The Perfect Gift - A Pension Plan

How I Celebrated My Father’s Retirement

Time flew by; days became months, and months turned to years. After a decade full of love, laughter, and little fights between us siblings, papa’s 60th birthday was just around the corner, and with his birthday came his retirement. This was the perfect time to reveal the secret gift.

When we were busy shaping our careers and enjoying the nitty-gritty of life, papa had a worry of his own. Being a workaholic, I knew what stress he was struggling with throughout the past decades. And this was the main reason behind giving him this surprise of his lifetime.

After papa’s grand 60th birthday celebrations, retirement day came closer. When the big day came, our lives changed. Retirement was an entirely new chapter for our family. While Ruchika was super happy with the thought that she would get to spend more time with papa, check out new restaurants, shop, and get to do everything, papa never stopped worrying.

One day when I saw papa working on the finances, a well-known saying that I read online crossed my mind:

“Your retirement should resemble a long trip to Las Vegas.”

But was papa really ready to take on this new journey? I fret not.

Indian fathers are all the same. No new change will ever excite them. They somehow have this urge to keep everything under control and stress over it for their whole life, and my father was no different.

Ruchika and I thought our dad was a calm soul, but that wasn’t the case when it was to plan the family’s financial future. During the past decade, he surrounded himself with the idea that life’s milestones often come with substantial financial choices and decisions. As a result, we often found him pondering over questions like whether he should take on a new job to run the household, consider climbing the real estate ladder, or how should he continue saving for our weddings without a monthly salary.

When we saw him struggle and stress over his post-retirement life, we realized that investing in his retirement plan was the best decision we ever made. Yes, you heard it right; on his 50th birthday, Ruchika and I bought a retirement plan for papa and decided to share this gift on his retirement day. We wanted papa to live his dream of enjoying all the delicious food in the world there is to offer. For that to come true, we had to work on the pension plan put together after thoroughly understanding the financial situation of our family.

When at his retirement party, we finally revealed the big surprise; papa was so proud and overwhelmed with emotions, but he wasn’t quite on-board with the idea of a pension plan. He wanted to understand anything and everything in this pension plan; I knew this would happen, so I came prepared.

Retirement has been a phase that would bring a golden opportunity to live the life papa always dreamt of but couldn’t make enough time or save enough money for it. There’s no denying that there are various challenges one has to face after retirement. But I firmly believe that while planning for retirement is crucial, the strategy for doing so after one retires should be just as critical. It is essential to prepare how you will turn assets into income, regardless of how effectively you saved during the accumulation phase.

After thorough market research, consulting different financial advisors, and hours and hours of surfing the Internet, we wanted to take the best plan that comes with financial independence post-retirement, offers a wide range of income options suiting different retirement needs, and also allows a range of annuity payout frequencies, all this and so much more to make certain that dad lives an idyllic life. When we were done discussing the surprise pension plan, we could see how happy mom and Ruchika were. Mom was elated that now we had everything covered. But somehow, I could see that papa was still not convinced.

Did Mr. Sharma accept the pension plan, or does he have an idea of his own? Check out this section to know what happens next.