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| Retirement may lead to a new flowering. |
Seriously? You love what you do and you are already asking about retirement?
I'm at the age now where people often think about retiring. I can't imagine retiring, though. But I am thinking of scaling back, painting more for myself than for sales, marketing less, teaching fewer workshops. I'm freeing up energy for special, more personal painting projects. And for spending time with family.
I call it "re-focusing" rather than retiring.
I couldn't do this, of course, unless I'd built up some savings and secured a monthly cash flow. A small part of this has to do with royalties and ongoing sales of books, videos and online courses. But mostly, we've been careful over the years with spending and investing. I'm also lucky to have a partner who is good with finances. Plus, I will still be painting, selling, teaching and writing. Just a little less of each.
If you reach a point in your painting career where you're seriously thinking of retiring, you'll want to have your finances in order with enough incoming cash for the foreseeable future plus a plan for health care. You can find all kinds of good advice online regarding actuarial tables, how much money you need to stash away at what interest rate, and so on, so I won't go into that here. Just make sure you're set—and prepared for the unexpected.
But more importantly, will you really give up painting?
