Most Baby Boomers have been retired for years now, while Gen Xers are just approaching their retirement era. And according to a finance expert who helps people with retirement planning, Gen X is taking an altogether different approach in determining how they want to spend their golden years.

Benjamin Brandt is a Certified Financial Planner who has spent nearly two decades helping people plan for retirement. On his YouTube channel, Even Better Retirement, he says that one big difference between the generations is that Boomers have retired “forward,” while Gen X is retiring “backward.”

What it means that Boomers have retired ‘forward’

Brandt shares the pattern he’s seeing when he talks to Boomers and Gen Xers about retirement.

“When a Baby Boomer sits across from me over Zoom, and I ask them, ‘What are you retiring to?’ You know, ‘Why did you save up all this money? What are your retirement plans?’ I hear a very specific kind of answer,” Brandt explains. “The answers are something along the lines of, ‘I can’t wait to retire so I can finally spend some real time in my garden. I can’t wait to retire because I want to golf three days a week. I want to retire so I can build cabinets in my garage.’”

Brandt points out that these are all things the person hasn’t done yet. Boomers are wanting to spend their retirement doing things they always wished they could do.

“They retire forward towards the activity that they never got to do and will finally have time for,” Brandt says. They’re basically guessing at what they’re going to enjoy.

“That can present a problem,” Brandt points out. “Retiring forward is a bet. It’s a guess. You’re guessing that the thing that you daydreamed about at your desk will still feel good on a random Tuesday morning in retirement when you’ve just got nothing on the calendar. Now, sometimes that guess is right, but sometimes I get that phone call that says, ‘You........

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