I think I’m addicted to social media – At least that’s what my nearest and dearest tell me! My husband says he always have to talk to me over the lid of a laptop or tablet, but when he wants some titbit of information he encourages me to get on my computer thingy to see what I can find out. He is 57 and doesn’t engage with social media independently despite my encouragement, nor my brother who is 66. In fact he is distinctly suspicious of the whole idea of Social Media. They only hear the negative experiences of social media e.g. cyber bullying, hacking. I can’t preach enough about what a marvellous invention it is.

Since I’ve retired I’ve found it to be invaluable – life changing in fact. I have used it to keep in touch with friends and family, keep up to date with news , help me prepare for a house move and indulge my favourite hobbies and save money.

To expand on this I will give some personal examples:

• Keeping in touch with family and friends: Since retirement I have now joined the ranks of ‘ladies that lunch’ . Making times and dates to meet up is so much easier using social media – we use Facebook and Twitter so when arranging a day, time and venue we use group chat facility. We can all converse together, chat and make decisions of where and when – often the choice of venue is something one of us has seen advertised on a social media posting. Before using this medium of communication it would take a whole round of telephone calls to arrange – doing it this way saves time and money – can all be done timely and painlessly.

• Keeping up with the news – I find Twitter to be super fast at posting any breaking news items – almost on the spot news – information is shared as soon as it happens. My husband will tell me something newsworthy and I can more often than not – reply “Yes – I know I saw it on Facebook/Twitter last night!” I’m a huge football fan, my team is Manchester City, and player injuries, gossip, team announcements are all announced first on social media.

• I am moving house and with also being newly retired I see this as the perfect time to declutter and finally organise my life and home. Never having been the best at this I needed some resources to help me and boy have I found some and it’s all on YouTube – this seriously is my latest addiction. There isn’t a single bit of information that cannot be found on there. There are video demonstrations about everything to do with organisation. I am now subscribed to some great channels, who have provided me with fabulous hints and tips. A lot of the advice on storage and organisation are done on a budget too – so vital in retirement – we all want to see our hard earned money go further – I have now even found a fabulous new way to fold clothing in drawers for maximum usage of space and making clothes more visual – no more rooting looking for that one top you know is buried somewhere! My new mantra is “creating order leads to a more productive lifestyle which in turn leads to feelings of calmness and peacefulness”

So, I hope you’ve got the message – Social Media is not just for the young! To all of you retirees – go on give it a go – don’t be scared it really is your best friend and helps save you money – there is no need to buy a daily paper – the information and articles you want are all here. My local paper The Manchester Evening News publishes all its headline stories first on Social Media.

If you want to know more contact me: ellieblue1223@gmail.com and follow my Blog: www.earlyretirementrocks.com

Elaine Fitzpatrick

Altrincham Hq

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann