I’m retiring early. This is probably my last job. (It is fast paced and stressful and nuts I would have loved this 20 years ago!) Thank you AAPL NVDA TSLA and now riding RKLB.
Would still SBR. I do it on my days off and on vacation, its my favorite leisure activity. Also travel, gardening/landscaping, tech builds, more leisure flying certainly longer trips and camping under the airplane wings. Maybe get the glider rating finally. To fill in the work void I’d fly volunteer SAR flights and work at an animal rescue.
Retired a few years ago early-ish after 38 year career. Wife & I saved & invested decently.
I like to stay busy so am doing things that bring me joy. For one, I work (volunteer) with immigrants & refugees. Most were professionals in their country so I help them find work and help them navigate life & bureaucracy. I also teach English in small group settings. And I work (volunteer) with a few ALS (aka MND aka Lou Gehrig Disease) organizations, running seminars, raising money, and other stuff. On average I probably spend 15 volunteer hours per week.
I also read a lot, walk the dog, watch baseball & hockey. Active at church. Wife & I travel.
And of course still swim, bike, run, and lift weights. One tri this year. Retirement let me focus on marathon and I qualified for (and ran, and requalified for) Boston this year.
In bed by 9, up at 430. It’s genetic.
Wish I had bigger friend group. But life is good. Retirement was the right choice.
Depending on where the kids and potentially grand-kids are, we will visit them with some frequency.(this is high on the wife’s list)
Summers I’ll spend the really nice days on my boat and the “kinda” nice days golfing.
The 3 crappy months a year I plan to travel south and do the same without my boat.
Fall and Spring will be “small projects”.
Continue to volunteer, but in a much less “important” role.
We’re retired for 5 years now. Live on a gorgeous lake so I wake at dawn and typically have coffee on the deck watching sunrise. A great start to the day. One of my buddies wakes up around 10 .. wears that like a badge of honor .. but to me he misses the most magical part of the day .. dawn. Especially over water .. which just magnifies the beauty. Stunning sunrises .. sunsets and moon rises.
Mon to Fri we go to the Y and lift weights for an hour. I like to run either early in the morning when it is warm or midday when it is cold. I play a lot of golf. We volunteer a lot .. at the Y for their swim survival program .. for our grandson’s soccer club .. for the running club at the elementary .. at the schools for all kinds of things. We see our grands a couple times during the week .. helping pick them up from school or getting them to or from a swim or soccer practice.
We have dinner and dominoes twice a week with friends. We take hikes, boat rides, lake floats (with beer) all summer. I’ve even taking up fishing. We have a standing Friday Night Dinner with the family .. and I read weekly with my grands.
We travel more now. Typically overseas annually. Just ran my 7th World Marathon Major in Australia and will run the 8th in Cape Town next May. We make them run/vacations. We take lots of excursions.
I write a fair bit too. Mostly to my family for them to know us .. long after we are gone. I write about my entire life .. and the path from poverty and abuse and abandonment to our long term marriage .. successful parenting .. wealth .. and giving myself what I did not have .. a cohesive, loving family. I write about my marathons, my IMs, religion .. well, my atheism. Whatever is on my mind.
So Mon to Fri is busy but with flexibility. The weekends tend to be full with grands swim meets and soccer games. We travel wherever they go.
It is a great life. We have more money today that when we retired. We do what we want when we want but helping our family and community is a focus. We are blessed with good health .. to some degree because we respect it and strive to be healthy. We have virtually no pressures in our lives. Retirement for us is active, busy, relaxed, flexible and wonderful.
The best thing about retirement? Waking up in the morning and just staying in bed for a half hour or so, chilling. NO rushing around in the morning. (Unless you have an appointment or something fun planned.)
I like the bases you cover. Kinda like a practical Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Physical health is good for me at the moment. Knock on wood. And part of my retirement thinking is to keep physical fit and to be able to sign up for challenging physical things. I’d hate to retire and regret that I waited until the body can’t move and do stuff.
On purpose, retired or not, I sometimes wonder about this one… I think some part of existential angst and what’s-the-meaning-of-life always be there for me. I’m going through some of it right now, hence this thread.
A lot of the social stuff for me is via my wife. Thank goodness for her extroversion. Actually, I do have a few close friends from my hobbies, but left to my own devices my social circle would be a lot smaller. I’d say I’m “selectively social”.
I like how you’ve structured your waking hours and fill the time.
I had a volunteer gig in the control tower of this years national Porsche Race at Summit Point near me. That was a blast. Everything is known and controlled up there, and you have the best views of the whole race, plus the video feed from other parts of the track. My small piece was relaying info to/from Control to the Grid Marshall for each race. Awesome time.
I could retire in 2.5 years, but as a teacher in NJ, my pension increases every year I keep working. I often wonder about when to leave, but currently I still enjoy my job and if I DID retire, I would not need a “ton” of money, but I would like enough to do fun things. But you make a good point about wanting to be young enough to do the fun stuff. I am 52.5 years old now…I like my job, but feel like going to 60 (an arbitrary age) might be my max…
Wife and I talked about getting a place where each of our kids are so we can visit and help with their kids etc. This way we’d be close enough to where they are without imposing or staying with them, and we could visit/stay on our schedules.
But the kids’ aren’t close to being settled somewhere, and they’re both single, so no grandkid prospects are even on the horizon.
I imagine 8 more years of earnings could be a significant amount to keep you working, plus the pension boost from that when you do retire.
I think about the additional earnings as well vs. could I do without it vs. doing fun things now.
(ps - I know an elementary school teacher who retired last year… He upgraded his truck, bought an enclosed trailer to camp/tow his track car, and is making his way around the famous race tracks in the US that he couldn’t get to while working/teaching).
btw - I floated the idea by the wife. She said go for it. And proceeded to suggest a bunch of stuff we could do together.
At least she’s supportive, which is huge.
Similar thought, but the thought of 4 houses didn’t appeal to us, so will do short-term rental or hotels. Agree 100% about not staying with them for more than a few days at a time.
In full disclosure, I do some part time contract work. What I want and when I want basically.
Since you asked yesterday. Woke up early-ish (6:15) as GMAN Jr. was home for the weekend and he was leaving to head back to Tallahassee. Ate breakfast, drank coffee, and then worked out. Met with financial planner after lunch to discuss future goals as wife now wants to retire. Did a short run. Worked for an hour. Played Battlefield 6 for a couple of hours. Ate dinner. Watched TV for a little bit and went to bed.
So far today I woke up, ate, played BF6 while I drank coffee, took a dump, and currently working for about an hour. Will then eat lunch and go for a run. Then off to the grocery store because GMAN Jr. ate everything in the house while he was here. We are looking to take a trip to Europe in the spring so I’m doing some vacation prep.
I’d be cycling a lot this week but it’s freezing ass cold here… for us Floridians anyway.
