A sizeable percentage of folks here are retired. I’d like to ask how have your experiences of being retired aligned with your expectations? Has it been any different than you anticipated? Have your perceptions/opinions regarding the state of being retired changed over time?
Pretty much what I had hoped for. It really depends on if you’ve prepared yourself financially, and if your expectations are in line with your savings. We both did a lot of traveling in our working lives, so taking cruises or going to Europe are not priorities, which is much easier on the bank account. I absolutely don’t miss work or the stress or the commute. I’ve noticed that one big adjustment that many people have difficulty with is being with their spouses 24/7.
That makes sense when you think about it. A couple may have been married for 30 or 40 years and during that time spent maybe no more than an hour or two most days together. Now all of a sudden little personal foibles that may have been slightly annoying due to limited exposure are suddenly in one’s face every day front and center.
I wonder if there is a statistical bump in divorce rates for couples maybe a year or two after retirement?
I took “early” retirement at 62 years old. I was burnt out working in the IT field for 25+ years and decided just to hang it up. No more suits and ties, no more on call 24/7/365, yada yada.
Financially, I took a huge hit. My last employer gave me a years salary plus bonus when they were acquired by some German company that rhymes with aspirin. I spent the next 4 years traveling wherever my heart desired. I will not trade that for anything.
Nowadays, I live modestly on the shores of a Great Lake, watch the sunset or sunrise as it pleases me, sometime howling at the moon just because, take a nap whenever I want, cook pancakes or french toast with bacon and eggs for who ever shows up that day, and enjoy engaging people from all walks of life, and partaking in the hobbies that I have almost forgotten about.
As a treat to myself… asking total strangers if I can say “Hello” to dogs on their way of walking their “owners” around the block. 
April 1, 2018. Soon I will join the ranks. 37 years at the big airplane company is enough.
I don’t miss the stress of work at all. I was fortunate to make good money at what I did, but I didn’t really like doing it. My (lack of) ego doesn’t require me to be either the big boss or the most-respected name in my field. I just let it go.
Contrary to what most people might say, Social Security for my wife and me is completely adequate for our modest needs (the house is paid for, we own the cars, we don’t live large, we have lots of cash in the bank in case of emergency, etc). I do some gig work for “butter and eggs” money for travel and luxuries, but it’s not necessary.
There is so much to do that we are never bored and don’t get on each others nerves.
The health issues are the big ones. For example, I used to spend lots of money and time on my media systems (nice stereo, big music collection, and so forth), but I now wear hearing aids and I might as well listen to music on my laptop. That part sucks. Anybody need some Magnepans?
Like Cabin Fever, I got an early retirement from IT. However, I did not take it, it was given to me. I spent the last three months training my replacements. I tried to get work but found that generally they wanted to pay me half my current salary and ask me to relocate.
My financial situation was ok, but what made it better was that I owned a house in a pricey suburb of NYC and when I sold it and paid off the mortgage I had enough to buy a modest condo in a neighboring village (with no mortgage). I miss the house, but my wife does not.
I play golf and guitar and I read. Also, like Cabin Fever, I make friends with neighborhood dogs while walking.
My wife and I get along fine. She is my best friend.
As far as how much this differs from my expectations, I am not sure. I did not really think too much about retirement. I liked working and wanted to continue. I did save for retirement because I knew that when it came it would likely not be my choice. Just as Death shows up when he will, so does Retirement. Retirement doesn’t have a scythe or the bony hands, but he can be pretty scary.
I really had no expectation, but during the summer of 1999 my employer announced that the annuity rate they were paying was too high (it was by a lot!) and it would be substantially reduced for people who retired on or after 00/01/01. In addition, they were paying off people who took early retirement 3/4 of the salary between the retirement date and the end of month they would turn 65. This all looked too good to ignore, so on 99/12/31 I retired with a very good annuity and 3/4 of 25 months salary about three weeks before my 63rd birthday. I had no particular expectation.
I had always done a lot of my work at home, so being with my wife a lot was no problem, really a bonus. Our house was fully paid ten years, the pension was more than adequate. We both get Quebec pension and federal old age security in addition (although a substantial part of the latter is “clawed back” because our incomes are too large. I always enjoyed research mathematics and continued to do it, with 23 papers and one book in that time. We spend a lot of time visiting our children and grandchildren and going to concerts. As we approach our 80s health is certainly a problem, but retirement has nothing to do with that. Although I didn’t think about retirement beforehand, I have to say that it is all I might have imagined it to be. My only question is what did I do to get away so comfortably without working for getting up to 18 years?
Even better than I thought. I eased into it since I spent my last four months “working” coming in one day a week and getting paid for five.
It helps we have plenty of money. My wife works from home more or less as much as she wants, and we both have offices so we don’t get on each other’s nerves.
The traffic was terrible and has just gotten worse. A good chunk of my old group was laid off, so I missed that chaos. (I suspect I would have been kept, unfortunately.)
Now I get to read the Times in the morning, go shopping when there aren’t a lot of people around, and do lots of things on my to-do list which had been delayed for decades.
And I’m still involved enough in my field doing a column and book reviews and conference work to not feel out of it. I even gave an invited talk last month.
I can’t imagine how I survived working every day any more - and I liked my job. People, save your pennies so you can enjoy retirement also.
I am now, have been, and will stay on the verge of retirement for a while. I won’t be able to waste money as I do now and have in the past once I retire, so I’ll keep working as long as I can stand it and keep saving and spending. Work is just something for me to do anyway, I always need things to do. I have a pile of things to do if I retired tomorrow but I’d have to become more realistic about costs and I guess I’m just not ready for that.
I know a bunch of people who have retired in the last few years and they’re all over the satisfaction spectrum. Some people seem made for retirement, others just end up fretting about money or feeling unfilled without a job. I get the feeling from their experiences that transitions work better, maintaining part time work or even unpaid work that is a continuance of what they’ve done before. Also, for couples, when one keeps working for a while after the other retires seems to ease the way forward. A good way to get matters in order before both incomes cease.
I’d also mention that I know a couple of people who have had no problem leading a modest lifestyle after retirement and their bank accounts are still growing based on their existing funds along with continuing and pension and SS income. I’d like to do that, I just have to learn how to be a tightwad.
Mrs. Cretin and I retired together 13 years ago. She was 58, I was 54, we’d both been in our fields for over 30 years (white and blue collar professionals, respectively) and although we’d enjoyed our careers we were burning out. Called it quits, moved to a small town in the sticks with a lower cost of living.
In a nutshell: Retirement is VASTLY underrated. It’s been far better than we’d expected or hoped for.
ETA: I hope I don’t sound smug - We consider ourselves very fortunate.
I semi retired at 50 because I got ill. I say semi retired because right now I have a client, and I’ve been running my husband’s small business as well.
He got a “real job” in August - and its a work from home job - and that is part of the reason I took a client when the opportunity fell in my lap. Both of us home all day at the same time, it doesn’t lead to real friction, but it also can be difficult to find that independent space…
I get a lot less done than I thought I would - but I’ve been ill and being unmotivated is part of the illness.
I’ll agree that some people (mostly men) just can’t retire. I have several friends who are working well into their 70s, usually as contractors. I ask, “Why?” They reply, “Well, the money is good…” BS. They can’t handle just kicking back and being an average guy, spending time with the spouse and chilling. I understand, but I don’t agree. Life is precious. You’ve worked hard…spend meaningful time with your significant others. Let go of your ego. Nobody ever said, “Well, I didn’t get to spend much time with my spouse after I retired and before she passed, but I supervised $120M worth of new projects, so I’m happy.”
My previous wife died when she was 44 YO. I would trade every bit of professional recognition and money I’ll make over the next ten years to have an additional ten days with my current wife and best friend.
This is partly what prompted me to start this thread. I get the impression the majority of folks who’ve retired don’t regret their decision at all, but then there are those unfortunate souls whose lives seem to lose meaning after retirement and wind up dead 38 months later. I get the impression this happens more often to those who may not have lived an examined life.
Many articles you see about retirement seem to focus almost exclusively on money matters, and maybe that’s as it should be, but I can’t help wonder if there are perhaps non-financial considerations that take retirees by surprise. Personally, I consider my work as nothing more than a means to pay bills, I derive little in the way of personal satisfaction doing what I do, and I certainly don’t define myself or my self-worth in terms of my job. So for me, the prospect of one day being able to walk away from all the job-related stress in life is very attractive. I long to take after Diocletian and quietly grow cabbages in retirement (both literally and figuratively).
What I wonder about, though, is whether I’m somehow deluding myself with a romanticized view of retirement. Sure, it might be enjoyable and satisfying spending my time tending to the vegetable garden and reading Winston Churchill’s memoirs when on vacation from work, but could the enjoyment derived from such activities grow stale rather quickly when it becomes a way of life?
Eh. I’m inclined to think some people who refuse to retire are pathetic individuals who need this kind of scolding. I actually work with a guy like this.
But I also think everyone enjoys different things, and folks need to respect that. Some people don’t have significant others or family members or even friends. For them, work provides their only social outlet, and it is hard for them to imagine they’d get that kind of stimulation elsewhere. Other people may be worried that their brains and bodies will go soft once they stop working. Even though there are things retirees can do to still stay sharp, I don’t think that’s an unrealistic fear either.
Also, not everyone works hard. The aforementioned coworker is an example of this. I don’t think he’s ever had a stressful day on the job in his life. But if he retired, it would mean having to help his wife babysit the grandkids all day, something he doesn’t want to do. It would be easy to say he’s selfish, but I’m guessing his wife is okay with him staying out of her hair as long as he’s bringing home a paycheck.
Personally, I can’t imagine myself as a retiree. I plan to keep working as long as I can provided I’m still a high performer and my health is good. I think if someone were to tell me to retire based on the reasoning that “life is precious”, I’d tell them to go sit down somewhere with that Hallmark BS. You’d be able to convince me to retire me if my work was shoddy or I was burdening someone else by working. But seems to me a person’s life is what they make out of it, not someone else. If a person loves what they do, then they would be stupid to give that up before they are ready.
I’m OK with this, but “staying out of her hair as long as he’s bringing home a paycheck” is just sad.
My business partner is a classic Type A personality. He doesn’t see much future except as a person doing a job. I’m fine with that, but life has a lot of potential beyond being economically useful to others.
I retired at 55 and the my reality far exceeds my pre-retirement fantasy. Financially, I’m set and my main pre-retirement concern was what was I going to do with my time. I became involved with furniture making and it was my first real success with working with my hands.
Simply stated, I have never known this level of contentment.
I semi-retired several times, making the lifelong choice of working only as much as my spartan lifestyle required it. I continued to work part time for several years after disability enabled me to retire formally, but by then I had already chosen to work part time.
This is interesting that you posted this. So many men and women have experienced similar feeling when exposed to something even late in life that they could really become passionate about.
I love retirement, I live a very simple life, I have an adequate income and not much pressure fro outside sources. Working on my shop projects and writing projects and doing my volunteer work keeps me in the happy spectrum. I have been thrown a few curves by life and sometimes it gets to me but overall it has been wonderful.