One biggest "surprise" in retirement

[Lazarus]

Excellent observation that's underappreciated by many retirement planners. Bad stress at work can be as debilitating as any physical ailment, or even life-threatening (e.g. stress-related heart disease). Planners seem to assume most folks basically enjoy various aspects of their workplace & will miss it after retirement. IMHO- This may be not be true for current & future generations.

I was too burned out to go on. I am much happier now. What do I do all day? Whatever I want.

My wife said she thought I would be dead if I kept on working.

 

[Original Wally]

Coming up on 3 years out....

Biggest positive - how much we are enjoying life. We are travelling, doing some remodel (ourselves for FUN), camping, babysitting g/kids (when WE want to)... just having a ball.

Biggest negative - I have had some bad health scares. RIGHT NOW, things are OK, but the potential that things COULD HAVE gone horribly awry had made us appreciate the decision to hang it up early.

Other surprises... SO BUSY. Honestly, between Church, a retiree group, friends, outings and so on... HOW THE HELL did I **EVER** find time to w*rk?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

My advice HAS BEEN and STILL IS... hang it up the first day you are sure you can.

 

[whitestick]

I thought about this question for awhile, and I think the biggest surprise was, when I was working, I watched life go by as I put in all the hours, efforts, etc. to be able to retire. Now coming up on my 5 year anniversary of retirement, I am fully engrossed in living. Whether it's exercise, cruising, playing poker, studying and researching on the computer, going out for dinner with friends, doing odd jobs, helping out a friend at his workplace, going dancing and a movie, taking an afternoon nap, playing with the kitty, calling friends from other states and catching up on their lives, or just watching a sunset on a lazy warm summer day, I am in the activity, and not just watching it. As the song says, "live like you're dying", thats after retirement, the dying part was before retirement.

 

[ohyes]

Whitestick,

I love your post. Thanks for typing that out.

 

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

Would you trade for a million dollars?

I'm just about ready to ER at 58, but then realized, that if I work 10 more years, I will earn/save at least another million. I've reached my FIRE goals, so that million would go to helping kids, and just more savings - I don't need anymore

So, would you trade 10 years of ER for a million?

 

[W2R]

I'm just about ready to ER at 58, but then realized, that if I work 10 more years, I will earn/save at least another million. I've reached my FIRE goals, so that million would go to helping kids, and just more savings - I don't need anymore

So, would you trade 10 years of ER for a million?

Personally, I wouldn't trade 10 DAYS of ER for a million $$. But, that is going to vary from individual to individual.

 

[chris2008]

So, would you trade 10 years of ER for a million?

You pointed out our scenario, too.

The answer is a big NO, as I do not know if I will have another 10 years ... or one year...or one week of ER thereafter.

If I could make a deal with the future that thereafter I would have at least another 10 years with my DH, mom and other family, all of us in our today's health and with our today's state of mind, maybe.

We decided to join the class of 2013.

 

[kramer]

I thought about this and I will give you my 100% honest answer.

My biggest surprise about early retirement is that I would spend so much of it dating girls in their 20s.

Before I moved abroad I had little idea of this but it has happened in every country where I have lived except for Colombia where I had a beautiful long-time girlfriend in her mid-30s who still ran marathons and went to the gym several times per week.

The only other surprise I could think of is that I expected to maintain a USA home base, but that has not been the least bit necessary and so my budget over the past 5 years has been less than anticipated.

 

[doxeyweb]

For those of you that have already retired, curious at what age you pulled the plug...
And if given the chance to do over, would you do it sooner or wait a little longer.

I've got a few years left and trying to learn what I can... Thanks...

 

[Stevewc]

Kramer

Are you wired for 1-20 or 2-20?

 

[REWahoo]

For those of you that have already retired, curious at what age you pulled the plug...

Here ya go:

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/poll-at-what-age-did-you-retire-44810.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/poll-at-what-age-did-will-you-fire-60105.html
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/poll-what-age-did-you-fire-59525.html

 

[rbmrtn]

I'm just about ready to ER at 58, but then realized, that if I work 10 more years, I will earn/save at least another million. I've reached my FIRE goals, so that million would go to helping kids, and just more savings - I don't need anymore

So, would you trade 10 years of ER for a million?

Given the condition you described, NO. The 10yrs are priceless, The extra million is worthless. Kids get whatever possessions you have left over, that should be enough.

 

[Lazarus]

I would not and did not.

In any case my net worth should continue to climb in retirement anyway. A bit slower but I expect it to go up.

 

[Nords]

I thought about this and I will give you my 100% honest answer.
My biggest surprise about early retirement is that I would spend so much of it dating girls in their 20s.

Me too, but gosh did my spouse complain about that...

 

[CoolChange]

Kramer

Are you wired for 1-20 or 2-20?

Steve: Thanks. This made coffee come out my nose as I was browsing after dinner.

Kramer: I used to dream of leading your life after retiring; now, the thought just makes me tired. Good for you, though.

 

[Original Wally]

I'm just about ready to ER at 58, but then realized, that if I work 10 more years, I will earn/save at least another million. I've reached my FIRE goals, so that million would go to helping kids, and just more savings - I don't need anymore

So, would you trade 10 years of ER for a million?

NOT ONE OF US knows for sure when our time is up. (with some diseases we MAY have a better inkling, but still - ANY ONE of us could "wake up dead" tomorrow")

THAT SAID, I stand by my advice - retire the first day you can financially do it. HOW you decide that trip point is VERY personal = we THOUGHT we needed more... Security ... i guess is the best word, but we have done FINE. My "goal" was that when the NET pension = net w*rking pay, pull the trigger. One point to consider - because of the SS tax of 7.65% you are already living on 92 1/2% of your gross. SO FAR it is working. DW got herself a (3 year gently used) BMW Z-4. We have traveled the pants off of ourselves and doing just fine. It is scary, but doable IF YOU PLAN.

 

[Original Wally]

One more short story on the topic... I retired from a Large Municipal Utility District in Sacranemto that provides the electricity for the area - in the Treasury / Finance department. Back in 1989-90 there was a group of us who took walks at break time. One of our group was a fella named Bob who had been with the District since 1959. He was looking to retire ANY TIME. But always "one more quarter" increases his pension by X and his 457 plan by y. One more quarter. One more quarter. THEN he had a MASSIVE heart attack and ended up with a transpant. He is STILL with us (Thank God) but his retirement is WAY different than he planned.

IF you wait 10 years, THIS is certain - you will ABSOLUTELY have 10 years less in retirement. Perhaps none. AND you are robbing YOUNG years. Your life from, say, 55 - 65 **WILL** be different than life from 65 - 75. Different health. Diufferent abilities. GO WHILE YOU ARE YOUNG. Nuff said. YMMV

 

[jflynn4]

Retired 13 months ago at age 57 from the financial services industry ... Which had become the financial high pressure sales industry. Had lived a very conservative lifestyle in an effort to be able to say "screw it" if I got fed up ... And I did.

Haven't regretted a minute of it. We took advantage of the crashed housing prices to move close to the ocean (3 miles) and spend our days in the spring and summer at the beach. Fall and winter are for travel ... Mostly day trips ... There is so much more here than we ever would have guessed.

Only surprise is how quickly I was able to slow down.

And no, the extra million wouldn't have been worth working even another one year.

 

[Mulligan]

Steve: Thanks. This made coffee come out my nose as I was browsing after dinner.

Kramer: I used to dream of leading your life after retiring; now, the thought just makes me tired. Good for you, though.

I have to agree with you, Cool. I dated many twenty something's when I was in my late 30s. 10 years later, the thought just wears me out, and I am sure they wouldn't be too keen on the idea either! Very happy to have found one my age, now.

 

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

10 years for a million

Thanks for all the responses. I realized once I posted how stupid that must have sounded and is. Yes I agree that 10 years of early retirement while we still have our health in no way can equal money that would just end up as inheritance. Class of 2013 is still on! Just waiting to see when they will send me home - we are expats in Australia, and looks like it will be January or February. So homesick....think I will go upstairs and pack!

 

[chris2008]

I realized once I posted how stupid that must have sounded and is.

You were just falling back into traditional thinking for a minute....
but we jumped in quickly to help you out.

 

[rescueme]

Me too, but gosh did my spouse complain about that...

Yeah, i have that same problem, five timezones east of you ...

OTOH, once I was free from the daily grind, I fell in love with DW all over again. Some couples have a problem when one/both retire; we didn't...

 

[pb4uski]

One of my biggest surprises is that I am spending a lot more time thinking about optimizing (income) taxes than I did when I was working. When I was working, I was salaried and most of my income was W-2 income so there wasn't much I could do other than max out the 401k/HSA, etc, fill out the forms and pay the amount due.

Now, with virtually no income other than dividends and capital gain distributions on taxable accounts, the possibility of 0% capital gains, Roth conversions, optimizing property tax relief, etc all come into play so I'm spending more time tax planning then I ever did.

One thing might be that I have the time to "play" around with it more than when i worked, so I do.

I play a hell of a lot more golf too.

 

[Huston55]

Thanks for all the responses. I realized once I posted how stupid that must have sounded and is. Yes I agree that 10 years of early retirement while we still have our health in no way can equal money that would just end up as inheritance. Class of 2013 is still on! Just waiting to see when they will send me home - we are expats in Australia, and looks like it will be January or February. So homesick....think I will go upstairs and pack!

My situation is somewhat similar to yours, and I would definitely not trade 10 yrs for another $1M. An extra 10 yrs of work for an extra ~$3k/mo (3.6% SWR from $1M) is a $h!++¥ deal, especially for the years btwn ~55-65.

As an expat in Australia, it sounds like you might do something related to the mining industry. If so, better pack quickly; seems we're entering the down part of the cycle, and expats are the first to [-]be jettisoned[/-] go.