By Tyler Thomas, Financial Advisor, RBC Wealth Management – U.S. 

When you’re younger, doing it yourself can feel like the obvious choice.

Cut your own grass. Clean your own house. Wash your own car. Fix what you can. Drive somewhere instead of paying for convenience of flight.

Besides, why pay someone to do something you’re perfectly capable of doing yourself?  Then retirement comes along and something interesting happens.

Money may still matter. BUT…time starts to matter more!

That can make convenience one of retirement’s most underrated luxuries.  

Maybe it’s paying someone to handle the yard so Saturday morning belongs to you. Maybe it’s hiring someone to clean the house twice a month. Maybe it’s paying a little more to take the nonstop flight instead of spending half a day connecting through another airport. Or choosing the condo that’s easier to maintain instead of the larger house that requires constant attention.

None of these decisions sound particularly important on their own. Together, though, they can change the way retirement feels.

We spend much of our lives trading time for money. We work hours to earn income and then we use some of that income to build savings for the future. Retirement gives us an opportunity to reverse the trade. Sometimes we can use money to buy back time…and we can do that without wasting our hard-earned dollars.

There is a difference between spending carelessly and intentionally paying for things that make life easier.

If you love working in the yard, keep doing it. If washing your own car on Saturday morning is something you’ve always enjoyed, don’t stop. But if you’re doing something simply because you’ve always done it yourself, it might be worth asking whether your time could be better spent somewhere else.

Maybe another round of golf? Afternoon at the beach? Picking up grandkids from school? Maybe it’s volunteering, exercising, traveling, or simply sitting on the porch with absolutely nowhere else you need to be. A good retirement plan should account for those choices!

We spend a lot of time discussing how much income someone will need in retirement, but part of that conversation should also be about what they’re willing to spend to make retirement better.

Because eventually, the most valuable thing in your portfolio may not be a stock, bond, or piece of real estate.

It may be an ordinary Tuesday afternoon with nothing on your schedule.

And sometimes, that’s worth paying for.

RBC Wealth Management, a division of RBC Capital Markets, LLC, registered investment adviser and Member NYSE/FINRA/SIPC.