Your first year of retirement: the biggest challenge might not be your money
And in this weekend's newspapers – ‘This mess is eating our super’: Why retirees are starting to get nervous
In this edition
Feature: Your first year of retirement: the biggest challenge might not be your money
From Bec’s Desk: I want your feedback on something
The Age and Sydney Morning Herald: ‘This mess is eating our super’: Why retirees are starting to get nervous
Prime Time: How AI will become part of the everyday lives of Prime Timers: with one of Australia’s leading futurists
Our next Epic Retirement Flagship Course is now on sale: Earlybird 25% off won’t last
We’ve launched the Winter Edition of the How to Have an Epic Retirement 6-Week Flagship Course this week. It kicks off on the 14th May.
It’s a 6-week online program, that you can complete in your own time. (new content drips each week)
There’s 6 live Q&As with some of the country’s leading experts in retirement
A 170 page workbook professionally printed and mailed
A signed copy of How to Have an Epic Retirement - the book
The Excel budgeting tool
And a whole heap of helpful quizzes
You can download a detailed brochure here to see what’s in store. And book your place. The first 200 people to book get our 25% off Earlybird Discount.
Your first year of retirement: the biggest challenge might not be your money
Most people spend more time planning their retirement finances than they spend thinking about who they’ll actually be when they get there. That’s a problem, and it tends to show up about six months in.
Here’s the question I want you to sit with this week: if someone asked you to describe yourself at a dinner party the week after you retire, what would you say? For most of us, the answer has been the same for twenty or thirty years. You lead with what you do. Your job title, your industry, your company. It’s shorthand for competence, status and purpose all at once. And then one day, it’s just gone.
This isn’t a small thing. Research on retirement consistently shows that identity loss, not financial stress, is the most common cause of what people describe as a difficult first year. The people who struggle most aren’t usually the ones who ran out of money. They’re the ones who ran out of answer to the question: what do I do with myself now?
The good news is that this is entirely workable, but only if you start thinking about it before you get there, not after.
So here are three questions worth sitting with this week:
What do you do that has nothing to do with work? Not what you’d like to do in retirement, but what you actually do now, outside of your job. If the honest answer is not much, that’s important information. Retirement doesn’t conjure purpose out of thin air. It just removes the structure that was filling the space.
Who are you to the people who matter most to you? Your partner, your kids, your close friends. How do they describe you? What role do you play that has nothing to do with your career? That version of you is the foundation you’re building on.
What would you do on a Tuesday at 11am if you had no obligations and no agenda? Not a holiday Tuesday. A regular one. If you can’t answer that with something specific and genuine, it’s worth spending more time on that question than on your superannuation projections this week.
Retirement is long. For most people reading this, it’s twenty to thirty years. The financial plan gets you there. The identity work is what makes it worth arriving.
Start that work now. It’s more important than you think.
Bec Xx
I cover a lot more on this in both my books - How to Have an Epic Retirement and if you’re not ready for retirement, Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife.
This week was a big one.
We launched the next How to Have an Epic Retirement Flagship Course, and the response has been fantastic. Truly fantastic. I have a strong feeling this will be our biggest course yet.
You can download a brochure here
Or book your place (the first 200 places get our Earlybird price which is 25% off rightnow)
There’s also been a lot of course updates happening behind the scenes. With new Age Pension caps, updated super contribution limits, and changes to deeming rates, I’ve been busy recording fresh content to make sure everything is up to date.
Make sure you listen to the podcast this week – it’s an absolute ripper. I’ve got one of Australia’s leading futurists on the show, Dr Catherine Ball, and she completely blew my mind. We talked about the kind of world Prime Timers and Epic Retirees are stepping into as AI starts to roll into everyday life and she did a lot of predicting the future - and WOW!
On top of that, I hit the road, starting in Canberra for the first of five weeks on the AMP North Adviser Roadshow as one of their keynote speakers. I’m talking about the future of retirement – a topic very close to my heart, and one I never get tired of exploring. Next week I’ll be hitting the Gold Coast and Brisbane events.
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And finally, I’d love your thoughts on something.
I’ve started considering a new book concept with my daughter, Paris. It’s a real journey as she starts from scratch as a 22-year-old trying to get ahead. She’s learning to budget, understand super, building her savings, investing for the first time, riding bumpy markets, with the goal of working towards getting into the property market so that one day she might be able to afford a home of her own.
It’s tough out there.
And we’re very aware this is going to be a multi-step process — potentially starting with an affordable investment property before she’s in a position to buy a home to live in. (We’re at the ‘exploring her options and setting goals’ stage).
In fact, it’s a big financial literacy journey, and we’re only just at the beginning. She says her friends are interested in learning alongside her. So, I’m contemplating working with her to share the good lessons we learn, so others have a resource. (She’s also planning to start a TikTok channel so people her age can follow along, which I love.)
She’s at the centre of the story, and I’m more of a guide, helping her ask the right questions and, when we don’t know the answers or how to work it out, going out and finding them together by speaking to experts.
We’re learning a lot already… and honestly, it’s not an easy road. Working through the process with her has given me a whole new perspective on just how tough it is for young people trying to get into the property market without support.
While I’m very aware that I don’t want to shift my focus from midlife and retirement to young people. But, I do think we can create something quite useful here – a simple, practical resource that actually helps. And if you’re part of the industry, with your own kids this age and ‘get’ the problem - I’d genuinely love your input.
I’m really curious… is this something you’re navigating with your adult kids too? Or are yours already past this stage?
Now - thanks for humouring me. I’m going to be on the journey with my daughter anyway - so curious whether the lessons we learn can help others. If you have thoughts - drop me an email. Just hit reply!
Now - let’s get back to that epic retirement of yours - have an Epic Sunday and an amazing week. Don’t forget to book your course spot.
Author, podcast host, columnist, retirement educator, and guest speaker
‘This mess is eating our super’: Why retirees are starting to get nervous
Four weeks on since the war in Iran started, and the financial pressure on retirees is real, and it’s coming from multiple directions at once.
I put the question out to the Epic Retirement community this week: how are you really faring? The responses came flooding in, and what struck me wasn’t panic. It was a level of pragmatism, tinged with genuine worry.
The big pain points for retirees and pre-retirees are different to the rest of the population, particularly if they were planning to stop work soon. If you’re still accumulating super, a market downturn is painful but recoverable.
If you’ve stopped working and are drawing down to fund your living expenses, selling assets while prices are depressed permanently impairs your balance in a way you can’t easily undo. Your income doesn’t rise with inflation. You can’t work extra hours to compensate for the money you’re spending at the fuel pump.
This article was published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday 7th February 2026. Read the whole article here. Note - it has a sign-up gate but no paywall.
How AI will become part of the everyday lives of Prime Timers
Today on the show, I’ve got a real treat for you.
I’m talking to one of the world’s leading thinkers on the future of technology, robotics and artificial intelligence - and what that future might actually look like for us.
Dr Catherine Ball is a global expert in AI, robotics and emerging technologies. She’s worked across fields like drones, digital twins and automation, and has spent years advising governments, universities and industry on how these technologies are reshaping our world.
If you’re in mid-life or heading for retirement right now, the reality is that we’re going to see extraordinary technological change over the next 10, 20 and 30 years: AI. Robotics. Smart homes. Personalised healthcare. Maybe even robotic carers.
So what will that actually mean for us?
This is a fascinating conversation. And what I love about Catherine’s perspective is that she’s not just talking about technology for technology’s sake. She’s thinking deeply about how it changes how we live, how we age, and how we stay independent in the second half of life.
You can find out more about Catherine’s research here, and learn more about her latest book, ‘The Future of Sleep’ here.
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:
One of the major crises when retiring is the emotional change. No job, no schedule, no workmates, spousal/partner relations. Without a plan created before retiring, including consulting with successful retirees or coach, you’re walking on thin ice. Emotional change also occurs when you advance to your slow-go stage of retirement & again when entering your no-go stages. The planning doesn’t stop!
My first year of semi-retirement was painful. Even though I'd been scaling back slowly, I didn't know what to do with myself. Now, I'm busy launching a book teaching grandparents how to mentor their grandchildren to become future-ready. I'm painting, doing ceramics and reading voraciously. Having the time of my life!