between periods of work and leisure. Perhaps they fear losing the stimulation and engagement that is part of work.

However, some people enter retirement with no plans beyond relaxing and getting away from it all. This lack of preparation can be viewed as wishful thinking. Retirement can quickly lose its luster as months roll into years and boredom begins to surface. If you’re not exactly sure what you will be doing in your second act, here are some steps to avoid wasting your well-deserved retirement days:

A little routine can be a good thing. It helps to have a routine to follow in retirement. You certainly don’t need to schedule every hour on a calendar, but it’s useful to have a general course to navigate. Getting up by a certain time in the morning to start the day is one example. Obviously, in retirement, you can sleep in as long as you want to, but at some point you may begin to feel that you are wasting the day. If you are a morning person, why not get up at seven or eight and take advantage of your high-energy time of day? It is amazing what you can accomplish by noontime when others are just getting started. For the very organized, you can be as detailed as you want to in your daily scheduling.

During my trial retirement a few years ago, my morning started at 7am with breakfast and a newspaper. Then I spent two to three hours on the computer, mainly writing and researching (and often injecting thirty minutes in the garden to reset and refresh a bit), walked to the gym for an hour workout, and came back home for lunch. After all that was accomplished, the whole second half of the day was still awaiting.

Strive to do something worthwhile each day. Keeping busy and active is a worthy goal. But if at the end of the day you find you have done nothing of consequence, you cannot do it over. A more meaningful day can be experienced by consciously focusing on doing something worthwhile. Take the time to help someone in some way, start or complete a project that has stalled, improve yourself by reading or learning something new, or bring a smile to the face of a fellow human being. It could be as insignificant as cleaning the house. But when you look back at the end of the day, it helps to have accomplished something of substance.

Be good to yourself. As you age, it’s essential to take care of yourself, including regular exercise and a healthy diet. Don’t feel guilty if you need to listen to your body when it says to slow down a bit. And make time to do things that you enjoy doing, whether that means bungee jumping from a bridge in Costa Rica or curling up on the couch with a book.

Dave Bernard is the author of I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be. Although not yet retired, he focuses on identifying and understanding the essential components a fulfilling and meaningful retirement. He shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only The Beginning.

I want to retire! I am done with this career thing and more than ready to take a look at what life has to offer beyond work. It has been a good run but enough is enough and I need to get out while I am still young enough to enjoy my second act. I am ready to commence doing what I really want to do for as long as I choose to do it. I hope that retirement will be my moment to focus on what I am most passionate about, what inspires me, what excites me, what turns me on, and what makes me want to jump out of bed to start the day. It will also be my time to step back from the hectic and try my hand at a more peaceful relaxing existence. I am so ready to retire.

Many of us have likely entertained similar thoughts. And if you are middle age or beyond it is even possible your focus borders on the obsessive. Does the possibility of freedom to pursue your personal passions and pleasures tempt you to your very core? Do you find yourself expectantly hoping for that day when you will finally retire from the working world to your own personal nirvana? If you have been caught up in your career with its many demands over these many years, the dream of escaping to retirement may be the single most important thing that kept you going through the hard times.

The good news is if you can commit yourself to doing the ever important planning and preparation for the retirement life you want to live, there is no reason you – Mr. or Ms. Retiree to Be – should not be able to experience just that scenario. But if you want to arrive on schedule ready to roll, it is never too early to begin your preparations.

The ideal and very personal retirement life we ultimately live will be different for each of us. There is no cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all model guaranteed to lead us to and guide us through a fulfilling retirement. Each of us is driven by different motivations and our own distinct personal passions. A wide range of variables and life experiences have combined over the course of our lives to make us into the being that we are, for better or worse. And because of those variations we face the reality that though we may seek a common goal of living a happy retired life, the final definition of that happiness can differ from person to person. My retirement Shangri la may be nothing like the vision of your perfect post-work paradise. Likewise, what I need to do to realize my personal retirement bliss may be nowhere near what you require to achieve the same. There is no absolute right or wrong way to live retirement. In the end we need to each discover those essential ingredients that will make up our personal fulfilling retirement and plot a course to navigate successfully to its shore.

How many of us have given any meaningful thought to our pending retirement? Beyond some vague concept of a life after work we don’t tend to overly concern ourselves with the details. Until recently, I had not honestly contemplated my exit from the working world beyond occasionally imagining myself sitting on a sunny beach, cocktail in hand while I listen to the calming waves, reveling in my new freedom and the knowledge that there was absolutely nothing I had to be doing. And isn’t that the way many think of retirement? Don’t we typically view our second act as more of an escape from rather than a journey to?

I think that many of us assume that somehow it will all work out only to discover we are wrong. You need to prepare for retirement just as you do any other major step in your life. Just like the reluctant retiree, we have to learn on the job if you will. I think it is important to be open to the possibilities rather than focusing on the limitations. You do have some choices if you keep your mind open.

For most of us the tremendous demands of daily life from bill paying to family raising, from problem solving to nest egg building suck up all our energy. It is not too surprising that the focus remains on here and now rather than what our future may hold. Yet if we let life continue to pass us by without taking the necessary steps to prepare, if we expect to just suddenly arrive in retirement where everything will take care of itself, we may find ourselves sadly mistaken.

How many of us can honestly say that we have taken steps to plan and prepare for retirement? What have we done to understand and address the many variables that will mix and match into that life we will realize beyond work? I would venture to say that most of us think of retirement as off in the distance, somewhere down the road, nothing to worry about right now. We are still young and have time – retirement is for old people. But have you looked in the mirror recently? The clock keeps ticking and before we know it we are looking back on more years than we foresee going forward. For those who will retire at age sixty five, retirement can extend twenty or thirty years. If we hope to fill those years with a meaningful and fulfilling life the sooner we start preparing ourselves the better. In my own case I realized that outside of regularly contributing to my 401k plan I had made no concrete preparation for retirement. I was just as guilty as anyone of not looking ahead. I was just as guilty of not preparing myself for the retiree I would be. And if I continued down this path, I risk potentially ending up in just as much trouble as others who follow a similar course.

My advice is to plan, plan, plan for everything, and then realize you have no idea what is going to happen and that is OK. Plans are meant to evolve, be discarded, and replaced with other plans. Your retirement will be like a blank canvas. You’ll buy all the paints and brushes but will have no idea what it will look like until you start applying the paint.

I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be is available now from Amazon.com in Kindle or paperback.

Being able to drive and having the freedom to go shopping or visit friends is incredibly important for a vast number of elderly people. However, in recent times, accidents involving older drivers have become more frequent, with concerns over safety for other road users becoming a big issue.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents revealed that in 2010, 154 drivers over the age of 60 years were killed in road accidents, with 1,108 seriously injured and 9,423 suffering minor wounds. Although casualty numbers are decreasing across every age group, the rate in which they’re falling is slower for older people.

If you’re worried about a loved one or have concerns over your own ability to drive safely, it is important to consider the follow issues.

How ageing affects driving

Health issues increase as we get older, and these problems can affect our ability to drive. Some of the main concerns include the following:

·         Neck and back pain – this can limit a driver’s ability to look over his or her shoulder to park, change lanes on the motorway or check the car’s blind spot for other road users as well as pedestrians.

·         Leg pain – this can limit movement between pedals in a scenario that requires quick reactions.

·         Weaker muscles – this can also have an impact on accelerating and braking as well as the means to operate the steering wheel quickly and effectively.

·         Reaction times – responding to a situation on the road and taking appropriate action can be slower for an older driver. Identifying potential problems including allowing emergency vehicles to pass may also be affected.

·         Fatigue – falling asleep at the wheel is a problem for any driver; however, the elderly can be more susceptible to fatigue while driving.

·         Frailty – if an older person with weaker bones is involved in a serious accident, the recovery time could be much longer compared to a younger individual.

Failing to identify any of these problems could result in a critical or even fatal incident. However if you are the victim, you may be able to make a car accident claim for compensation.

Tips for driving and alternative options

Taking the aforementioned issues into consideration, the following suggestions can help an elderly driver or provide a viable alternative to their current situation.

·         Regular eye checks – if you require glasses to drive, visiting an optician on a regular basis will ensure that you have the right prescription. The eye’s ability to focus on objects decreases over time, so even if you don’t wear glasses, it is a good idea to make an appointment anyway.

·         Regular hearing checks – being able to listen out for potential hazards and dangers on the road is crucial.

·         Get enough sleep – with fatigue being one major problem, ensuring you are well rested before any journey is important.

·         Driving habits – if you feel uncomfortable driving at night or in a busy city centre, avoid these situations wherever possible. Before embarking on a major journey, you may want to find out whether there are any road works or diversions that could be potentially difficult to negotiate.

·         Get advice – if you feel like you’re unable to drive to an acceptable standard, speak to the DVLA, a driving instructor or your doctor.

As many of us know, old age makes it a lot harder to get around. Aching bones tire easily and, regardless of our willingness to participate in family activities, sometimes it seems easier to just stay at home. However, don’t let reduced mobility keep you housebound. If you’re unable to walk for long periods of time then a mobility scooter may be just the thing you need.

For one reason or another, these around town get-abouts seem to have a bit of a negative rep. And yet, they’re incredibly handy and economical! Allow me to convince you…

Post-op Recuperation

Being cooped up at home after an operation or during long-term sickness can be seriously boring. Being house-bound isn’t just bad for you physically; it’s also terrible for your state of mind. Therefore, a scooter could provide the valuable freedom you need during recovery.

Trips to the shops, some fresh air after lunch, a walk with the dog; this independence is not only integral to your happiness but will likely speed up the recovery process as a whole.

A Weighty Issue

Like the rings inside a tree trunk, age brings with it a couple of extra tires that are extremely difficult to shift – particularly if you are not well enough to exercise.

Therefore, if weight gain is making it harder to do the things you used to, a mobility scooter might be just the ticket. Whilst some will argue that this will only exacerbate the issue, a scooter may actually encourage you to exercise more often. After all, with the simplicity of travel, you can get to clubs and classes and meet people in a similar position.

Who knows, with that added incentive, you might start to notice a loosening of the waist band.

Jolly Holidays

For many older people, a mobility scooter is simply not an everyday concern. If you’re lucky enough to fall into this category then celebrate your vitality with a brisk walk in the park. Before you do, consider this: renting a mobility scooter on holiday…

Holidays offer the unique opportunity to explore a new culture by immersing yourself in the sights and sounds of a different country. Sometimes, this can be a little tasking for older people, particularly if it’s necessary to walk long distances – which, more often than not, it is.

Don’t let fatigue stop you from soaking up the experience. Scooter rentals are big business in America; partly because their tourist-trap towns and cities are vast and partly because US residents like the ease a mo-scoo provides. The last thing anyone wants on holiday to be restricted, so enjoy the freedom of 8 mph and really get to grips with a new place.

Physical Requirements

Unlike motorised wheelchairs, mobility scooters offer no upper body support. Therefore, bear in mind that users must be able to keep themselves upright and they must be able to steer and maneuver the scooter. As such, it isn’t for everyone, especially the severely disabled.

If your upper body is in any way compromised, you may be more suited to a motorised wheelchair. Don’t fear, there’s plenty of information online about choosing a vehicle that’s right for you.

The Rules

For the novices among us, it’s important to get the legal stuff out the way

Firstly, to use a motor scooter in the UK you must be suffering from a temporary or permanent physical disability. Secondly, drivers of mobility scooters do not need to hold a driving licence and whilst insurance is not legally required, it’s strongly advised. After all, if you crash or it gets stolen or a freak flood sweeps it away, you’ll be pleased you organised some cover. There are plenty of providers to choose from and I’d personally recommend Chartwell.

There are two classes of disability scooter in the UK; class 2 and class 3 (strangely, there is no class 1). Class 2 scooters are not for road use (unless there is no pavement) and have a maximum speed of 4 mph. Class 3 scooters can be used on both the road and pavement and their maximum speed is 8 mph. Sure, these speeds aren’t breaking any records but, you know, you’ll get a small sense of satisfaction taking over cyclists.

Oh and last but not least, class 2 scooters do not need tax discs but class 3 mobility scooters do and they must be registered with the DVLA – probably because they burn some serious rubber.

I hope this article has helped you think more about the potential of mobility scooters. If you use one or are considering it, please share your experiences below!

For the next 20 years, about 10,000 baby boomers will turn 65 each day. Some have been preparing diligently for their retirement by building savings, and are looking forward to having the freedom to do what they want to do when they want to do it. Other boomers may not have begun to contemplate how retired life will look because they are caught up in living for today. As this massive generation crosses into what has historically been retirement age, they will face many new realities, and they may not all be pretty.

The recent economy has not been cooperative for investors attempting to build a nest egg. Those nearing retirement age have the most to lose if the market declines and limited years to continue contributing to retirement accounts. At the same time, the average life expectancy continues to rise, which is even more years of retirement baby boomers need to save for. Here are eight startling retirement facts to ponder:

1. One in six older Americans lives below the poverty line, which is $22,350 for a family of four, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That amount is not much for a single person, let alone a family of four.

2. The current ratio of working age citizens between 15 and 64 to those over age 65 is 5:1. By 2050 this ratio will drop to 3:1. This means we will have a smaller proportion of working people supporting increasing numbers of retirees.

3. The ranks of senior citizens are growing rapidly. There are now around 40 million senior citizens, but that number is expected to increase to 89 million by 2050. The aging population will impact everything from housing and health care to travel and employment.

4. The cost of assisted living facilities has risen to a national median rate of $3,300 per month, which works out to be $39,600 per year. The highest median rate is in Alaska at $6,813 per month.

5. Americans 55 and older now account for 20 percent of all bankruptcies, with the majority due to medical and funeral expenses. In addition, older Americans tend to have more credit card debt than younger Americans. Without delaying retirement, it will be hard for baby boomers to get ahead of their growing debt.

6. Due to the recent economic downturn, baby boomers born between 1948 and 1954 will need to save an additional 4.3 percent of their annual pay to counteract the impact of the financial and housing crisis in 2008 and 2009, according to Employee Benefit Research Institute calculations. For many people this will require working beyond traditional retirement age in a job market already tight and challenging for older workers.

7. Successful retirement planning requires consistent saving to provide for a time when income is no longer generated from your job. However, 35 percent of Americans say they don’t contribute to retirement accounts like a 401(k) or IRA, according to a 2009 CareerBuilder survey.

8. Age discrimination on the job is an increasingly common occurrence as more seniors remain in or re-enter the job force. In a recent study published in the journal Research on Aging, 63 percent of older adults say they have experienced discrimination.

Dave Bernard is the author of I Want To Retire! Essential Considerations for the Retiree to Be. Although not yet retired, he focuses on identifying and understanding the essential components of a fulfilling and meaningful retirement. He shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement-Only The Beginning.