PDF Summary:What the Happiest Retirees Know, by Wes Moss

Drawing from his research into what drives fulfillment and well-being for retirees, Wes Moss shares both the financial and lifestyle habits of the happiest retired individuals. What the Happiest Retirees Know offers a roadmap to securing a stable financial future, with specific milestones like accumulating $500,000 in accessible savings and reducing mortgage debt. It also explores retirement life beyond money, delving into areas like cultivating passionate hobbies, maintaining physical and mental health, nurturing close relationships, and fostering deeper connections through faith and community service.

Moss presents this holistic view with a dual emphasis: crafting a financially resilient retirement and embracing meaningful interests and lasting relationships. His findings provide insights into creating a fulfilling lifestyle during this phase of life, offering a comprehensive approach to achieving contentment after your working years.

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• Volunteer in different roles or organizations for a short-term commitment, like a weekend or a single event, to sample various activities without long-term obligation. This could lead to discovering a cause or activity that resonates with you, such as helping at a local animal shelter or assisting with a community clean-up.
• Start a family history project that involves multiple generations. Gather stories, recipes, and photographs to compile into a family book or digital archive. This activity not only strengthens family bonds but also provides a meaningful legacy and a sense of purpose as you preserve your family's heritage for future generations.
• Use social media to find local groups or online communities centered around a hobby you're curious about. Engaging with these groups can lead to new friendships and a deeper enjoyment of the hobby. If you're drawn to hiking, search for a local hiking group on social media and join their next outing, or if you're into board games, find an online community that hosts virtual game nights.
• Partner with a friend or community member to share a passion project that can be pursued during retirement. If you love painting, you could collaborate on a series of artworks that depict your local area's landscapes or historical sites. This not only fosters social connections but also gives you a shared goal to work towards, potentially leading to a joint exhibition or a published collection of your works.
• Create a personalized exploration kit for your hiking and camping trips. Assemble a backpack with items that enhance your outdoor experience, such as a portable hammock for relaxation, a durable water filter for clean drinking water, and a solar-powered charger to keep your devices powered. Tailor the kit to your specific needs and interests, like including a beginner's guide to birdwatching or a compact sketchbook for capturing the scenery.
• Create a "Retirement Adventure Map" by pinning locations on a physical or digital map where you can pursue your interests. If you love gardening, mark local community gardens or botanical gardens you'd like to visit. This visual representation can serve as a motivational tool and a way to plan out how you'll engage with your passions geographically.

Prioritize Bodily and Mental Health

Well-being is the foundation of happiness. If you only take away a single point from this chapter, Moss would say this: retirees who stay active are happy. The happiest retirees incorporate regular exercise and a healthy diet into their daily lives, which in turn increases their quality—and potentially the length—of this life stage.

Happiest Retirees Prioritize Exercise, Healthy Eating, Stress Management, and Social Activities Such as Tennis, Walking, and Swimming

Incorporate regular physical activity into your routine. Moss recommends affordable activities with a significant impact, like walking, swimming, hiking, and biking—the "ings," as he calls them. Racquet sports such as badminton and tennis also have benefits. It's not necessary to participate in a triathlon like Heather and Howard Thyme (though you could!). - even minimal exercise is highly effective.

A healthy, balanced eating plan is also crucial. Many content retirees embrace a Mediterranean way of eating, which prioritizes clean eating and healthy food choices like fish, poultry, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, while avoiding processed foods and sugary treats. However, HROBs "are open to splurging occasionally on a succulent cut of beef or a decadent dessert," Moss points out.

Practical Tips

• You can integrate playful movement into your daily routine by turning chores into mini-workouts. For example, while vacuuming, add lunges with each push of the vacuum, or do calf raises while washing dishes. This approach turns necessary daily tasks into opportunities for physical activity without requiring extra time set aside for exercise.
• Start a "clean ingredient swap" challenge with friends or family. Challenge each other to replace one processed item with a whole food alternative each week. For instance, swap out store-bought salad dressings with homemade versions using olive oil, lemon juice, and herbs, or replace sugary cereal with oatmeal topped with fresh fruit.
• Create a "stress response kit" that you can carry with you, filled with items that help you relax. This could include things like a small vial of a calming scent, a stress ball, a list of affirmations, or a picture of a place that makes you feel peaceful. When you feel stress building, take a short break to use your kit.
• Create a personal happiness journal focused on physical activity to track your mood and well-being. Each day, after engaging in an activity like swimming or playing a sport, jot down how you feel. This can help you identify which activities boost your happiness the most, allowing you to tailor your routine to include more of what works best for you.

Be Socially Engaged and Participate Locally

Social connection is a crucial component of wellbeing and contentment during retirement, and one of the areas that can suffer when routines change.

Happiest Retirees Maintain Close Friendships With Three People, Participate in a Group, and Take Annual Trips With Friends

Foster a minimum of three close friendships and interact with them regularly. These friendships act as a strong antidote to loneliness and create feelings of belonging. These aren't just the people you wave to; you want to build real relationships with friends you trust, enjoy being around, and feel comfortable being your authentic self with.

As a way to expand your close social network, Moss provides specific examples: join a group like a faith community, tennis team, fitness class, or book club. Take trips with your friends. Attend a concert together. These social activities increase your sense of connection, build lasting memories, and provide you with diverse experiences.

Other Perspectives

• For some individuals, close family relationships may play a more significant role in combating loneliness than friendships.
• Trust is subjective and can be difficult to establish; some individuals may have trust issues due to past experiences, making it challenging to find friends they can truly trust.
• Some people may find it challenging to find a group that aligns with their interests, beliefs, or schedule, which could limit the practicality of this advice.
• Overemphasis on group activities might lead to a sense of obligation rather than genuine enjoyment, which could strain friendships rather than strengthen them.
• The idea may inadvertently marginalize individuals who, due to personal circumstances such as health issues or caregiving responsibilities, cannot frequently engage in diverse social experiences.

Relationships and Connections With Others

Nurturing good relationships is essential for both your mental and monetary well-being. Moss explores how family relationships with parents and children are dramatically impacted by money and how, in turn, they influence how happy you are in retirement. When close, loving families also adopt healthy financial boundaries, people become happier.

Foster Close, Independent Relationships With Your Grown Kids

Supporting your children financially can be detrimental. This habit reveals itself as "financially supporting kids." Moss' research suggests that a significant number of families are actively subsidizing the financial needs of their grown children.

Happy Retirees Have Independent Children Living Nearby and Avoid Over-Supporting Them

It's crucial that you adopt a hands-off approach when it comes to your grown children's finances, as over-supporting them can negatively impact your happiness and finances. They should be nearby but not reside with you.

The happiest people in retirement, according to Moss, have strong, healthy boundaries with their grown children where everyone is financially self-sufficient. They aren't living with their parents, but they aren't across the country either. Families like these value closeness, but not if it compromises freedom. Moss acknowledges that this habit can be tricky to navigate, particularly when college costs skyrocket or children desire to pursue advanced, but possibly financially unsustainable, degrees like PhDs. "If your son chooses to dedicate his days to pondering Nietzsche," Moss quips, "good for him. However, he must finance that on his own."

Practical Tips

• Offer to help with down payments or housing costs for your children if they choose to buy a home nearby. This financial support can be a significant incentive for them to live close, especially if the housing market is challenging. Make it a family investment by setting clear expectations and agreements to ensure it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.
• Set up a 'gradual release' financial support system that decreases over time. Determine a starting support amount that is reasonable and then schedule a gradual decrease in this support over a set period. For example, if you're currently helping with rent, you might reduce your contribution by 10% every six months until they are paying in full. This method helps your adult children adjust to the full responsibility of their expenses gradually, reducing the shock of sudden financial independence.
• Create a 'Family Financial Independence Day' once a year, where you discuss and celebrate financial milestones and goals with your children. Use this day to talk about budgeting, saving, and investing in a relaxed setting. You could share stories of your financial successes and challenges, fostering an open dialogue about money and independence.
• Implement a 'space-sharing schedule' in shared family areas like the living room or kitchen, where members can book time for their activities. This system ensures that everyone has the opportunity to use communal spaces for their individual pursuits, whether it's practicing an instrument, working on a craft project, or simply enjoying some quiet time. By having a visible schedule, it prevents conflicts over space and acknowledges each person's right to both shared and personal time within the home.
• Develop a 'self-sufficiency skills' checklist and tackle one item per week. This could include cooking, cleaning, budgeting, or minor home repairs. By actively learning and practicing these skills while still at home, you'll build the confidence and competence needed for living independently. For example, if you don't know how to cook, start with simple recipes and gradually take on more complex dishes.
• Establish a tradition of sending physical mail or care packages to maintain a tangible presence. Even if you're not in the same household, receiving letters, postcards, or small gifts can create a sense of closeness and anticipation for the next interaction. You might send a monthly postcard with a positive message or a care package with items that reflect shared interests, like books or puzzles.
• You can evaluate the return on investment (ROI) of different degrees by using online tools that compare graduate salaries by major. Websites like PayScale or the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard provide data on average earnings for specific degrees. By entering the degree you're interested in, you can see potential future earnings and weigh them against the cost of the education required.
• Set up a family 'matching funds' program where for every dollar your child saves towards their education, you contribute an equal amount. This incentivizes saving and teaches the value of money and investment. To make it more engaging, create a visual savings tracker that shows progress towards the goal.

Marry (or Remarry) Only Once

This finding ranks among Moss' most surprising discoveries. We often assume that people with a joyful retirement are folks who've remained with one partner throughout their lives, the kind of Ozzie and Harriet marriage that never fades. But Moss has discovered this isn't true!

Most Content Retirees Have Never Divorced or Have Only Divorced Once; Multiple Divorces Correlate With Lower Happiness

Moss' research suggests that divorce isn't automatically a kiss of death. Retirees who have been married only once or twice, whether to the same person or to different partners, are happier than their single peers! However, if you keep getting married and keep getting divorced, statistically speaking, happiness levels sharply decline. He jokingly refers to this as the "Single Mulligan" rule.

Having an open and honest dialogue about finances is key to marital happiness—provided you avoid obsessing. Moss recommends dedicating at least sixty minutes every month to financial discussions, while also setting concrete limits to avoid letting the money conversation take over your relationship.

Practical Tips

• Create a shared vision board that represents both your individual and joint aspirations for retirement. Visualization can be a powerful tool for aligning goals and staying motivated. Work together with your partner to create a vision board that includes images, quotes, and symbols of what you both want your retirement to look like. This can include travel plans, hobbies you want to pursue, or the lifestyle you wish to lead. Regularly revisiting and updating the board can keep you both excited and committed to a shared future.
• Engage in a monthly "relationship check-in" with your partner to discuss your happiness and address any concerns. Set aside time each month to sit down together and openly communicate about your feelings, goals, and any issues that may have arisen. This proactive approach can help catch potential problems early and reinforce the commitment to working through challenges together.
• Establish a "Retiree Couples Club" with other married retirees to create a support network and engage in social activities. Organize regular meet-ups, outings, or interest-based groups such as book clubs, walking groups, or cooking classes. This initiative can help maintain an active social life, provide emotional support, and enhance the enjoyment of retirement through shared experiences with your spouse and peers.
• Create a personal relationship timeline to visually track your history and patterns in relationships. By mapping out your past marriages and divorces, including the duration and your perceived happiness levels during and after each, you can identify trends that may have impacted your well-being. This visual tool can help you reflect on your choices and consider how to approach future relationships more thoughtfully.
• Create a joint email account specifically for bills, bank statements, and financial notifications. This ensures that both partners have equal access to financial information and can stay informed about their shared financial situation. It can also help in organizing documents and making sure nothing gets overlooked.
• Create a financial discussion prompt jar with topics and questions written on slips of paper. Each month, draw a new slip to guide your financial discussion, ensuring that you cover a variety of financial aspects over time, from budgeting to investing, without the session becoming monotonous.
• Implement a "no money talk" rule during date nights or special occasions. This helps maintain the quality of your relationship by ensuring that time together is focused on connection rather than finances. For example, if you're out for dinner or celebrating an anniversary, make a pact to only discuss topics that bring you closer, like memories, personal growth, or future dreams that don't involve money.

Remain Engaged With Faith, Community, and Altruistic Causes

Moss is a proponent of having faith, and his research shows a link between attending religious services and greater happiness. He also believes there's a strong connection between charitable activities, having an impact, and a life well-lived.

Contented Retirees Find Purpose in Religion, Charitable Work, and Donating

Moss' data shows that people who engage in faith-based activities, either through worship centers like churches, temples, or synagogues, or through social groups centered on charitable activities, tend to be healthier and experience greater happiness. These communities create opportunities to be social and to participate in causes you believe in, which can bring a sense of joy and purpose. Moss recommends volunteering to enrich your life while also giving back.

Practical Tips

• Develop a 'purposeful walking group' in your neighborhood where participants not only exercise together but also pick up litter during their walks. This initiative promotes health, provides social interaction, and improves the local environment. You can use community bulletin boards or social media to invite participants and set a regular schedule for the walks.
• Create a 'skills swap' board in your local community center where you offer your abilities in exchange for volunteer help in local projects. For example, if you're good at graphic design, offer to design a flyer for a community event in exchange for opportunities to help with setting up the venue.