Retirement Lifestyle - Things Seniors Can Do When They Are Retired

RETIREMENT LIFESTYLE - THINGS SENIORS CAN DO WHEN THEY ARE RETIRED

Retirement is an entry into a new time in a senior citizen's life. During retirement, your time becomes your own when children are grown and you are no longer reporting to work for an employer. This hub gives ideas for what seniors can do when they are retired.

RETIREMENT is what you make of it. This new retirement time can be spent on endless opportunities. There are so many things that you may have felt you never had time for prior to retirement and now you are able to indulge. Go ahead. You deserve it. Perhaps writing on www.hubpages.com is one of your newest retirement time activities and that is how you have stumbled upon this hub that you are reading now.

Writing -

in general is one activity that I highly recommend for those individuals who have entered retirement.

• Whether you write a little each week or a lot, you won't regret it.
• Of course, it needs to be something you enjoy doing.

If you always had an affinity for (creative) writing that is not for your job, now during retirement, you have the time to do it more than you ever did before.

• Earning new income as a self publishing author, keeping a private journal, and / or writing poetry as a hobby are all possibilities for seniors during retirement.
• If you were not drawn to writing before and you get started during retirement, pen to paper or finger to keypad, you might be surprised by how much you will enjoy it.

Earning New Income-

When it comes to earning new income, making more money is always a good thing. While not all are in this situation, many retirees over the age of 65 find that they do not have enough in their pensions for the comfortable retirement they would enjoy.

These individuals might live on tight budgets during retirement and capitalizing on a talent or hobby that they would otherwise enjoy anyway is a great way to make some extra income, Some other ideas are:

• if you were previously a teacher, you can consider working as a private tutor
• or if you were previously a musician (i.e.-piano), you can give piano lessons a few hours a week.

Volunteerism-

is an excellent use of time. In a competitive job market where time is money, so many people are averse to giving their talents freely while trying to make the next buck to pay the bills.

• However, I recommend giving back even for those who have full time jobs.
• Volunteering just 4 hours a week on weekends can be very engaging and rewarding if you give it a chance.
• You will be appreciated for all you do and really feel like you are making a difference.
• For the jobless who enter volunteer roles, there are often networking opportunities that can lead to paid work.
• For those in retirement, volunteering in the organization of your choice, for as many hours as you are willing to commit, can make you feel intrigued, motivated, valued and the list goes on.

We should never underestimate the significance of a volunteer experience. Volunteers and the organizations/individuals receiving service mutually benefit from a volunteer signing up to help others.

If you live in the U.S., www.volunteer.match.org currently, at the time of writing this hub, has over 50,000 volunteer opportunities across the country. Just enter your zipcode and you can get started today! Your local city or county government may also have a database with volunteer opportunities that the public can access.

Exercise-

During retirement is an important time for seniors to remain physically active.

• Seniors need to keep the bodies limber and pay even greater attention to bone and joint health and osteoporisis prevention or management.
• A sedentary lifestyle can be a great cause of obesity even if you are continuing to eat healthy and nutritious meals.

Allow yourself to participate in gentle exercise a few times a week whether it be:

• walking,
• jogging,
• swimming,
• tennis,
• golf
• or other.

Choose an activity that suits your interest, listen to you body and know your limits. You should not feel pain when engaging in exercise. Perhaps talk to your doctor about your exercise regimen if you feel you need to.

When you exercise, it is a great time to socialize with friends. You might want to go for your walks or participate in other exercise activity with friends who are fellow retirees, your spouse, and/or your adult children for example.

The YMCA is a great place to learn about joining a class and engaging in exercise including what is mentioned above as well as yoga, tai-chi, pilates or other forms of exercise. Personally, I think water aerobics is also a great exercise.

You can find out more at www.ymca.net

With over 500,000 volunteers across the U.S., the YMCA organization is also a great place to learn about volunteer opportunities mentioned previously. Local chapters' websites for YMCA usually end in .org . After connecting to the national site, you will want to link to your local site for more on daily class shedules.

Reading-

In addition to reading the newspaper to remain informed of current events, increasing your reading of novels, biographies, autobiographies and other literature of various genres will open you to a world of authors' imaginative creativity.

You will be far from bored in your retirement if you are an avid reader. There are also many books on the market, regarding the topic of retirement itself.

One of the books (What You Don't Know About Retirement by Bill Dodds) is superbly inexpensive, piognant and funny. One of the questions it asks as highlighted in Amazon's book reviews is:

Why do retirees look 10 years younger?

Dodds' answer is:

Because they feel ten years younger!

As you become a more and more avid reader of the many works that are out there, you might not want to collect your own large library of books. If that is the case, you might be interested in making sure that your public library card is up to date and going to your local library more frequently.

Additionally, new on the market is an amazing technology in high demand.

Kindle is a wireless technology (needing no computer connection) that can download a book in one minute. Individuals are able to store books, blogs and more in this small device.

In the video link, Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate and author of Beloved talks about how easy the technology is on her eyes when she reads, since she is able to increase the font. Bestselling author James Patterson jokes that it is easier than using the microwave. At the amazon site, many more authors give their interviews regarding using the device as well.

Many other effective uses of time for a retired person include:

Traveling-

• If there is a destination that you have never visited or have visited and are eager to return, now's the time to do it.
• Individuals should set a budget for travel and look for the best deals early on.
• A local travel agency, cheaptickets.com, hotwire.com and expedia.com are all resources.
• Sometimes you can get a good deal on contacting a hotel or airline directly.
• Among the many destinations that retirees love to visit are:

1. Rome, Italy
2. Paris, France
3. Florida, USA

Cruising is a mode of travel you might find very enjoyable for leisure.

Many retirees choose to completely relocate to particular pleasurable travel destinations. That takes the appropriate amount of planning.

Photography/Art-

• Especially, when you travel and see various sights, you might become more interested in taking up photography than you were before.
• With that can open up another world of hobby possibilities such as scrapbooking, framing photos or even painting landscapes from the photos you took.
• Art (sketching/drawing painting) is a wonderful activity for retirees. You can take a class if it is new to you.

So many other effective uses of time during your daily life as a retiree include:

• Spending more time with grandkids (if you have any), other family and friends;
• knitting,
• quilting,
• sewing,
• gardening
• and other hobbies galore;
• going to museums,
• the theatre (for ballet, opera, plays..),
• the cinema
• and other local venues in your area.

Enjoy your retirement!