My Dad used to use that line on anyone / everyone who called asking for donations. This was 20+ years ago with no caller ID.
He did have a legit charity he supported, but doing that put him on every potential donor list the fund-raising industry had.
He said it worked pretty good; the caller always sounded remorseful for bugging poor “out of work” Dad. Who was rolling in it at the time.
Congrats! My wife and I retired eleven years ago and haven’t looked back. I was trained as an electrician in the Navy and retired from working life after holding several management positions, primarily in construction and facilities management. The upside from all that is that I can to fix most things that break around the house, which has saved a whole lot of money in the long run. I took guitar lessons for about four years until covid came along, and set up a woodworking shop in the garage. We’ve done RV traveling, primarily in the western U.S., and flown out east a few times. We spent quite a lot of time overseas, so no longer feel the need to do that. We’ve also done some community work like Meals on Wheels. In short, there is plenty to do, and if you’re bored it’s your own damn fault. 
Welcome to the club! I retired early (56 y.o) on May 1st. Not working at my very stressful job is amazing. Prior to retirement I was a very avid concert goer. COVID kind of killed my plans of pretty much being on the road going to live music full time but I am satisfied sitting around doing not much.
I got a lot of very long overdue work done on my house (I am not handy so I paid for nearly all of it to be done for me). I love being able to schedule an appointment at any time and not having to fret over how I miss work to get it done. I love running errands on weekday mornings when most people aren’t. It’s a good life and it will be even better when things open back up.
I don’t know if it’s that I am more attuned to the subject or it it’s just a factor of the SDMB demographics but it seems like there have been a lot of these threads over the past year or so.
I’ve been working in my current profession since 1988. Same company since '92. I’m 59 years old and now working from home since March because of COVID. It’s giving me a good idea of what retirement will be like. It’s great.
It’s sort of odd now though because now I get up earlier to start work. I prefer it. I start around 6am instead of 7. And plan my day on my own terms. It sort of seems like early retirement, though I still work 40 hour weeks. But other than telling my co-workers I’m out for a few hours (take a dog to the vet, run into town, whatever) I have no set schedule. I just do my job. That’s all I ever wanted to do. I sleep much better now that I’m working from home.
Congratulations! I retired last fall and it’s fantastic. The first two months or so felt strange (good, but still strange because I had never NOT worked for that long). All the decades of slaving away finally paid off for me. Have a great time!
Heartfelt congratulations!
Mr VOW and I retired at the end of 2005. It has indeed been rocky in some places, but the general consensus is, “Hot DAMN!”
The best part? I still enjoy the man! 
~VOW
One of us! One of us! One of us! Congratulations!
I only retired at the end of last year (like @hajario at 56), so I have a limited sample - but so far it’s been really awesome. Obviously not exactly what I planned, with two college kids remote learning at home, but it’s kind of nice to have them around when I am actually at home.
Getting tons of stuff done around the house. Doing all the interesting data mining things I wanted to do but couldn’t because everything was in service of work. Spending whole days with my wife. I’ve also already beaten my year end Goodreads book goal with months still to go.
One thing I found, I’m usually juggling five or six projects at a time, and every day I make a point to spend time working on one of them. Many days that’s just enough to alleviate any guilt, like 30 to 60 minutes, and some days it’s much more . Whatever I’m in the mood for!
Yeah! Retirement is great. My husband finally retire last year. He is much more fun now.
The best thing I got from my financial planner was a Monte Carlo simulation of how much money I could expect to have up until age 92 or so. The results were probabilities I’d have at least a given amount of money at each year, the probability being less for greater amounts. It was very reassuring. It turns out I’ve beaten the estimates.
One cool thing is that if you have IRAs you can pretty much define your income to keep at a low tax rate.
We also did an analysis of how much we spent by going over the yearly credit car summary and our bank statements. That was input to the simulation.
The normal retirement planners you can find on websites are pretty much worthless, since if you increase your income they just increase what they expect you to spend. I think their goal is to make people panic.
Thank you all for the well wishes. Today has been no different than any Saturday. Th true realization will come Monday morning…
The only thing that hasn’t really changed for me is my wake-up time in the morning. I’m up by 6:30 most days and 7:30 means that I had an exhaustive day before.
Retirement ranks right up there on my list of smartest moves I ever made. Don’t worry about being bored, because you will find things to do as long as you have a house. Houses are like that. Also, if you just do not want to do anything, then don’t. I have days when I am busy pretty much all day and I have days when I don’t do much of anything because I don’t want to do anything. You will seriously love being able to pretty much make appointments when you want, going grocery shopping and other errand type stuff when places are not so busy, and taking all the time you need or want to get stuff done.
Monday morning will be great. Even if you get up early as you are use to doing, just remember you don’t have to rush around to get ready to go to work. Sit back with that cup of coffee and love every minute of sipping on it and then go get another.
Congrats. Remember, you are retired, so you don’t have to and nobody can make you!
Congratulations! I hope you enjoy it thoroughly.
Mine is still a ways away. I should be able to retire within 10 years. Sooner, if my savings builds sufficiently.
I haven’t slept past 0530 in years. I have had an alarm clock set for that but I am always awake to hit the stop button. It will now remain unset until my Arkansas trip in mid October.
[quote=“longhair75, post:30, topic:920943, full:true”]
Today has been no different than any Saturday.[/quote]
Monday will also be no different than any Saturday. As will Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. For Mrs. C and I it took no getting used to.
2 weeks till I retire from Boeing after 40 years. I am so looking forward to this. Got me a list of things to do and have been stocking up on the needed supplies.
Yeah, when people started complaining about not knowing what day of the week it was, I said “welcome to my world.” My first clue in the morning is what section comes with the Times.
Actually, I find myself dreading weekends because the stores are crowded. If I’m doing any projects, I group the “at home” stuff on the weekends, and the “errand” stuff during the week. To the OP, you’ll be surprised how wonderfully empty parks/lakes are on Tuesday mornings. COVID changed this some, but weekdays are still great for enjoying parks/paths/etc. with a little solitude.
Not to mention not having to fight work traffic. The roads are clear at 10:00 a.m.
Weekday shopping and errand-running is truly one of the best benefits. Except for Thursdays, when the senior buses bring in the really olds to do their grocery shopping.