Retire With Joy!

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Don’t let the unknown steal your joy

As we approach retirement, we often find ourselves asking:

Saying goodbye to your income source and living almost entirely off of what you’ve saved is a huge leap! But retirement is a milestone that encompasses so much more than just finances.

And preparing mentally and emotionally is just as important as preparing financially.

In this book, I’ve attempted to capture the lessons I learned during my time away from the daily grind coupled with the lessons I’ve learned from all of my amazing clients over the years to help you Retire With Joy!

Retire With Joy!
Mentally and Financially Preparing for the Time of Your Life
By Richelle Hofer
Wealth Advisor AWMA® AAMS® CRPC®

The Inspiration for the Book

Retirement is supposed to be amazing, right? All that free time, relaxation, doing whatever you please. But here’s the thing: retirement is often a mixed bag of emotions, and it’s totally ok to admit that!

Throughout her 17-year career as a financial advisor, Richelle Hofer has helped many people financially prepare for retirement. But even when people are financially prepared to retire, many people struggle mentally and emotionally with this transition. Retirement is a BIG life change.

In 2022, Richelle took a one-year sabbatical and she experienced firsthand many of the struggles she’d heard her clients talking about for years. “I think it’s so easy to get our identities wrapped up in our careers,” says Hofer. “Especially for women. In the first part of our careers, we’re really focused on balancing our work and our families. We put so much focus on climbing the ladder and raising well-adjusted, healthy children. When our kids no longer need us to manage their daily lives, many of us turn our energy toward our careers. When retirement arrives, we find ourselves asking, ‘Who am I?’ ‘Why do I exist?’ ‘Am I relevant?’ ‘Am I needed anywhere?’ These are big questions to wrestle with and they can suck the “joy” right out of what we’ve worked our whole life to achieve.”

Hofer knew that if she was passionate about helping people retire, she had to do more than create solid financial plans. She had to find a way to help people not just retire but Retire with Joy!

“During my sabbatical, I started writing a little bit about my emotional challenges. At first, it was just therapeutic, but eventually, I started thinking, maybe other people could benefit from the lessons I’m learning too.” By using her firsthand experience coupled with things she’d learned from her retired clients along the way, Hofer authored the book “Retire with Joy! Mentally and Financially Preparing for the Time of Your Life”. The book gives practical advice on everything from creating a daily habits checklist to freezing your credit profiles.

Encore Event

In April 2024, a panel of professionals (including a mental health professional) shared with people in or approaching retirement about the parts of retirement that are often overlooked…like finding purpose and permitting yourself to slow down. The event was so well received that an Encore Event is planned for August.

“At the event people told us they were really interested in continuing these conversations in a smaller group setting, so we’re actually working on creating some retirement support-type groups.”

Retirement looks different for everyone, but regardless of the differences, one thing is true nearly across the board: retirement is a big life transition that is about more than just money.