I first signed on to this board five years ago, back when I was just gathering data. I just noticed I never introduced myself.
I retired two years ago from the IT department of a major university. The work was often fun, but retraining and re-inventing myself ever couple years was starting to get tiring.
In 2013, we bought a vacation/future retirement condo on Cape Cod, halfway between the Canal and Provincetown. In 2014, we sold our decrepit old Boston-area money-pit, and after spending the Christmas holiday week doing one last intensive series of plans, projections and sanity checks, we returned long enough to give our two-month notice for the end of February, 2015.
The final kicker for us was the realization that we probably have enough money for a modest retirement, but we were rapidly running out of life. By the time we retired, DW had lost two of her four older sibs to cancer, one before 65 and the other only a few months after.
Life is now a glorious cycle of song. I wake up when I wake up, no alarms. I live in a veritable paradise that most people pay thousands to visit for a couple weeks in the summer. (I don't mind tourists; they bring lots of lovely money to the town economy and they're gone for most of the year.) I have enjoyable hobbies, great neighbors, and wonderful friends.
It's all good.
I retired two years ago from the IT department of a major university. The work was often fun, but retraining and re-inventing myself ever couple years was starting to get tiring.
In 2013, we bought a vacation/future retirement condo on Cape Cod, halfway between the Canal and Provincetown. In 2014, we sold our decrepit old Boston-area money-pit, and after spending the Christmas holiday week doing one last intensive series of plans, projections and sanity checks, we returned long enough to give our two-month notice for the end of February, 2015.
The final kicker for us was the realization that we probably have enough money for a modest retirement, but we were rapidly running out of life. By the time we retired, DW had lost two of her four older sibs to cancer, one before 65 and the other only a few months after.
Life is now a glorious cycle of song. I wake up when I wake up, no alarms. I live in a veritable paradise that most people pay thousands to visit for a couple weeks in the summer. (I don't mind tourists; they bring lots of lovely money to the town economy and they're gone for most of the year.) I have enjoyable hobbies, great neighbors, and wonderful friends.
It's all good.
