When It’s Too Late to Start
Joshua Mazune
5 min read
The Silence No One Warns You About
There is a particular kind of silence that follows retirement. It is not always the silence of rest. Sometimes it is the silence of a phone that no longer rings with office demands, a salary that no longer arrives at the end of the month, and a family that still expects life to continue as before. For a number of people, retirement is not necessarily a gentle landing. It can be a sudden audit.
A Predictable Season We Refuse To Plan For
Retirement is predictable. That is why our failure to prepare for it is so costly. We plan weddings, introductions, funerals, school fees and Christmas travel. Yet the season that may last 20 or 30 years after formal employment is often treated like a surprise.
When The Payout Arrives, Everyone Has Advice
Then the payout arrives. Perhaps the NSSF lump sum lands in the account, and suddenly everyone has advice. Buy land. Start poultry. Put a taxi on the road. Build rentals. Fund a relative’s business, put money into the agricultural Ponzi scheme offering unbelievable returns, copy the neighbour whose shop appears to be doing well.
Money Doesn't Create Discipline, It Reveals It
The challenge is that money alone does not make someone ready for business. One lesson microfinance has taught me is that money does not create discipline. It exposes whether discipline was there before the money arrived. Business requires discipline, records, market knowledge, controls and patience. Customers do not buy because someone worked for 30 years. Workers do not become honest because the money came from sacrifice. A bad investment does not become safe because it carries the hopes of a family.
Why Retirement Leaves No Room For Mistakes
The danger is that retirement gives people cash at the exact moment they have the least room to recover from mistakes. A younger person can fail, learn and start again. A retired person may not have the same time, income or energy to rebuild. A savings plan started at 30 is freedom. The same plan discovered at 60 is damage control. A business tested while one still has a salary is learning. A business launched with one final payout is gambling with old age.
Business Is Not A Retirement Plan
This is why I worry when someone says that business is their retirement plan. Entrepreneurship is difficult even for people who have been practising it for years. Running a shop, managing stock, supervising workers, handling cash flow and keeping customers are not small matters. They are skills built over time.
Money Was Present, But Rarely Explained
In many of our homes, money was always present but rarely explained. Parents paid school fees, supported relatives, bought land, contributed to burials and somehow survived difficult seasons. But few discussed budgeting, debt, saving, pensions, investment or risk. Children saw money being used. They did not always see money being understood.
When Children Are The Retirement Plan
In some homes, children are considered the retirement plan. That system is built on sacrifice and reciprocity. Parents educate children with the hope that children will later support them. But this arrangement is now under pressure. The same children expected to support ageing parents are paying rent, raising families, repaying loans and facing an economy that is not forgiving. So parents feel abandoned. Children feel overwhelmed. Both may have a point. The answer is not blame. The answer is preparation.
The Options Are Already There
We owe it to ourselves to understand retirement long before we receive our final cheque because there are options. Workers can make additional voluntary savings. Informal sector earners can explore regulated retirement schemes. Families can use SACCOs, unit trusts, insurance products, treasury instruments and pension plans with proper advice. Employers can invite financial advisors to the workplace long before the farewell party. Banks and pension providers can stop speaking in brochures and start explaining risk in language ordinary people understand.
Everyone Deserves A Plan
The point is not that everyone must become rich before retirement. The point is that everyone deserves a plan before anxiety takes over. Retirement should be the season when years of small, informed decisions begin to protect us. Financial education must not wait for grey hair. It should begin when we first earn, first borrow, first marry, first support relatives, and first dream of building a home. Families need more honest conversations about money, not lectures filled with complicated terms, but practical discussions about choices and consequences.
