The other day I saw some brochures about retirement and how to save to achieve your goals. I’m not too worried about the saving part, but it dawned on me that I have no certain goals other than not working. I don’t golf and I don’t know how much traveling I’d ever want to do. I like painting, but I don’t think that’s enough.
I’m sure some of you guys, however, have killer plans for your golden years. Wanna share?
My plans aren’t that awesome, but I intend to have a really sweet house with lots of woods around it, maybe a creek where otters cavort, and I plan to have a dog and to be able to take that dog places with me occasionally.
Take off my shoes, sit in a tree, and learn to play the flute. 
We are going to spend six months in the middle of NY, and six months in the middle of London, so we can do things without getting on trains or driving. Besides that, I’m going to write, finish my sf books, continue to be active in technical activities, like conferences. I suspect we will travel also.
And close in on 20K posts.
Not die quickly.
I expect I’ll work until I die. I seriously doubt retirement will ever be an option for me.
I want to travel and golf. Other than that, I’m going to immerse myself in some totally fruitless hobby, probably involving baseball statistics.
Whatever strikes my fancy on any given day.
I think I would like to do pure research in some form of outlandishly arcane mathematics, or something… perhaps towards a degree…
Hmmm… Tranformational N Dimensional Topology… (Insert Homer Simpsonish Food Fantasy Gurgling drool sounds here)
Or maybe just keep an eternal vigilence, protecting my lawn from them damn kids…
Regards
FML
Retire? I have too much fun to be thinking about retiring.
I have two years, 346 days left. But I’ll continue to work, partly because I’ll need the money, partly because work is fun(for me–I’m lucky).
But I won’t work 40-55 hours/week.
I’ll travel. I’ll be able to spend more time researching word/phrase origins, even more successfully if I can afford to travel.
And, I’ll continue to raise some kids. Hey! I started late.
Continue working until my massive cluster of websites (ok 2 so far 3 more under construction) begin creating enough ad revenues to make $100-$150/day, and I have about $50K in the bank.
Hop onto cruise ship with wife and laptop.
Work a few hours every port morning on updating pages/adding sites, possibly operating a cruise review site as I travel with lots of interviews with vacationers and reviews of the various activities they partook of. Maybe even a little weekly live video show from the ship of the week.
Book next cruise.
lather rinse repeat.
I plan on travelling.
I work for an airline and have flight benefits, and have been working there long enough that the benefits are permanent.
However, the benefit right now isn’t that great. You list yourself on standby and if there is a seat available at departure time, you get on. But lately the flights are so full it is next to impossible to get on the first flight you chose, so you have to hang around the airport waiting for the next one.
I know fellow employees who have taken a 2 week vacation and spent 3-4 days hanging around the terminal waiting to get on a flight. Sometimes they can’t get back to work on time, so that gets taken out of their vacation allowance.
As it stands now, if I really want to be somewhere, like a wedding, I buy a ticket.
But when I am retired and have time to burn, I won’t care if I have to wait, so I plan to do some real globe-trotting.
I retired about 4 months ago. You don’t need to find things to do- they find you. I have been so busy. All the books I was going to read, the movies I was going to watch, the travel- hasn’t happened yet.
The thing is you need to realise you don’t have to do everything immediately.
I can see how some people have empty lives after work- I was never one that let work consume my life.
I need to get another beer now as well…
Maybe do a degree for fun ,I fancy History or Archaeology.
I have always said I don’t want to retire.
Now I find that I might be able to fill my days. I would like to try to learn to play an instrument, learn to draw, do some writing. I would possibly go back to school and take classes, just for fun.
I can retire on Jan 23, 2010. Whether I go out the door on that day depends upon what I’m actually working on, barring an unforeseen disaster that requires my income to continue. Chances are I won’t quit entirely - I can see doing something 3 times a week for extra pocket change.
But in my free time, I’m hoping to spend lots more time messing with my pottery. Maybe I’ll develop my skills to the point that I’m comfortable teaching a ceramics class. Or maybe I’ll find a new hobby - who knows? I’ve got a 3 acre yard - that can keep me occupied for a long time.
Once my husband retires, we hope to spend a fair amount of time traveling in our boat, assuming we’re still physically able. And I expect there will be grandchildren in the picture, so that’s something else to look forward to. Most likely, we’ll just make it up as we go along. That’ll be the nice part of retirement - no rigid schedules.
One thing I don’t want to do is retire to FL. We lived in the Sunshine State for a lot of years, and I have no interest in returning permanently.
I’ll probably never retire. I’ve spent the last week doing absolutely nothing and I’m DYING OF BOREDOM. (Possibly it doesn’t help that I live in a town of 3,000 people in the middle of nowhere and it’s 103 degrees.) I’m really looking forward to the actual work I will do tomorrow.
We’ll be happy if we can pursue our hobbies and avoid grocery shopping in the dog food aisle. We have simple needs, so I think we’ll succeed. We were late to the party with respect to 401K stuff, so we’re playing catch-up. All you young whipper-snappers who can’t picture yourselves old…PICTURE IT. Start saving now. I wish to hell I did.
I retired about 2 years ago and Cicero is quite right, things find you.
Now then about those beers…
I will take up the game of Bridge.
It’s already considered a “retiree’s game” in the US, so I’ll have a serious leg up on my fellow geezers, since I’ve already spent 10 years of my life playing competitive tournament bridge. I’ll shark 'em for all the Viagra in the Retirement Castle! Woo-hoo!