Are we working for retirement, or working because retirement isn’t enough?

We should work for retirement long before retirement. Ideallly, after you have settled down in your 30s or earlier. Most prople thought they have a lot of time since they are young and did not realise the compounding effect. The younger you are the longer the runway for a large compounding effect.

I am 56 and can retire today if i wanted since i had planned it. But sometimes, I wish i had started earlier or was more focus in my investment planning.

Hello Debbie - in my case I have started planning for my retirement proactively since 2017. Now 9 years later, I can confidently answer the question with "Working for retirement and countdown has started :)". I personally believe in being diligent so those 9 years were spend planting the seeds for my (and my wife's) retirement in another 5 years (or less now maybe 4 years and 11 months or so).