Very canoe'y reply there.
Very canoe'y reply there.
In reply to borris8932 :
Will I have enough in retirement to afford a yacht or will I need to settle for a canoe?
I read my earlier posts with interest. Things are different than I thought they'd be...
Its true that my wife and I were not on the same page. We divorced last year. I met someone else and things look good. I still haven't retired, but work has slowed down a lot. That has enabled me to take on a few big projects- a big addition to my house, and renovating a house to flip. I've recognized that it's time for the projects to start getting smaller. I may start building Tiny Houses. Not quite ready for bird houses, but I've got a great shop when the time comes.
Im almost 63. Retirement funds look fine, but I may work 2 more years to qualify for Medicare. I'm in great health (was working on the roof this morning in the heat), but having no insurance still makes me nervous.
I'm looking for those retirement volunteer missions to engage in.
We travel more than before (and I look forward to more), and enjoy living on a lovely lake.
Retirement is starting to look very enjoyable!
In reply to SV reX :
I'm very envious of the lake. Congratulations!
Guess I'll add an update, too. Things at work came to a head earlier this year, and I am now in what I like to call my 1st retirement. My wife is still working full time, and plans to do so for the foreseeable future. We need her health care, and income anyway. Fortunately, the way we had been living, we could survive on less than one of our single incomes, so we will continue to save, just at a slower pace.
So, four months in, and here's how things are going:
Due to the earlier than planned departure, I am scaling back my retirement dreams. Wherever we retire, I will likely not be able to build the shop of my dreams, and will have to settle for whatever garage space I get. I am also unlikely to buy an RV. May still grab a minivan or SUV and kit it out for car camping, though. At some nebulous point in the future, I will likely look for a part time or seasonal job, as it would be nice to have a little extra spending money, and there is a chance I might get a little bored, once all my ducks are in a row at home. Might start my own low intensity business, too, just not sure what I'd do. Community college to learn a new skill set is a possibility.
All in all, I am happier to be out of my high stress job. Earlier on, I was feeling a little lost, but I have kept busy, and that has helped a ton. My wife also seems less stressed, knowing that a lot is being taken care of around the house that she doesn't have to think about.
In reply to Duke :
Thank you.
Guess I should have added one other financial thing (since this is a financial thread)...
The house is paid for. That feels REALLY good heading into retirement.
I am retired 3 years now. And pretty happy with making "retired" my new career.
I am a firm believer that if people were given a year-long sabbatical in their late 50s, there would be a lot more people working past age 65. Its not the pulling in the traces that most people hate, its being the non-lead dog where the view never changes and we have no input as to where the team is pulling. A year off makes you the lead-dog for better or worse. You might learn that not being in a pack is not for you, or that there are other packs to be joined that offer a better destination. Lying on the side of the trail watching the teams run by might not be as satisfying as you thought it would be when you were staring at the same shiny happy person day after day in your last job.
In reply to NOHOME :
Or not. Maybe things will change, but after 2.5 years of retirement, I have zero desire to work, especially for someone else.
Maybe I can sell some of the results of projects, but work isn't something in my near future. Plenty of young people can learn to do what I did.
I retired at 57, my last day was 4/30/2024. I am running 3 days a week, working on some projects around the house, hiring contractors for some other projects, and playing around in the garage. AW still works, but her employer is small so they don't offer health insurance. We are paying $900/mo premium on a family plan HMO with an $18k deductible.
retirement is berkeleying great!
In one of the early posts someone mentioned not being able to count on your future health. Well, I'm a living example of exactly that. If some of you are thinking you can retire, do the math and if it works, retire and enjoy life. You can make bucket lists and work through them, then make another. Once your health is compromised the bucket list will have restrictions. Do it as soon as you can afford it, unless you really enjoy your job/vocation.
I am 52 and am unemployed / retired. I lost my job in Covid and have had a hard time as an older person getting rehired. I stay busy with being active with my boys, exercise, house work, car maintenance and volunteer work. That being said I feel very unfulfilled. My peer group all have stuck with the same professions for decades and have made their way to the upper ranks. It is hard not to be self conscious when hanging out with them when the talk is about everyone's accolades. I miss the challenge and excitement of working. I am not sure what my next move is.
I retired last February at 58. I had 34 years running heavy equipment and I just didn't enjoy it any longer. Monthly pension is same as what I was bringing home working. I have enough in my RMSP account to cover the same healthcare plan that I had while active, as long as I'm a member of the union, to cover us til Medicare. I'm enjoying my summer off doing odds and ends around the house, I'm walking 4 miles a day, done some upkeep on my Vette and took 2 summer trips, one with my wife and one with my son. First time ever in the summer because summer is construction season and there's no traveling then. I do plan to get a part time job doing something in the fall. Just want some fun money to remodel the house, maybe upgrade my Vette, take my kids on a trip to Hawaii. Like Warren said, if you can afford it, do it.
Streetwiseguy said:Retire to what? Are you a gardening enthusiast? Do you enjoy driving seniors to appointments? Calligraphy? Taking up professional funny car racing?
Not wishing to sound snarky, but if i didn't have a reason to leave the house every morning, I would sit down in my recliner until my butt bonded to the fake leather, then I would die. Retirement is not a thing for me, I don't think.
Since we are updating, I'm now 64. Still pounding 50 hour weeks at the shop, but finding that leaves me with no energy left for extra curricular. Lease is up next year, alimony ends next year, house is paid for again, which substantially drops my monthly needs.
So, I've spent 36 years building a business, but I don't feel like keeping it up to date, which will rapidly become a problem. So, I need to find a partner, or somebody to take over completely, or continue to work 50 hour weeks, or find a small place and work alone, or have an auction and get a job stocking the grocery store shelves.
I still can't just quit, because I'm still gonna bond my ass to the recliner if I don't have a mission.
I'd need to find a running coach and a massage therapist if I retired tomorrow. My legs are not handling what I keep throwing at them and I don't think I'm throwing that much at them yet.
I get irritated with the jobs I've had. I don't know if I've really liked any of the jobs I've had post-college for very long. I don't know if that's a me thing (probably) or bad career fit (maybe) or just wtf job situations (a bit?). I don't want to sit to death when I retire but not having to answer to someone else constantly sounds really great.
May be a dumb question to those who seem reluctant about retirement- why do you think you will sit on your ass the whole time? Sure, you will have days, but how is that different than working weeks and not on weekends?
We spend a huge amount of time away from home. Or you will have all the time you want to spend on a project (car). Maybe it's the perfect time to shore up your shop and make a challenge car. Or time to go on a trip. (BTW, RV's don't *have* to be expensive. Heck, combine the want of a project with the want of camping- we did that and it worked out wonderfuly).
And if you retire early, your physical health will still be good enough to spend years autocrossing or tracking.
I have yet to meet a fellow retiree that is bored. Quite the opposite most of the time.
If you really love your job, I get it. But to be afraid of retirement? That I don't get.
I consider myself semi-retired. It wasn't something I planned at all but my business got to a place where it requires a very little input from me and brings in a comfortable passive income every month. So I get up every morning and work on hobbies and my fitness. I absolutely love it and I have no plans to change things up at all. I have enough projects in the shop to last me until I'm 80 and if I run out then I will buy some new ones. I work out 5 days a week and I'm in better shape than I have been since I was a teenager. Some days I spend 2 hours in the gym just because I have the time.
I'd like to thank everyone for their input here. I'm a month into an unplanned "sabbatical" that is supposed to go through the end of the year and then I'm supposed to be back to my previous 32 hour week mentoring and helping the younger sales guys. I'm 62 but don't look / act / feel like it and honestly I'm not good at "down time". For me at least there's comfort in having things to do and income as well. The good news is I'm a union member and because of hours worked over the years our health care is covered for at least another 8 months, no short term worries there.
We've been very careful with our finances over the years and are fortunate to be debt free. I'm past the magic age in terms of being eligible for retirement benefits, I have a fully vested union pension plus a decent amount in the union annuity fund as well as a separate 401 K investment for the 8 years I was out of the union at my previous employer. We met with the financial guy when I was told about the temporary lay off, he's telling us to take the long view and ride this out and see what happens. Financial guy is also saying if I wanted I could retire now / end of year / next April I could and everything would be fine. This goes against every fiber of my being for the last 40 or so years but here we are. I have a very good relationship with our CEO and am aware of some of what he's working on, I'm optimistic that he can make the changes needed. Time is on my side for the next few months so I'll enjoy the rest of the summer and catch up on some home projects in the fall.
With that said, I'm hearing a lot of people on here that I value saying that I should at least consider pulling the ripcord. Talk to me people and thanks in advance for your thoughts.
I'll throw in my two cents.. I retired last year at 57, and I'm busier than I ever was working. I am an engineer and although I have been a long time athlete, I still spent 40ish hours a week sitting on my ass. That has ceased; I've been working in my shop, working on houses, I have more projects lining up as we speak. I don't spend any time thinking about my former career, and certainly haven't missed the office a day since I left.
If anything, I feel like this first year of retirement has been spent focused on projects to the point where I haven't done some of the travel and cycling adventures that I want to do. My wife is still working, and we have a dog, so I haven't wanted to go off for weeks at a time and leave her here. That may happen next year anyway; I am planning to go ride part of the Tour Divide next summer. This summer's plans got derailed a bit by tearing a meniscus in my knee.
That brings me to health and fitness: increasingly I don't want to be the fastest or the strongest, I just want steady consistency and no injuries. We are cooking more but I'm still going out to breakfast and sometimes lunch. Part of that is feeling like I'm alone in the shop too much; I need more social interaction. Most of my friends are still working and they're not driving out to the sticks to our new place during the week, anyway.
All in all, I feel fortunate, I have time and resources to help my daughters, and I'm hopeful for many years of fulfilling activities to come.
Update: Got laid off for 6 months in 2023. Focused on getting back into shape and wrapping up the dozens of "I'll get to it eventually" projects
Once we got over the financial pucker factor it was...surprisingly nice. I had time to sit down and actually update our financial projections. Surprisingly, we were essentially breaking even off just the wife's part time job. That made me feel a lot better and put a lot of things in perspective.
Then my old job came knocking again in early 2024. I went back, but I've found my tolerance for BS is close to zero. I've had a few stern conversations with both clients and co-workers, where previously I might have let it slide. It's probably not great for professional longevity, but our financial independence has poisoned the well a bit.
Still loving our retirement. Living on a budget is no big deal, we can make better food than the restaurants and have time to do it. Travel has not been a priority for a few years, camping it just too popular and weather on the last few trips really sucked. Too hot, too wet and too crowded killed my desire. But we will get back on the road next month to have another try. The rig cost about 20K 5 years ago and we were out at least 30 days a year so whichever way it goes is fine. Car projects have continued, cheap abandoned projects seem to be around. A 3K mercedes 300 SL 5 speed, 300 spitfire and now 3500 MG V6in the last 4 years and as long as I make money on each. Exercise has become a routine 5 of 7 days a week. The latest new activity is reading. Have not read a fiction book since high school, now 2-3 a week. It was actually tough getting my brain to focus on a book at first, so taking on the challenge was probably a good thing. Healthwise getting old sucks. Adjusting to a reduction in strength and endurance is challenging. We have been lucky, but the strains, pains and pulled muscles are a constant reminder that expectations of physical abilities change. Still better than the alternatives and I keep saying get used to it.
alfadriver said:May be a dumb question to those who seem reluctant about retirement- why do you think you will sit on your ass the whole time?
My reluctance was because I'm frugal, I love money, and the possibility of not having any coming in was frightening. My money guy ran a simulation early this year that made me realize that I have no concerns, we're in good shape. So when the company announced that they were going to allow temp layoffs if anyone was interested I thought it would be a good trial retirement. With employment insurance coming in, I then set up an auto deposit from my investment accounts that mirrored my regular income, the EI would go straight in to savings and be a cushion to ease my worries.
It's not been without a few bumps along the way, but it's been fantastic. I first had to get used to the lack of routine, having to be somewhere at a specific time, and planning my activities around that. But it's worked out. I volunteer with my club, and I ride a lot. I know some guys say they're going to golf every day, and it get's tired pretty quickly, but I'm riding almost every day, and will sometimes combine working and riding. I'll often go to the track in the morning and do tractor work, or take a bike, ride the trails and do trail setup, arrowing, and brush cleanup, go home and eat dinner, load up and go back and ride til 8:30-9:00pm like I did last night. And that's my plan for today.
But... they called me back from layoff. I knew it would come eventually, and I was 100% prepared to say no, sorry, I'm not coming back. They're still slow and there's a hiring freeze, and my apprentice, who I have a great relationship with, and is now licensed, is working on his own and really wants the help. PW always enjoyed her alone time when I was at work and lobbied hard for me to go back, and my boss said he'd make it worth my while. So I go back two days a week next week. I don't know how much I'm going to hate it, but at least now I know I can walk away any time and be comfortable with that decision. The money had nothing to do with it ;)
alfadriver said:May be a dumb question to those who seem reluctant about retirement- why do you think you will sit on your ass the whole time? Sure, you will have days, but how is that different than working weeks and not on weekends?
....
I have yet to meet a fellow retiree that is bored. Quite the opposite most of the time.
If you really love your job, I get it. But to be afraid of retirement? That I don't get.
You probably aren't meeting them, because they are sitting on their ass at home in front of the TV. 
Seriously, though, I think a lot of it is how much people are externally or internally motivated. In my case, I have so much I want to do that the only reason I stop is when I am tired, or get a bit of analysis paralysis and have to reset for a bit. My wife needs a bit more structure. She is happy to go out to the park, or hit a museum, etc. with me, but most of the time I have to suggest it. If I didn't, she'd spend a lot more time in her recliner. I think that is part of why she plans to work for quite a while longer (other than the money issue). The job gives her structure.
I made my own post about it a while ago, but I'll update here. On May 1st 2023 I retired at the age of 51. My wife also retired, also at 51. Ironically, I am "working" more than I ever did in the past. However, it is 100% things that I WANT to do and have always dreamed about. My wife and I get to travel the country together, in motorsports. Right now I am at Thompson Motorspeedway running a 24 Hours of Lemons race. Tomorrow morning I leave for the west coast, and will be there the entire month of August. I left an extremely lucrative career to do this. However, as my kids say YOLO. During our careers, we both worked very hard and saved a lot of money. We both have physical ailments that are concerns for our mobility and long-term health. We decided we want to do all the things we wanted to while we are still physically capable.
We are spending frugally yet still doing things we enjoy. Commenting on a prior post, I also got divorced in 2019 after 20 years of marriage. I met my current wife in early 2021 and have been living the dream ever since. To make it even better, my ex and I are good friends and have a great relationship.
Could I have worked longer and save more money so that I could have lived like a king if I retired at 65? Yes, probably. However, All things considered I wouldn't change it if I had to do all over again. There are no guarantees in life, and I'd rather not cross my fingers and hope I am still mobile and/or alive in 15 years. I am enjoying everyday of my life more than I ever have.
SV reX said:I read my earlier posts with interest. Things are different than I thought they'd be...
Its true that my wife and I were not on the same page. We divorced last year. I met someone else and things look good. I still haven't retired, but work has slowed down a lot. That has enabled me to take on a few big projects- a big addition to my house, and renovating a house to flip. I've recognized that it's time for the projects to start getting smaller. I may start building Tiny Houses. Not quite ready for bird houses, but I've got a great shop when the time comes.
Im almost 63. Retirement funds look fine, but I may work 2 more years to qualify for Medicare. I'm in great health (was working on the roof this morning in the heat), but having no insurance still makes me nervous.
I'm looking for those retirement volunteer missions to engage in.
We travel more than before (and I look forward to more), and enjoy living on a lovely lake.
Retirement is starting to look very enjoyable!
You sure seem to be doing it right these days! I'm happy to hear how well things have turned out.
Congrats on everyone who's retired early! I aspire towards it and have always wanted to retire before my body won't let me do the physical hobbies I like to do.
I fear its (my body) sent a warning shot across the bow, so to speak as I'm pretty sure I ripped/tore something in my right calf last week going down the stairs at my office. Depending on what my orthopedist says and what my financial guy says, I might be trying to move up my timeline...
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