Is living to 100 years old a good thing?

The odds are increasing that you’ll live to be 100 years old.

And with living way beyond retirement age soon to be commonplace it will mean changing our approach to both work and retirement.

Lynda Gratton, the co-author of a new book The 100-Year Life had a reassuring answer in a recent interview.

“It’s not that you’re old for longer; it’s that you’re young for longer,”

The 100-Year Life argues that we should think of our extra years as additional time spread throughout our lifetimes, and not just a 35-year retirement.

You might, for example, go back to school in your 50s and work well into your 70s.

In fact, some Nordic countries are debating the idea of sending senior citizens back to school to keep up with the times.

Source: MarketWatch

Can you afford to live to 100? [adrotate group=”25"]

When the retirement age in Australia was set at 65 most people only lived 5 to 10 years in retirement.

Then for the second half of the 20th century, most people in the Australia’s middle class expected to stop working around age 65 and then the next 10 or 15 years were theirs to travel the world, garden with the grandkids, and play on the golf course.

But today, people are living longer and healthier lives.

This is a great thing — except that many of us simply do not have the savings to finance extra decades of leisure.

Most baby boomers can’t and it is possible that many millennials may never retire.

Think about it…

The government can’t afford to give everyone a pension at present and are raising the pension age.

At the same time with more of us are living longer the government can’t afford the increased health care costs.

It’s likely that at some stage the government will phase out the pension or increase the income and asset base threshold before you receive a pension.

In other words, don’t count on the pension it’s up to you to secure your financial future for your golden years.

By the way… that’s one of the reasons I wrote my book Michael Yardney’s Guide to Getting Rich — I want to teach you financial fluency and the way the rich people invest so that you can also have the benefits that wealth bestows.

If you haven’t already got a copy click here now and order your hard copy or your E book.

Originally published at Property Update.