If you’re retired or close to someone who is, I’m curious if there were parts of retirement you weren’t prepared for. After finally moving the last kid out, we looked around and realized retirement had gotten closer while we weren’t paying attention. It’s only 5-8 years away and we haven’t given it much thought. I’ve never been good at predicting the next “stage” in any life transition (work was nothing like I imagined while in school, marriage was way different from what I imagined when single, etc.), so I figured I’d ask the SDMB.
Quizzing my retired relatives, there seemed to be universal agreement on a few things. They said:
You’ll miss work more than you think (I still find this hard to believe)
You’ll need to find something to “do”, because humans thrive better with goals.
Your social net will fray, and effort will be needed to maintain it
You won’t travel as much as you think.
What would you add to this list? Would you have done anything differently, looking back? (Moved to smaller house? Not moved if you did? Retired sooner? Later?). Any and all advice is welcome.
My mother seems to be surprised that not everyone retired with her. I’m trying to be patient, but she’s become more and more upset that I can’t (and don’t want to) get together any more than I used to be able to get together. Once or twice a month now feels horribly inadequate and painful to her, while to me her repeated invitations to the spa on Thursdays (Mom, I *work *on Thursdays!) are very frustrating and make me feel like an asshole for not making it happen.
So…bolster your social group, I guess. Find yourself other retired friends, and watch yourself for depression and social isolation.
I am not retired yet, but have been thinking about it for the last few years, and I probably will move to a warmer climate. I have looked online at various cities in warmer climates, and, to me, the choices are overwhelming. Most of the places look great, and it would take a lot of effort to visit each and every one of them before moving, so I am totally undecided as to where I will be moving. In addition, I think it can be good for retired folks to work part-time (even if they don’t need the money) or do volunteer work several days a week. Keeping busy when retired is important, whether it be working, gardening, reading, etc.
Like Calvin & Hobbes, I find “the days are just packed.” Apparently the stuff I have to do expands to fill the time available. I wonder how I ever found the time to go to work.
If someone had told me 3 years ago that I would be retired in very short order, I’d have told them they were nuts, but I had always heard that you will know when you are ready, and I was.
My mother’s best friend had to get a job “or kill him” after her husband retired. He did have hobbies and social groups, but all of them had after-office-hours meetings, leaving him with empty mornings and afternoons. Having been a supervisor for over 40 years, he now turned his attention to her work. She’d worked like a mule all her life: in her 60s she wasn’t caring for her children any more, but she handled two households (her own and her mother’s, which included four ancient women and two very entitled guys). Now she had her husband pointing out “you’ve left a spot here” or “it would be more efficient if you did [task she’d done for 50 years] this other way”.
So yeah. She got a job so she wouldn’t have to kill him. And, since she wasn’t going to be abble to do them, heeeey! It was time for him to learn some of those household tasks, not merely in the depth needed to point out nits, but in that needed to actually do the task and do it right!
Several other couples among their friends took notice and made sure that whomever was retiring (usually him first if both held jobs) had stuff to do during office hours. Someone needs to take a grandchild to school? Gramps just volunteered. Plumbers are coming? Gramps will let them in. And so forth.
I was ready to retire. Actually, half my job was research and that half has continued. I enjoyed lecturing and still do, but only occasionally. I hated marking tests and don’t miss that at all.
Yes, my social network is fraying somewhat. A couple of good friends have died and my wife’s Friday Kaffee-Klatch, which once consisted of 8-10 is now down to 2, she and one other. The others have moved away or died. It gets a bit depressing. It used to be our kids welcomed us and bid us stay longer. Now we could visit and stay as long as we want, but as their kids grow older, their lives have become more complicated and they have less time for us. Our oldest grandchild just started college.
As we grow old, we are increasingly aware that it just won’t do to get old and sick here where we have no family and will likely decide to move near one of the kids.
I love retirement, I have finally got time to pursue goals and am comming along nicely. My travel plans went capute. My social life exists but I find myself too wrapped up in my hobbies and such to get very involved socially. I am more and more becomming a happy hermit.
I do suffer from extreme insomnia since retiring but I think it is from excessive stimulation and too many things going at once. I made some progress on my insomnia this week by just telling myself to turn it off when I go to bed, not allowing myself to think about tomorrow or what i have going on. Seems to be working so far.
I enjoyed the first few months, but I just couldn’t get into the Happy Homemaker routine, and I found I missed mental challenges - I was an engineer, so I brained a lot! Since July 2011, I’ve had 3 temp jobs (I’m in the third right now) - two as a drafter, one as a part-time monitor for the state’s crab fishery. I enjoy the drafting - I’ve learned solid modeling, and I’m doing things in CAD that couldn’t be done when I got my first engineer job - technology was pretty bare-bones back then.
My current gig will be up some time between December and February, which is great. I definitely don’t want to do it full time, and by then, I’ll be ready for another break. And I’ll keep looking for things to fill my time when I want to work. I suppose at some point, I’ll be glad to not want to work any more, but in the interim, I enjoy the challenges without the prospect of building a career path.
When I interviewed for the job I have now - which was advertised as Temp 3-6 months - one of the interviewers hit me with “Where do you see yourself in five years?” It took all I had not to laugh in his face!! It’s a temp job. I’m retired. In 5 years, I’ll be 65 - were to you think I see myself??? :rolleyes:
Never, ever have and never, ever will. I don’t miss office politics, waking up to an alarm clock, deadlines, speaking to The Board, dealing with contractors, listening to office staff whine, fighting traffic to and from work; I could go on.
No you don’t. I do what I please, and it isn’t all that much.
I have a new social network and don’t miss the old one.
That’s a personal choice. I had to travel by plane for most of my working life and avoid it at all costs now. But I saw a large part of the world in my travels, so have no overwhelming desire to see any more of it. We take several RV trips during good weather and that suits me fine.
We downsized to a smaller house. Buying a large trophy house when you retire is just such a bizarre thing to do, IMO: more to clean, more to maintain; you become owned by your property.
I’m glad we moved. While I loved Alaska, we’re not winter sport people and didn’t feel like investing retirement funds in all the toys required to be such.
We retired at age 62, which was perfect. I was totally burned out at my job and could not see looking for another one equally as frustrating. Since I had medical from my military retirement and we had money in the bank, it was a no-brainer.
You’ll miss work more than you think (I still find this hard to believe)
You’ll need to find something to “do”, because humans thrive better with goals.
Your social net will fray, and effort will be needed to maintain it
You won’t travel as much as you think
I’ve been retired about a year and a half now. My response to the above:
Nope, not a bit, a tad, or an iota.
Nope. I spend a ton of time with my granddaughter, and love it.
Nope. My social net has existed apart from my workplace and still does.
Nope. I travel as much as I want.
I love being able to sleep late and stay up late if I want to, shop and do other things during the day. Or spend all day reading and relaxing if I feel like it.
My husband has been retired already for about 8 years or so, and is just as happy about it as I am.
I was the exact opposite. I was amazed at how much time I had on my hands. I felt like I had to keep doing stuff. I was basically filling the void where forty hours of work every week had been. It took me about a year to slow down my pace.
I would also add that every point brought up by the OP is a matter of personal choice and experience. If you loved your job, you might miss the work. But there are always options to stay engaged in it. I have friends who serve on advisory boards involving their fields of expertise, or who teach part time at a community college.
Like MLS, I enjoy waking up when my body says it’s time, not to the buzz of an alarm. I enjoy not worrying about work issues. I enjoy shopping when the stores are relatively empty, as I really dislike crowds. Not only do you get in and out more quickly, employees have more time to answer questions and be helpful.
I enjoy taking a short vacation to the coast during the week and not on the frantic weekends when the place is swarming and the roads are jammed. The beaches are empty and the pace is slower. Also, the campgrounds are relatively empty.
You will travel as much as you can afford to, and according to your desires. My preference is to avoid flying, but when I do, I go first class. It would take a serious emergency for me to go coach.
One thing to be careful of is getting caught in the trap of thinking you need to live somewhere away from it all. If you have lived in a rural area and really enjoyed it, then fine, but the urge to get away is usually a work-related drive and not something you want to do when you’re retired. We made the mistake of buying a piece of property in a small Alaskan town and ended up selling it, as there is literally nothing there. A close friend bought property on an island in the Juan de Fuca group in Washington, intending to build a Japanese-style house, etc. I tried to warn them, but they were convinced. They sold the property and now live in St. Pete’s. Our realization was that we preferred what the city has to offer, especially a place like Portland and a walking neighborhood like ours.
I’ve seen this happen to many retirees I know. (And I’ve resolved not to let it happen to me–I’ll find out in 10 years whether I can live up to my promises )
Some retirees simply forget what it’s like for the rest of the world, who have deadlines every day and have to carefully schedule simple activities.
I’ve seen even youngish people , only 4 or 5 years out of the workforce, who become totally unaware that other people have plan things efficiently. Need a loaf of bread for lunch?—no problem, drive to the supermarket and buy one. Two hours later, you need sugar? Drive again. And in the evening, drive out again to get your medicine at the pharmacy --which is located in the same building as the the supermarket.(!)
Then when you tell them that you can’t come visit because you have to work late, they simply don’t understand why, and suspect that you are telling a white lie…
I also disagree with most of the OP’s points. Don’t miss work. Not enough hours in the day to do what I want. Never really wanted to “travel” anyway.
One thing that surprised me: The more time Mrs. FtG spend together the better we get along. I had assumed it was going to go the other way based on what others had said.
Our expenses are also lower than expected. This made certain assumptions about moving money around invalid. So tax planning and such is more complicated. In particular, figuring out how decisions impact the % of SS that is taxable is ridiculous. It really pays to carefully analyze this stuff.
I’m 3 years and 28 days away from Medicare. I’ve got a question.
Did you all have a pile of stuff to do at home when you retired? Though I love my job, I’ve a large number of things on my mental to-do list, much of which is fun.
I can’t imagine being bored. But, maybe most people are more caught up than I am.
Thinking we were setting ourselves up for retirement we downsized to a smaller house when we had to move due to work and we were a year away from being child free. My advice on this topic is - don’t go too far. We left ourselves with so little space that we haven’t entertained at home in 5 years. I started working from home and the need for a home office cramped our space even further, particularly since my husband has the freedom to work from home a day or two a week.
We’ve got stuff piled up that we can’t use because there is simply no space to do so. 6 months14 days to the new house. Not that I’m anxious or anything.
Thanks everyone for your replies. We’re still noodling around ideas about what we want for retirement. We seem to be in close agreement on most things.
It’s unlikely we’ll face the problems Nava’s friends had, as we’ve both worked our entire marriage, and mizPullin’s much further up the management ladder than I (more likely I’ll be the one “managed” after we pull the plug. )
Thanks to Chefguy, MLS, ftg (and maybe others) for the observations on missing our worklife. I think we’re similar in that we have no social ties at work, nor do we define ourselves by it. I suspect we won’t miss anything about it.
My parents make the same claim as Becky2844; They can’t figure how they ever fit work into their schedule, but they built a new (huge) house and have a ton of maintenance along with their exhausting social schedule. Hopefully we’ll have a bit more time on our hands.
Dovetailing with Moonlitherial’s story, we’ve decided (for now) to keep our fairly large house. We’ve threatened to move to something smaller if the kids try to move back, though.
I’m curious if any of you had big plans for a major lifestyle change at retirement? Whether or not it happened, I’d be curious about it. We have acquaintances who’ve retired to a large boat and are sailing the world (literally). We actually planned to retire that way when we discussed it several years ago, and did a lot of investigation into it. But as we get older, the idea of dealing with all the maintenance and problems on a daily basis just seemed like too much trouble. We’ve discovered we really just want to stop working and relax for awhile. We’re avid RV-ers like Chefguy, and our (somewhat vague) plans now are just staying put, with 2-3 week ventures in the RV followed by chilling at the house. I’m just wondering what happens to hobbies when you can pursue them all the time (rather than stolen chunks of time between work/kids/etc.)
One final question, if you’ll allow it. How did your estimation of your expenses align with the reality? Did you find you needed less? Or wish you’d waited longer (to have a little more income)? My dad pointed out that as savings/investments rise nearing retirement, you’re actually working for less and less actual pay. The amount you’d get monthly if you retired “today” minus your income gets closer and closer. He said he waited too long and retired when his financial advisor pointed out he was working for only $2.00/hour:eek:. Just curious if you wish you’d waited, or retired sooner?
At least you know what is involved in using/living in an RV. Some retirees make the mistake of buying a huge bus at a significant expense, planning to live in it and travel for the next 20 years. The used RV lots are full of these examples of disillusionment. I suspect the used boat market is full of them, too. Boats and vehicles are not investments. Unless you really, really love being in close proximity to your SO in a confined space 24/7/52, it’s not going to be the heaven you think it will. Some people love it. Most don’t. It’s a rootless existence spent living in what amount to large parking lots.
We spent our first five months of retirement driving out of Alaska and traveling the northern tier of the US as far as WI, staying there a month to see kids and grandkids, then touring our way back to end up in Oregon. That was plenty long enough to realize that we didn’t want to upsize our motorhome and live in it. Instead, once we bought our house, we downsized the RV as well.
Definitely needed less. We haven’t touched our retirement funds and do just fine on SS and the small retirements from several sources. I think we have about $4500 coming in every month, and don’t spend all of that. Age 62 was perfect for us. I wouldn’t have minded doing it a couple of years earlier, but drawing down on Social Security means waiting. Work didn’t become onerous until my last year, so at least I didn’t spend my working life dealing with that level of stress. We banked our retirement for the most part. I think our retirement income from jobs worked comes to a whopping $1500 or so.
Since July 2011, I’ve had 3 temp jobs (I’m in the third right now) - two as a drafter, one as a part-time monitor for the state’s crab fishery. I enjoy the drafting - I’ve learned solid modeling, and I’m doing things in CAD that couldn’t be done when I got my first engineer job - technology was pretty bare-bones back then.
It took all I had not to laugh in his face!! It’s a temp job. I’m retired. In 5 years, I’ll be 65 - were to you think I see myself??? :rolleyes:
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