Two months into FIRE update

[joesxm3]

So far I have been adjusting to the FIRE'd life pretty well.

I've repaired four of my raised bed gardens, pulled the weeds from between the stones on nearly 600 square feet of patio and sidewalks and put down stone dust, pulled or chopped a huge amount of tall weeds and pricker bushes that had taken over the edges of my yard, and got the driveway sealed.

One funny thing that has happened around week 6 was that I started having work related dreams. Not the exact old place, but either a mixture of previous jobs rolled into one, or completely new jobs that I never had. I suppose it is some reaction to not going into the office any more.

The ex-coworkers started out wanting to do lunch and we set a rotating schedule of one set a week and repeating every month or so. Well, after the first rotation they seem to be making up excuses. Just as well I guess. They probably wanted to keep me "on call" in case of technical problems but are finding that they can survive without me.

As the summer weather is winding down, I am starting to dig harder into planning and rearranging my investments into post-FIRE mode. I think I will take a hard look at each investment and try to divide things into some time-related buckets and settle on an asset allocation that I can live with for the long haul. Right now I am too cash heavy because I wanted to make sure that there were no surprises in the year before or after FIRE.

One guy I was talking to this week, who has been retired for four years, told me that his theory is that you have to manufacture a synthetic "on" and "off" cycle to simulate going to work and having time off. He said that he feels that without having days where you "have to do something", you end up not appreciating the days that you can just lay back and do nothing. That seemed to make sense.

I was doing well with my walking program and reached a maximum of 5 miles at one time. However, I managed to hurt my back, probably lifting bags of soil for the raised beds and have skipped the past two week. I think I am ready to get back on track, but I will have to ramp up again.

Being home a lot has done wonders for my eating habits. I have gone from over 190 pounds to a little under 180 and am looking forward to touching 170. I seem to act like a stock and find myself in a "trading range" and then I break through the lower support level and drop some more.

Well, thanks for listening.

Joe

[highlow65]

congrats, keep enjoying your retirement and and stay healthy. Money and even time means nothing without your health.

[RAE]

Hi Joe - your experience for the first two months of retirement was not all that different from mine. I felt like I needed to stay pretty busy during that time (maybe because I was still waking up at the early work time, and felt like I should be doing something productive for most of the day). I had a few work-related dreams during that period also, as you did. Over time, though, that stuff all faded and I developed a more relaxed routine. I still enjoy getting things accomplished, but there is no urgency to get most of them done anymore.........if I don't get to it tomorrow, it just stays on the list for the next day (or next week). And the things I am spending time on are mostly things I enjoy, so it's really quite different from work. After 6 1/2 years of retirement, I almost never think about my old job anymore. I'm still fairly busy most of the time with a variety of projects and activities, but I leave plenty of time for relaxation and other things too (reading, cooking healthy meals, exercise, etc). I wouldn't be surprised if you follow a similar pattern as you go through the next couple years of retirement.