Now into our 6th year and it has been everything we planned and hoped for. I did expect to need to add a hobby or 2 but that didn't turn out to be the case.
+1One surprise was how much less our taxes were. You can get a good idea by taking a copy of your 2014 tax return and changing your earnings to 0 and making any other needed adjustments (for like a pension or SS starting or 401k/IRA withdrawals).
+1Another surprise was realizing just how many projects I had always dreamed about working on during retirement were fundamentally profit-motivated, which I didn't need now being FI and retired, and I lost interest in.
10+ years retired. What has surprised me is the fact that all of my unsophisticated stubby pencil back of the envelope planning has paid off so well.
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1) Health. My wife spent a year in cancer treatment plus a couple other serious problems. (No sign of cancer today.)Independent: why no travelling? That is what I'm looking forward to the most.
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I work with, in kind of a mentoring relationship, younger men at our church, and many of them are all puffed up about what they do, how many hours a week they do it, etc. Man, do I get some icy, quizzical stares when I tell 'em, "Ya know, when you're my age and leave the corporate world, no one's gonna care a bit about how great you did in your career! Probably won't care about your career at all"