Retirement - Be prepared

Written by Riviera Reporter

In the last of our series on old age and retirement Phil heinlein looks at planning for those later years

As this series has already made clear, it’s a big mistake to allow retirement to come upon you suddenly. On a bad day at the office or wherever you may look upon giving up work as a blessed moment that can’t come soon enough. When it comes you will have to adjust to the loss of the benefits that work brings to most people: structured time, social contacts and purposeful activity. In retirement these elements need to be reinvented otherwise there’ll be a confirmation of Ernest Hemingway’s view that “retirement is the filthiest word in the English language ... it means backing up to the grave”. That’s a bit strong, maybe, but certainly you need to give a lot of thought to how you will spend those years of leisure. Before this, if you have some choice in the matter, there’s the decision of when to retire. The results of a recent UK study are worth thinking about: “Across all social classes men and women who retired at 55 were almost twice as likely to die within the following ten years as those who retired at or after 65.”

Two basic questions
Well before you qualify for a bus pass or the other goodies offered to older people you need to answer two basic questions: what will you live on and where will you live? You need to have a clear idea of the lifestyle you want in retirement and how you will fund this. Some people are happy to downsize the aspirations in later life, others hope that retirement will bring the time to do things they couldn’t do before – but that will require money. What you need to do, and as soon as possible, is to consult pension specialists at firms like BlevinsFranks and Siddals who can offer you realistic advice.

An increasing number of our readers are working here and are registered under the French social security system. They qualify for a state pension which is calculated (like the US federal pension) on the basis of the number of quarters – trimestres – during which contributions have been made. It is available to both men and women at age 60 (though this threshold is to be progressively raised) as long as they have ceased full-time work. Several months before that happens future retirees should visit their local pensions office (CRAM) to begin the necessary formalities. In many cases workers are required to contribute to an additional pension scheme (retraite complémentaire) which depends on a points system related to the amount of contributions made. Quite a number of our readers draw state pensions from their countries of origin. UK expats can continue to qualify for such a benefit by making so-called Class 3 contributions (currently £7.35 a week). Their pensions are uprated along with those of UK residents though this does not apply to those living in Monaco. When considering likely outgoings and income in those later years it should be remembered that, given “the pensions crisis”, payments will probably fall and contributions increase.

A major decision for the later years is about housing. An obvious priority for everyone before retirement should be to own a home: renting, and especially in the context of the Riviera property market, is an option to be avoided. At the same time, expats are less likely to be able to count on help from family if accommodation becomes a problem. Most people express a wish to remain independent in their own homes though this becomes less and less feasible with advancing age and infirmity. Care of the more dependent elderly is in some respects a weak point of the French welfare system. Institutional accommodation, even when expensive, is often less than ideal. Anyone entering a maison de retraite should ensure that a relative or friend is available to monitor the treatment they receive. Within the expat community there has been much interest over recent years in the project for an English-speaking retirement complex in Mouans-Sartoux. For a variety of reasons progress with the project has been very slow.

From Riviera Reporter issue 123, Oct/Nov 2007

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