Hi everyone, I’ve been a member of this forum for 15 months or so, and rarely post, but read daily. I have found the knowledge and wisdom of this community to be invaluable as I made my final decision to ER on January 1 of last year (2013).
In the spirit of giving back to the group I thought I’d share my own experience with my first year of retirement: the good, the bad, the expected, the unexpected, etc. I have enjoyed, and found extremely useful, similar posts from others in the past. So I thought I’d share a somewhat detailed blow-by-blow of the first year of my journey, in the hope that others might find this of some value to them. Apologies in advance for the long post.
By way of background, I retired just after turning 57, after a career in IT and consulting, last 13 years of which were at a Megacorp. I am now 58, wife is 54 and has been a stay at home Mom for last 21 years. One child, 21, senior in college. Like many/most on this board, I self-manage our investment portfolio. For context, our projected budget/spend level was approx $75K for 2013 (child’s last year in college) and this would eventually drop to approx $65K a year.
The good, the “as planned” things, what worked well, other positives:
As the saying goes, in ER every day is Saturday ! Every night is Friday night! No more Sunday afternoon blues thinking of work the next day… All of this is true, and the feeling is wonderful, priceless.
I am much less stressed, and sleep better (and yes, I take occasional naps). I also stay up later, and wake up later. (I’m turning back into a teenager
).
Like many, I was concerned about whether I would have enough to keep me busy. But the flywheel does naturally slow down a bit...and this is OK! I have kept myself busy with home DIY renovation, personal finance, some volunteer work, and other social activities. In general, this has not been a problem for me.
Since I have more time, I just take things more slowly - e.g. drive more slowly, etc. I suppose I‘m morphing into senior citizen
I’ve become less tolerant of others rushing around so much. Maybe that last part is not a good thing
Increased variety of exercise - I have always been a regular, avid exerciser, but am also trying new things like hiking 1 day a week. But see below about what has not worked out so well in this area.
I do not miss prior career / megacorp at all. Not. One. Single. Bit. I was clearly ready, done.
Took me about 5 minutes to not care about prior job/megacorp after turning in my ID.
Truth be told, I was burned out and my BS bucket had overflowed 3-4 years before I ERed, but I felt it necessary to continue to grind it out to get to the financial “number”.
You really do, and can, spend less in retirement. Example: We don’t buy books anymore - get them from library. I have more time to be frugal - search out better prices negotiate better deals, etc.
Seeing the monthly/quarterly dividends and interest payments post to my accounts is SWEET. I think of the stocks, funds, etc. that I own as my employees, working for me… and generating income. Very sweet and comforting to see the fruits of many years of work and savings now “paying me back”.
The Bad, or unexpected, or things that did not go as planned:
From a financial planning perspective, health care was my big miss this year. I had budgeted the $15K premiums for my COBRA HDHP with HSA from megacorp, and had additionally budgeted $3-4K to cover out of pocket costs since we have a $5K deductible. Well wife ended up having two foot surgeries, and son had knee surgery…..so to make a long story short, we ended up spending the full $5K of the deductible plus another $7-8K in other costs due to coinsurance and non-covered costs. So in short we ended up spending about $10K more than I had budgeted for health care. Obviously this was a big blow to the budget/plan. Lesson learned: I have upped my budgeted amount for OOP health care costs for 2014 to be $10K. (not including the premiums).
Another completely unexpected health care expense was that my wife’s primary care doctor went to a concierge model - resulting in an additional $1600 a year of unplanned for expense (wife insists on staying with this doctor).
DIY home renovation costs more than I expected. I had budgeted for $1500 and have spent over double that amount. This is addictive stuff.
Physical aches and pains: probably due more to age than ER, I am beginning to experience ongoing aches and pains I did not have before (e.g. joint pain). For example, I can only run one day a week now, and have to use an exercise bike on other days. Plus things take much longer to heal. This was not in The ER Plan, as I had intended to do even more exercise in ER than I had done prior to ER. But my body is saying, "not so fast"… This is for sure disappointing to someone like me who has been very religious about exercise during their entire adult life and was planning on doing even more.
I do occasionally get bored in evenings or when I don’t have a couple of things to do each day that get me out of house. Not a big problem, I just need to add a couple more things to the dance card.
Being home with spouse all day was something I was used to, as I worked from home when not on business trips. However now this is a everyday thing, and yes, this is proving to be a challenge. As mentioned above, I recognize that I am going to need to find more reasons to get out of the house, especially in the evenings.
I am starting to sense my own mortality much more than I ever did. Definite feeling of being in the “last phase” of life. I’m not one who fears death but I can mentally hear the clock ticking now. This can result in feeling a bit melancholy at times.
Travel - I was a very, very frequent flier pre-ER, but now hardly at all. I find I miss just “going somewhere”, though I do not miss the logistical parts of flying at all (getting to airport, TSA, waiting around, delays, cramped seats, etc.) I would have liked to travel more than we did this year though, but the budgeted amount got spent by Summer.
I still have an occasional nagging fear that I forgot something, that some black swan event could wipe out a big chunk of the nest egg, to force me to have to go back to work…. Now being a good INTJ, I have all sorts of backup plans, contingencies, in place, but nonetheless that nagging feeling is still there. To be honest it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s still there.
Also on the financial front, watching wild daily swings in the investment portfolio value was expected but is still concerning - one day it was down over $25K. But I’m a fairly disciplined, buy and hold guy, so that helps weather the ups and downs. But I need to to stay away from financial sites though as it makes you want to trade.
We often hear that when we retire we can “follow our passion”. I certainly have hobbies and interests, but I haven’t found this big new “passion” yet. I've got several “projects” to keep me relatively busy, but not any overarching driving thing….not yet.
Well I could go on forever, but those are my main Year 1 observations. In short I am very, very glad I pulled the plug when I did, as on balance the last year has been great. My advice to those who have sufficient financial resources to ER but are still fearful is “Do it !!!”. You won’t regret it.
Hope that helps, and Happy New Year to all.
Larry
In the spirit of giving back to the group I thought I’d share my own experience with my first year of retirement: the good, the bad, the expected, the unexpected, etc. I have enjoyed, and found extremely useful, similar posts from others in the past. So I thought I’d share a somewhat detailed blow-by-blow of the first year of my journey, in the hope that others might find this of some value to them. Apologies in advance for the long post.
By way of background, I retired just after turning 57, after a career in IT and consulting, last 13 years of which were at a Megacorp. I am now 58, wife is 54 and has been a stay at home Mom for last 21 years. One child, 21, senior in college. Like many/most on this board, I self-manage our investment portfolio. For context, our projected budget/spend level was approx $75K for 2013 (child’s last year in college) and this would eventually drop to approx $65K a year.
The good, the “as planned” things, what worked well, other positives:
As the saying goes, in ER every day is Saturday ! Every night is Friday night! No more Sunday afternoon blues thinking of work the next day… All of this is true, and the feeling is wonderful, priceless.
I am much less stressed, and sleep better (and yes, I take occasional naps). I also stay up later, and wake up later. (I’m turning back into a teenager
Like many, I was concerned about whether I would have enough to keep me busy. But the flywheel does naturally slow down a bit...and this is OK! I have kept myself busy with home DIY renovation, personal finance, some volunteer work, and other social activities. In general, this has not been a problem for me.
Since I have more time, I just take things more slowly - e.g. drive more slowly, etc. I suppose I‘m morphing into senior citizen
I’ve become less tolerant of others rushing around so much. Maybe that last part is not a good thing Increased variety of exercise - I have always been a regular, avid exerciser, but am also trying new things like hiking 1 day a week. But see below about what has not worked out so well in this area.
I do not miss prior career / megacorp at all. Not. One. Single. Bit. I was clearly ready, done.
Took me about 5 minutes to not care about prior job/megacorp after turning in my ID.
Truth be told, I was burned out and my BS bucket had overflowed 3-4 years before I ERed, but I felt it necessary to continue to grind it out to get to the financial “number”.
You really do, and can, spend less in retirement. Example: We don’t buy books anymore - get them from library. I have more time to be frugal - search out better prices negotiate better deals, etc.
Seeing the monthly/quarterly dividends and interest payments post to my accounts is SWEET. I think of the stocks, funds, etc. that I own as my employees, working for me… and generating income. Very sweet and comforting to see the fruits of many years of work and savings now “paying me back”.
The Bad, or unexpected, or things that did not go as planned:
From a financial planning perspective, health care was my big miss this year. I had budgeted the $15K premiums for my COBRA HDHP with HSA from megacorp, and had additionally budgeted $3-4K to cover out of pocket costs since we have a $5K deductible. Well wife ended up having two foot surgeries, and son had knee surgery…..so to make a long story short, we ended up spending the full $5K of the deductible plus another $7-8K in other costs due to coinsurance and non-covered costs. So in short we ended up spending about $10K more than I had budgeted for health care. Obviously this was a big blow to the budget/plan. Lesson learned: I have upped my budgeted amount for OOP health care costs for 2014 to be $10K. (not including the premiums).
Another completely unexpected health care expense was that my wife’s primary care doctor went to a concierge model - resulting in an additional $1600 a year of unplanned for expense (wife insists on staying with this doctor).
DIY home renovation costs more than I expected. I had budgeted for $1500 and have spent over double that amount. This is addictive stuff.
Physical aches and pains: probably due more to age than ER, I am beginning to experience ongoing aches and pains I did not have before (e.g. joint pain). For example, I can only run one day a week now, and have to use an exercise bike on other days. Plus things take much longer to heal. This was not in The ER Plan, as I had intended to do even more exercise in ER than I had done prior to ER. But my body is saying, "not so fast"… This is for sure disappointing to someone like me who has been very religious about exercise during their entire adult life and was planning on doing even more.
I do occasionally get bored in evenings or when I don’t have a couple of things to do each day that get me out of house. Not a big problem, I just need to add a couple more things to the dance card.
Being home with spouse all day was something I was used to, as I worked from home when not on business trips. However now this is a everyday thing, and yes, this is proving to be a challenge. As mentioned above, I recognize that I am going to need to find more reasons to get out of the house, especially in the evenings.
I am starting to sense my own mortality much more than I ever did. Definite feeling of being in the “last phase” of life. I’m not one who fears death but I can mentally hear the clock ticking now. This can result in feeling a bit melancholy at times.
Travel - I was a very, very frequent flier pre-ER, but now hardly at all. I find I miss just “going somewhere”, though I do not miss the logistical parts of flying at all (getting to airport, TSA, waiting around, delays, cramped seats, etc.) I would have liked to travel more than we did this year though, but the budgeted amount got spent by Summer.
I still have an occasional nagging fear that I forgot something, that some black swan event could wipe out a big chunk of the nest egg, to force me to have to go back to work…. Now being a good INTJ, I have all sorts of backup plans, contingencies, in place, but nonetheless that nagging feeling is still there. To be honest it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s still there.
Also on the financial front, watching wild daily swings in the investment portfolio value was expected but is still concerning - one day it was down over $25K. But I’m a fairly disciplined, buy and hold guy, so that helps weather the ups and downs. But I need to to stay away from financial sites though as it makes you want to trade.
We often hear that when we retire we can “follow our passion”. I certainly have hobbies and interests, but I haven’t found this big new “passion” yet. I've got several “projects” to keep me relatively busy, but not any overarching driving thing….not yet.
Well I could go on forever, but those are my main Year 1 observations. In short I am very, very glad I pulled the plug when I did, as on balance the last year has been great. My advice to those who have sufficient financial resources to ER but are still fearful is “Do it !!!”. You won’t regret it.
Hope that helps, and Happy New Year to all.
Larry
). 
