Congratulations! I am 3 years into retirement. My advice is this: pace yourself. It feels like you have infinite free time, but you will over-commit yourself quickly if you aren’t careful. Otherwise? It’s a blast!
This was me, too.
I retired on October 1st, and three weeks later we were in Italy for the first of several trips we have planned over the next couple years. I also took my annual leave payout and rolled it into my 401(k) so it’ll be there for whatever else I want to use it for.
I’ve also joined a couple clubs and volunteered to help with our local Audobon chapter’s web site, which will help me to maintain my skills there. I’m also taking Italian lessons and I might learn how to sew again, too.
I highly recommend retirement!
Congratulations!
I didn’t retire exactly. I went on disability. I don’t enjoy being disabled but I do not miss my job at all. It was a hellscape. I don’t miss commuting. It’s definitely nice having a more flexible schedule. My kids are still school age, so it’s not as flexible as it will be in a few years, but it’s still much better.
I ended up giving about six months “notice,” but that was only because I wanted to retire on the first day of the new year. We have to officially have our retirement date on the first of the month (and in a three month window), and I wanted it to hit in that particular following year because of the percentage used to calculate my lump sum retirement money (don’t ask me the details – I’m not an accountant), but I ended up with about $76K more money than if I’d retired the month (i.e. year) before.
I had to get up at 4:00am to get to work around 6:15 am in order to leave work by 3:15 pm…all to avoid traffic. I have no problems at all sleeping until 8:00 or so. I think I was sleep deprived most of the ten years prior to my retiring.
I don’t do a lot, but I do what I like.
Heh. For over 20 years I got up circa 5:15 AM to get to work. I’d go to bed by 10 PM. And I too was chronically sleep deprived.
Since retiring I’m back to my ‘normal’ wake/sleep cycle, up until nearly midnight, sleeping as late as 8 AM or so. I love it.
Isn’t it great? Now, I just have to obey the dog. Since we’re in a condo, if we don’t take him, he can’t go out.
I’m jealous. I’m in bed that late but up way earlier posting here and on reddit. My college sleep hours were 2am to 10 am usually. I was hoping to get back to that. It took me several years for the alarm not to wake me up every morning. I haven’t adjusted at all but given that’s my worst complaint…
It’s funny to see so many retirees on here. Wasn’t it just the other day when we were all mid-career?
I started posting here at age 42. I’m now 65. Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle!
Also, for the last 20 years of my working career, I was finally trained to wake up before the alarm went off, 98 times out of 100. And HATED it. I love that I’m back to my natural wake/sleep cycle.
I retired at the end of April 2022. I was a library assistant at Vanderbilt University. I am 61. Retirement has been great! I get up when I want, go to bed when I want. I have never been particularly energetic, so I am content with reading, watching TV, and getting online. A very relaxing lifestyle.
I wasn’t 40 yet when I started posting. Part of my description was “with 2 young kids”. Yep, those kids are adults now.
I officially retired the early part of this year I guess. But it is a little fuzzy as I’ve been out of work since a few months after COVID started. I got a good job offer and realized I didn’t want to start over yet again and didn’t need to either. So it was at that point, I retired.
Congratulations to you who have retired and are enjoying it! Thank you for the words of wisdom, I shall study them and proceed with care.
I think the Dr. Seuss children’s book titled, Oh the Places You’ll Go! is very close to my soul. Over the years when I’d see an interesting place, usually because of history or scenery, or adventure, I’d put a pin in my map and label it. My map looks like this now (North America, for example; then CONUS; then the southwest USA).
So many places to go, so little time!
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Generally, to quit it’s a 2 week notice, minimum. If you don’t want to burn any bridges. For me my current job was new. I started mid-April. I wasn’t deep into any projects and I didn’t have much on my plate to transition over. The timing was very good.
In my conversation with my boss I started with ‘I want to retire’ to feel him out and see how the conversation went. It went very well and he was fine with me terminating yesterday. They’re paying me through tomorrow so it’s two free days; I’m not doing any work.
I told him that I’ve never retired before, and neither have any of my employees over the years, so I didn’t know the protocol.
We left on very good terms and I’m satisfied with that.
I didn’t want to burn any bridges because one never knows what tomorrow will bring. I may need to ask for my job back tomorrow — not likely, but it is possible.
When I joined here a little over ten years ago, one of my first threads (topics) I started was asking about how far north in Alaska I can drive. Since then I’ve been to Alaska 2x, it was the 50th state for me to visit, and yet it’s still on my list of things to do: Drive the Alaska Highway and drive up the Haul Road to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay.
Although @Chefguy might be tired of me talking about it. 
Anyway that’s part of my map pins. If I can swing it, on that trip I’ll also drive far north in the Northwest Territories to Inuvik and Tuk (Tuktoyaktuk). Although sadly, the ice road there has been replaced by a real road.
Oh the Places You’ll Go!
Congratulations @Bullitt! Enjoy it for me because it’s looking like I have at least 8 more years to go.
I knew that I could retire any time after 62 and that there were incentive to do so, but I didn’t realize how good they were. So around Oct. 1999, my chairman told me he hoped I wouldn’t retire, but he was obligated to tell me that it could be advantageous. So I made an appointment in HR and talked to a woman who told me what the deal was: 3/4 of my salary till I hit 65, my pension turned into an annuity that treated me as if I was 65, not 62+, and what turned out to be the big thing, the annuity rate was going to go down on Jan. 1, 2000 because people were living longer. And professors were living even longer. This was so attractive that I took it and retired on Dec. 31, 1999. The annuity rate I got on my $960K was an unbelievable 8.5%. And after I go, my wife will continue to get 60% of that. I was going to be 63 in Jan. so I got 3/4 of 25 months salary.
Now my job consisted of teaching (which I enjoyed), minor administration (blah) and research, which I love and continued to do until the pandemic hit, when my major collaborator could no longer visit. The real downside of teaching is marking papers (ugh) and I am overjoyed to be finished with that.
So I do (or did) research, read the Times, the Dope and read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy. My wife and I visit our children and granschildren. I’m 85, soon to be 86, and have enjoyed greatly my nearly 23 years of retirement. I don’t think the pension administrators enjoy me much and, in fact, McGill got out of the annuity business several years ago, but I am grandfathered.
It’s going to take you some time just to prioritize, but once you do, go for it. You’re going to have so much fun!
It’s like the old expression…“nope.”
I’m working, and that’s my schedule. 
I could quit with no notice, although the standard in my industry is to give 2 weeks notice. But i need to give 3 months notice to retire. I thought about retiring this year, but my boss is rearranging things to make my job more manageable, and i plan to stick around another year or two. I’m very good at my job, and that’s enjoyable. Not to mention that i like the money.
Not at all. I’d go do it again in a heartbeat.
Our situation is similar.
But at least for us and said a bit more precisely, your retirement benefits will kick in 3 months after you file the papers. If you want to retire today no notice, we can’t stop you: hand in your keys & badge & sayonara baby! But you’ll be medical insurance- and pension-free for 89 days until the paperwork catches up. Your choice.