Retirement Planning - The Importance of Making Memories

I grew up watching and playing cricket thanks to my dad who taught my brother and I to play when we were very young. As kids, in the summer, we’d play with friends until it started to get dark.

When he retired my dad became a member of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club and a few years afterwards, he and two cricket loving friends decided to arrange a trip to Australia to see a few matches in the 1998 Ashes tour. They planned the trip so that they would watch the first three matches and be back home in time for Christmas. They also arranged to have a stop-over in Hong Kong on the way out for a few days so that dad could try and find some of his old haunts when he was stationed there in the army.

Before the trip I vaguely remember my dad discussing the cost of the trip with my mum and checking to see whether it was okay for him to be away for five weeks just before Christmas.

England drew the first game and lost the next two which meant that my dad and his friends had more time to explore the particular part of Australia the matches were being held in.

It’s Not About The Money

It was a trip of a lifetime for my dad and his friends and they reminisced about it for many years afterwards and even inspired others within their cricketing group to go on similar trips. Up until he passed away, every time there was an Ashes tour, we’d hear stories about his time in Australia.

I’m so glad my dad was able to have his trip of a lifetime and I always encourage clients to consider what their trips of a lifetime would be. At the end of the day, when we look back and reflect on our lives, it is not the investment returns that we remember or the cost of a particular holiday, it is the memories that we make and the great stories that we can tell.

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