Poll: How Long Have You Been Retired?

[donheff]

I will hit my ten year anniversary in January. I did a few paid projects in my first year but quickly realized that was not my thing. I suspect the forum will always skew toward the low end of years in retirement. Most participants arrive in the research phase either before retirement or shortly after. Some of us enjoy the community and stay for the duration but I suspect many depart as they become comfortable with ER diminishing the right hand tail of the distribution.

Edit: And of course there are probably a percentage who depart in frustration when they can't make ER work for whatever reason.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodi Newbie here - retired in June. I feel qualified to answer if *I* like retirement. I can't answer for anyone else. My answer may change when I've been retired longer... but I know my answer now.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.

Having read these exchanges for years, I've noticed that (not always but) more often than not:

• members reply without disclosing how long they've been retired, and
• the member asking is relatively new to ER.org (so they have no realistic way of knowing other members history, or lack thereof)

Everyone's POV is welcome, but some answers may be more meaningful than others and the originator can't sort them. Again, an enjoyable/successful retirement is almost a given in the first few years - the member wouldn't have retired otherwise. Add to that it's less likely someone would admit they'd made a mistake in retiring - so the answers will naturally be mostly "positive" and thereby not the whole picture. And finally this IS a self selected audience prone to prefer retirement over work.

Fortunately, many times the question is looking to reinforce the views the originator already holds...