DIY: Retirement Survival Kit

Last week, I said farewell to two people I’ve known and worked with for many, many years at my 8-to-5 job and sent them each off with a retirement survival kit that I put together myself. The concept of a survival kit isn’t unique but I think that the one you see in this post had some fresh ideas. You’ll find that it’s fairly easy to assemble one of these yourself if you should have the occasion to do so. Both of these fellows are still relatively young (56 and 61) so I avoided the common and frequently used old age references as they didn’t apply to them. However,  I think that the kit would work well for a soon-to-be retiree of any age.

The Retirement Survival Kit

I’ll explain the significance of the items in a bit. First, though, these are items that each of the kits contained;

Top row – homemade coin jar, scissors, slippers, garbage bag, hammer
Bottom row – sleep mask, sunscreen, band-aids, toilet paper, Barrel of Monkeys

I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the kits and I managed to keep the total cost for each to about $40 including the gift bag and tissue paper. Except for the garbage bags that I already had at home and the sleep mask that I bought at Ross, all of the other items were purchased at Walmart. Small sizes and generic versions of some products helped keep the cost down and the most expensive items were the slippers. I had originally thought to get flip-flops but it’s not the right season for those.

Presentation of Kit

Part of the fun of this Retirement Survival Kit is the presentation of the items to the retiree(s) at a farewell party. Using a gift bag large enough to hold all ten items, each was wrapped in tissue paper. I labeled them from 1 to 10 in the order shown in the graphic above and then placed into the gift bag in reverse numeric order so that item #10 was on the bottom and item #1 was on top.

I developed a rough script (get it here) that I used to help me as I improvised during the presentation. After an opening introduction, the gift bags were placed in front of both of the retirees and they were asked to remove the item labeled #1 which was easy to find because they were at the top in each bag. From the script, I read the explanation for that item (which includes why it’s part of the retirement survival kit) without revealing its identity. You’ll notice that the explanation includes a hint as to what the item is.  Part of the fun was having the rest of the attendees guessing along with the retirees as to what the item would be as it was unwrapped. The process was repeated until all items had been opened.

As to the items in the kit, their relevance to surviving retirement is as follows;

Coin jar – to save pennies while living on a pension/fixed income
Scissors – to cut up ties worn for work that are no longer needed for everyday attire
Slippers – to adjust to a more comfortable mode of everyday attire
Garbage bag – to take unneeded work clothes to a thrift store for donation
Hammer – to bash an alarm clock that is no longer needed
Sleep mask – to help in adjusting to sleeping past dawn
Sunscreen – to protect them as they venture outside during daylight hours
Band-aids & pain relief ointment – to address injuries from doing too much too soon
4-pack of toilet paper – to supplement supplies they have at home because they’ll be doing more there
Barrel of Monkeys – to fill time when they can’t think of anything to do

A few more things to know about putting together the kits. The coin jars were made from typical mason jars I bought and then asked my husband to cut a slot into the lids. Instead of buying a whole box of garbage bags for each kit, I simply took two from those I already had at home and wrote “For Donation” across them before folding and wrapping them. The tubes of sunscreen I bought came with attached carabiner clips which made them look like more of an item to take on the go.

Adaptability of Kit

Even though the retirees for which I made these kits were both men who worked in an office setting, the presentation script for this kit could easily be adapted for a woman and/or for someone who worked in an environment other than a typical office. All it would take would be to change the tie reference for item #2 to one more applicable to the person you are honoring and you have a customized retirement survival kit.

It took me about a week to come up with my list of 10 items and I put the kits together the night before the retirement luncheon (last minute as usual). I was glad to be able to honor/roast these fine gentlemen who had both been with the ‘company’ for well over 30 years and they are now well equipped for their transitions into retirement life.

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What do you think of this kit?  Are there other items I should have included?  How have you or would you honor/roast a colleague that was retiring?

Stay well and let’s keep in touch! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, pin … all options are available. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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