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One of the biggest challenges people face when they retire is finding ways to keep their minds occupied. When you’re 42 years old and have a full-time job, turning into a couch potato for a couple of decades or so tends to sound pretty good. However, once most people actually retire, they find that watching TV 8+ hours a day is not as much fun or relaxing as they once thought.
If you’re looking for something fun to keep yourself occupied during your golden years, you might want to consider starting a wine collection. Here’s everything you need to know about starting a collection as a retiree and how to have fun with it! You’ll also learn more about how you can finance a collection of fine wines.
Why Collect Wine?
Your first question at this point is probably, why wine? Why not collect classic cars or antiques or even stamps, for that matter? Collecting classic cars, antiques, stamps, and just about anything else is also a great way to keep your mind occupied.
At the end of the day, there’s no reason why you can’t collect all of those things. That said, wine has a certain appeal to it that has made it one of the more fashionable things to collect, as long as you have the money to do it, of course.
Wine shares a close connection with the human experience; it’s part of our history, it’s part of many cultures. When you look at a bottle of wine from 1945, it’s not just a bottle, and it’s history. Just think of the people that labored to produce that single bottle in the same year that WWII finally came to a close.
Another reason why seniors start collecting wine is that it makes for a great conversation starter with friends. When you break out a vintage bottle from a popular vineyard, you can reminisce about where you and your friends were doing that year and how much things have changed since then. These experiences with friends can be priceless.
What Kind of Wine Should You Collect?
If you’re wondering what kinds of wines you should collect, the answer to your question is a subjective one. For starters, it depends on what your motivations are in terms of becoming a wine collector.
Do you want to collect expensive wines so that you can preserve them, impress your friends, and perhaps sell them for a higher price a few years down the road? Or do you want to collect fine wines to drink for yourself and truly enjoy them?
There are some very passionate wine collectors from both camps. Those that collect wine for the sake of collecting it and preserving it argue that it would be an injustice to consume wine from certain vintages. On the other hand, the collectors who drink the wines they collect would argue that the other side is being stuffy. Why pay thousands of dollars for a bunch of bottles from an auction that you’re just going to put in a rack to collect dust?
Neither side is inherently right or wrong. If you like the idea of preserving a bit of history, then do that. If you would rather taste the flavors of decades past and experience the sweet satisfaction of drinking vintage wine, then go for it!
The real issue at hand is how to pay for it all. Collecting wine is not a cheap hobby. It can be costly depending on the vintages that interest you. After all, the price of the bottles you buy isn’t the only expense to factor in when thinking about becoming a wine collector.
When you’re investing in valuable wines, you’ll also need to invest in a proper wine cellar or some sort of structure to keep the wines in your collection at the appropriate temperature. A cool, humid environment of 55 degrees is typically considered ideal when it comes to storing valuable wine.
How to Raise Enough Money to Become a Serious Wine Collector
Collecting serious wine takes serious money. While many seniors who saved for retirement are better off financially than younger people, many still need to raise extra cash to collect wine.
If you own stocks, you could sell them, but it wouldn’t make much sense to sell off your investments just to invest in something else. Why not let your dividends continue to accrue! After all, there are easier ways to raise money.
One of the most popular options that savvy seniors have been taking advantage of is a life settlement.
What Is a Life Settlement and How Can it Help You Buy Expensive Wines?
A life settlement is an agreement where you sell your life insurance policy to a third party for a lump sum cash payout. This transaction can be significant and, in most cases, could yield more than enough funds to start collecting wine like a pro.
There are benefits of selling your life insurance policy which is why so many seniors choose this path.
Sell Your Life Insurance Policy For Cash and Start Collecting with MRE Finance!
Now that you know you have an option to kick start your wine collection by selling your life insurance policy, you’re probably wondering how to find out how much your policy could be worth and how to go about finding a buyer.
The expert team at MRE Finance will walk you through the entire process and find a suitable buyer for your policy. MRE Finance has a FREE online life settlement calculator that you can find out the potential value of your policy in minutes by answering a few quick questions. Give it a try https://mrefinance.com/free-life-settlement-calculator/. Once you sell the policy, you’re free to invest in a spacious wine cellar and start collecting, voila!
