Hmm... Retire Early, Die Early?

[MRG]

Retire early, smoke a lot of dope...

I must already be dead, but no one informed me.

Oh crap, is that we're I'm at?

 

[Hermit]

Prince was still working.

So was Merle Haggard. I think we have a trend.

 

[imoldernu]

Retire Early, Die Early? Well, maybe....

When I was born, my life expectancy was 59.9 years.
Retired early because of a health scare. No recurrence.
Retired now for 27 years at age 80.

Can understand how some people feel stress from leaving an organized, structured life, but in my, (our) case just the opposite. Too much to learn, understand, experience and explore. There aren't enough hours in the day.

The thought of dying doesn't enter the equation. Too much to do to worry about not being here. Many of my friends here in this CCRC, feel the same way, and they are into their 90's...
Don (92) just got back from three weeks of high activity with his kids, in The Village...
Kelly and Helen (95 and 96) just celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary... they play Bridge four days a week, and get to all of the events... plus go out with their kids two or three days a week.
Curtiss (97) is rebuilding the front wing on his Pou du Ciel, and waiting on a new, bigger engine. Just renewed his pilots license last year, and has works on his magnificent N Guage railroad every day.
Gary (83), leads the discussion groups and is involved in every activity.
The hundred+ year old guys and gals are not quite as active, but they show up on a regular basis for meals, and take turns going into "bounce back" for therapy to be able to ambulate.

I just got back from Woodhaven after two full days planting, raking, repairing the seawall, and doing check lists on my five bicycles. Put out and filled five bird feeders,and have already identified 12 different species... They were waiting. It isn't as easy as it was 10 years ago, but it's stuff like this that makes life so much fun. Staying busy keeps away some of the aches and pains, but more importantly doesn't give time for non productive thinking or depression.

According to Social Security tables, my life expectancy is to age 88.8. Gonna go by fast... lots to do!....

Oh...and as to the money thing... not so important. Enough, but not expected to leave a big inheritance. Living on a nominal budget has never been a problem, and was definitely part of the adventure.

 

[traineeinvestor]

Two studies which conclude that thee is no casual connection between retirement age and longevity:

Do those who retire early live longer? - BBC News


Retirement age has NO impact on life expectancy | Daily Mail Online

Summary from the second article:

· Previous research has suggested that people who retire young die earlier as they lose their social networks and mental and physical activity

·Other studies have suggested people who work for longer die earlier as they are subjected to stress and exertion for longer

• New study is most comprehensive yet and shows no correlation between retirement age and life expectancy for people who choose when to retire

I'd like to think that keeping myself mentally and physical active and socially engaged (within my introvert comfort zone) will do more to reduce the risk of an early death than sticking it out at the coal face of office life.

 

[Options]

When I was born, my life expectancy was 59.9 years.
Retired early because of a health scare. No recurrence.
Retired now for 27 years at age 80.

Can understand how some people feel stress from leaving an organized, structured life, but in my, (our) case just the opposite. Too much to learn, understand, experience and explore. There aren't enough hours in the day.

The thought of dying doesn't enter the equation. Too much to do to worry about not being here. Many of my friends here in this CCRC, feel the same way, and they are into their 90's...
Don (92) just got back from three weeks of high activity with his kids, in The Village...
Kelly and Helen (95 and 96) just celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary... they play Bridge four days a week, and get to all of the events... plus go out with their kids two or three days a week.
Curtiss (97) is rebuilding the front wing on his Pou du Ciel, and waiting on a new, bigger engine. Just renewed his pilots license last year, and has works on his magnificent N Guage railroad every day.
Gary (83), leads the discussion groups and is involved in every activity.
The hundred+ year old guys and gals are not quite as active, but they show up on a regular basis for meals, and take turns going into "bounce back" for therapy to be able to ambulate.

I just got back from Woodhaven after two full days planting, raking, repairing the seawall, and doing check lists on my five bicycles. Put out and filled five bird feeders,and have already identified 12 different species... They were waiting. It isn't as easy as it was 10 years ago, but it's stuff like this that makes life so much fun. Staying busy keeps away some of the aches and pains, but more importantly doesn't give time for non productive thinking or depression.

According to Social Security tables, my life expectancy is to age 88.8. Gonna go by fast... lots to do!....

Oh...and as to the money thing... not so important. Enough, but not expected to leave a big inheritance. Living on a nominal budget has never been a problem, and was definitely part of the adventure.

The above is what is referred to as a smart retirement. Early retirement does not have to equal any of the popular bad stereotypical scenarios if you're smart about it. As always, it starts with physical and mental health:

healthfinder.gov - Protect Your Health As You Grow Older

https://go4life.nia.nih.gov/exercises/endurance

No matter your health and physical abilities, you can gain a lot by staying active. In fact, in most cases you have more to lose by not being active.

Here are just a few of the benefits. Exercise and physical activity:

Can help maintain and improve your physical strength and fitness.
Can help improve your ability to do the everyday things you want to do.
Can help improve your balance.
Can help manage and improve diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and osteoporosis.
Can help reduce feelings of depression and may improve mood and overall well-being.
May improve your ability to shift quickly between tasks, plan an activity, and ignore irrelevant information.

 

[brett]

Retired early. Dropped 50 lbs. No more stress. No more fast food or processed food. Half the red meat we used to eat. Walk at least two miles a day, often much more. Zero health issues. Travel outside the country 4-5 months a year, spend the balance at home doing whatever, looking after finances, planning another trip, and persuading wife that the trip/cruise is a good idea.

Not worried that retirement may cause me to expire early. Perhaps an unexpected terminal illness, hit by a bus, wife finally makes good on her threat...who knows. But it won't be because I FIRED.

If I drop dead at least I will have knocked a few items off my bucket list. Better than collapsing over a quarterly P&L or sales report!

 

[marko]

More crap!

"It might be sweet to tell your boss goodbye forever, but is it really worth a year of your life?"

If I'm 89 and have been retired for 45 years....uh, yeah it would!

I guess the researchers didn't look at other countries where early age retirement is the norm. They might find a different result. But then, that wouldn't fit their premise would it.

 

[marko]

True: Just after my last post ten minutes ago, I got news of an old classmate dying at age 63 and....yup, he was still working.

Third one gone in the past six months. Another positive lesson for ER eh?

 

[cyber888]

A month ago, an older first-cousin died at 53. He would have been 54 about 9 days from now. He was a heavy beer drinker, and his kidney gave up - had dialysis for years.

True: Just after my last post ten minutes ago, I got news of an old classmate dying at age 63 and....yup, he was still working.

Third one gone in the past six months. Another positive lesson for ER eh?

 

[razztazz]

I retired in 1996 at age 38. I'm currently 58. I had a girlfriend back in the 70's who, I found out, stayed 28 years in the service. Climbed to a fairly lofty level with lots of money and status and a huge-assed pension. A few months ago I found out she died back in 2010 after about 5 whole years of retirement, at age 55. I really hope she enjoyed working all those years. I had always wondered what had happened to her.

 

[unclemick]

WORK! Why don't they try to convince me going back to smoking Lucky Strike and chewing ter-backy is good for me?



heh heh heh - soo I got to 'work hard' at not working to live longer?

 

[eytonxav]

Seems to me there are too many variables to draw a conclusion one way or the other; no statistics needed to come to that conclusion.

 

[Options]

According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute, retirees are experiencing less satisfaction as well (I'm probably just an anomaly then):

https://www.ebri.org/pdf/notespdf/EBRI_Notes_04_Apr16.Ret-Satis.pdf

The cross-sectional results in this study show that the share of respondents reporting “very satisfying”
retirements dropped from 60.5 percent in 1998 to 48.6 percent in 2012. On the other hand, the share of
respondents reporting “moderately satisfying” and “not at all satisfying” retirements increased from
31.7 percent to 40.9 percent and from 7.9 percent to 10.5 percent, respectively.

As might be expected, net worth and health status are strongly correlated with retirement satisfaction.
Higher net worth is associated with higher levels of satisfaction, and poorer health is associated with lower
levels of satisfaction.