If You’re in Your 40s or 50s, Watch This. Life Lessons from 70 Year Olds
By: Niro Thambipillay
October 7, 2026
If you’re in your 40s or 50s, a good retirement plan needs more than a target age and a bigger bank balance. It needs room for the unexpected, a clear idea of what enough looks like, and attention to the health and relationships that make financial freedom worth having.
In this video, Niro Thambipillay shares five lessons drawn from conversations with people in their 60s and 70s. From retiring earlier than planned to buying things for the wrong reasons, the message is simple: don’t postpone every important decision until later.
TL;DR
Build flexibility into your retirement plan rather than assuming you can work until a particular birthday. Define what enough means, protect your health, question status-driven spending and keep investing in your relationships. Niro’s five lessons are about creating choices while you still have time to enjoy them, not a promise that property or any investment will guarantee retirement.
Key Takeaways
- Your retirement date may not be your choice: illness or losing a job can bring it forward.
- Hard work needs a purpose: define the life and financial position you are working towards.
- Health belongs in the plan: money and physical wellbeing require attention at the same time.
- Question status purchases: being able to afford something does not explain why you want it.
- Relationships need time now: don’t assume friends and family will wait until work becomes quieter.
What Would Your Older Self Tell You?
Plan for a life you want to live, not just a retirement date you hope to reach. That is the thread connecting Niro’s five lessons. At 47, he says he is still working through some of them himself, particularly the temptation to buy something that proves his hard work counted.
These are reflections from his experience, not personalised financial or medical advice. Their value is in the questions they raise. What would change if work ended sooner? What are you sacrificing without an end point? And who will be there to share the freedom you are trying to build?
1. Don’t Build Your Entire Retirement Plan Around One Date
A target retirement age can be useful, but it is not something you fully control. Health, an injury or a change at work can interrupt the final years you expected to spend paying down the mortgage and adding to your savings.
The ABS 2024-25 retirement data puts the average intended retirement age at 65.6. Among retirees, 13% left their last job because of their own sickness, injury or disability, while 6% were retrenched, dismissed or had no work available. Those groups retired at average ages of 56.9 and 58.8 respectively.
Those are different survey groups, not proof that every person planned to retire at 65 and then lost seven working years. But they explain Niro’s concern: a plan that relies on every final year of employment going perfectly is fragile.
Ask the Earlier-Retirement Question
Niro suggests imagining your last working day arriving six to eight years earlier than expected. Would your finances still give you choices, or would everything depend on returning to work?
For investors, that means understanding how assets, debt and cash flow fit together. Our property investing roadmap explores that broader portfolio framework. It is a planning starting point, not a reason to rush into a purchase or assume growth is guaranteed.
2. Don’t Spend Your Best Years on a Treadmill Without an End Point
Working hard and knowing why you are working hard are not the same thing. Niro draws on Bronnie Ware’s work with people approaching the end of their lives, including the regret of having devoted too much time to work.
The same ABS release found that 40% of people aged 45 and over who intended to retire, about 1.9 million people, did not know when they would leave the labour force.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying your work or choosing to continue it. The problem is telling yourself the sacrifice will last just a few more years without ever defining what would make those years enough.
Define What Enough Looks Like
Start with the life you want, not somebody else’s income or property count. Think about what you want time for, what your household needs and how much responsibility you want to keep carrying. A clear goal gives hard work a direction instead of allowing the finish line to move indefinitely.
3. Your Money Can Work Without You. Your Health Can’t.
Financial planning and caring for yourself should happen together. Waiting until retirement to make room for wellbeing can mean postponing the very activities you hoped financial freedom would let you enjoy.
Niro cites the AIHW Australian Burden of Disease Study 2024. For males born in 2024, it estimated 81.6 years of life expectancy and 71.7 health-adjusted years. For females, the corresponding figures were 85.5 and 73.8 years.
These population estimates are not a personal countdown. Health-adjusted life expectancy is a statistical measure, not an age at which everyone becomes unwell, and illness does not only occur at the end of life. The useful lesson is to make health part of the plan now.
Niro recalls meeting a man in his 70s on a tennis court who was travelling, volunteering and learning two languages. The man told him he had started planning the life he wanted in his 70s while still in his 40s, making both financial and health decisions around that vision.
Niro did not know the man’s finances. What stayed with him was the intention behind that retirement: it had been thought about long before it arrived.
4. Be Careful What You Buy to Prove Something
The important question is not only whether you can afford it, but why you want it. Niro connects this lesson with the status game described by author Will Storr: the temptation to use visible purchases to establish our place in other people’s eyes.
His example is personal. He wears a watch that cost about $50 on Amazon and does what he needs it to do. Yet he admits spending hours looking at watches that cost more than some people’s cars.
He says affordability is not the issue. The desire is partly about wanting something visible that says the last 20 years mattered, comparing himself with people he barely knows and revisiting an image of success formed much earlier in life.
Separate Enjoyment From Approval
This is not a rule against buying something you enjoy. It is a prompt to distinguish genuine enjoyment from a purchase intended to settle an insecurity or impress somebody else.
That distinction matters in investing too. Buying a property because it looks impressive is different from buying one that fits your goals and the evidence. Our guide to investment property types to approach carefully looks at why attractive appearances alone are not an investment strategy.
In Niro’s conversations, people in their 70s tend to focus on experiences they missed and decisions they kept postponing, rather than wishing they had bought a more expensive watch or car.
5. Invest in Your Relationships Before Work Takes All Your Time
A bigger portfolio cannot replace close relationships. Money can help create options, but it is not the whole answer to ageing well.
Niro points to the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which began in 1938. Harvard’s account of the study describes a strong link between satisfying relationships in midlife and health later on. It is a finding about association over time, not a guarantee that relationships alone prevent illness.
Loneliness is not confined to older people. In its survey of 1,282 Australian men, Healthy Male reported high loneliness in about one in four men aged 35 to 49, compared with about one in 16 older men.
That is a reminder not to assume a busy calendar means a connected life. Promotions, raising children and building a business can consume the time that would otherwise go towards friendships and family.
Niro’s warning is that work can take everything you are willing to give it, but the people you care about may not keep waiting while you do.
Where Does Property Fit Into These Lessons?
For Niro, property is a potential vehicle for building financial choices and supplementing retirement, not the purpose of retirement itself. The point is to create more control over your time, while still protecting the things you want that time for.
That requires more than selecting an area with a promising headline. Borrowing, holding costs, vacancies and your ability to manage debt all matter. If you are considering using your home as a starting point, read how usable equity and investment borrowing work before treating equity as money you can freely spend.
In the video, Niro also invites viewers to a free webinar on building a property portfolio. View the webinar registration page for the event details and availability.
Pick One Thing to Change This Week
You do not need to redesign your entire life today. Niro’s closing challenge is to pick one of the five lessons and act on it this week, rather than leaving it for next year.
That might mean reviewing your earlier-retirement scenario, defining what enough looks like, making time for your wellbeing, questioning a purchase or organising a catch-up you have kept postponing. The common thread is deliberate action while you still have options.
Summary
- Build flexibility into your retirement plan rather than relying on one target age.
- Give hard work a clear purpose and define what enough means for your household.
- Plan for health and finances together instead of postponing wellbeing until retirement.
- Question whether a purchase is for genuine enjoyment or somebody else’s approval.
- Protect time for relationships, then choose one practical change to make this week.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your health or employment circumstances can change before your intended retirement date. Niro’s lesson is to test what an earlier end to work would mean for your finances, rather than assuming every final earning year is guaranteed.
It means identifying the lifestyle, time and financial position you are working towards, rather than repeatedly moving the finish line. Your household needs and priorities matter more than somebody else’s income, status or property count.
Money is only one part of being able to enjoy retirement. Niro’s point is to give wellbeing attention alongside financial planning, not wait until work ends to think about it. Population health estimates do not predict an individual’s future health.
Ask whether you genuinely want the item for its usefulness or enjoyment, or mainly want it to impress others and prove your success. Being able to afford something does not automatically make the reason for buying it a good fit for your priorities.
No. Property may form part of a retirement strategy, but returns are uncertain and borrowing creates obligations. Niro’s broader lesson is to build financial choices without sacrificing your health and relationships, and to seek advice suited to your circumstances.
About the Author
Niro Thambipillay
Niro is the founder of Investment Rise, one of Australia’s most trusted property buyers agencies. He has helped hundreds of first-time investors build property portfolios and was voted one of the most trusted Real Estate entrepreneurs in the Asia Pacific region (APAC 2022). Niro is also the author of “How to Build a Property Portfolio That Pays You an Income Every Month.”
Financial disclaimer: I am not your financial advisor and the opinions I share in this video are purely my opinions. This is not to be considered personal advice as it is general in nature.
