How long until I adjust to retirement?

[vafoodie]

I just retired for the 2nd time from teaching. The first time didn't stick. So far, I'm not loving it. I've always needed work or school to give my day structure, and I'm not good at relaxing. My retirement plan was to get up, go take a class at the Y, clean/purge my house for a couple of hours, read, cook dinner and catch up on television. I haven't settled into that pattern yet, and mostly I just worry illogically about losing my paltry teaching salary even though I have a decent pension and good investments. I love this site, btw. It fills the gap of the camaraderie I miss from my job.
How long did it take those of you who required adjustment to retirement to do so?

 

[Dtail]

Actually very quickly.
Do you have any hobbies or are interested in starting one of which you were always going to get to it, but just didn't.
I was a Type A in my career, but have definitely mostly moved to a Type B in retirement.
OTOH, perhaps soe volunteering work.

 

[Badger]

I also retired from teaching about 10 years ago. I enjoyed preparing my students for a career in medicine and planned on working a little while longer but life had a way of making adjustments. It was a challenge at first but I continued to use the college for the free classes available to retired professors.
I also took on the responsibility of president for the local pottery guild in addition to increasing my morning bike rides, vegetable gardening, and some carpentry on the house. Until the pandemic we also did a bit of travel both in the US and internationally.

No time to look back if you are looking forward.


Cheers!

 

[pacergal]

Everyone adjusts in their own time.
Perhaps occasional substitute teaching might help ease you in? I did on call work for a few years, until it really became a drag on what I wanted to do each day! LOL.
What was it that made you decide to retire both times? Desire to travel, time to do projects, just because

 

[vafoodie]

Everyone adjusts in their own time.
Perhaps occasional substitute teaching might help ease you in? I did on call work for a few years, until it really became a drag on what I wanted to do each day! LOL.
What was it that made you decide to retire both times? Desire to travel, time to do projects, just because

I do plan to sub, and I'm trying to get some tutoring gigs going because I really loved the teaching part, but as anyone in education knows, the ancillary duties create too much frustration, hence my retirement both times. This last time, thanks to the pandemic--my double dipping job required that I teach kids in front of me, kids on a Zoom call, and kids in another location all at once. It was wretched.

 

[Gotadimple]

It took about 6 months to develop a routine that included activities I was interested in. I would suggest finding activities outside your home so you are connecting with people. Volunteering is one way, but so many non-profits are not actively using volunteers because of Covid.

You may also want to read Ernie Zelinski's 'How to Retire Happy Wild and Free.' Think of it as "What Color is Your Parachute?" for retirees. On Amazon or at your local library. Here is his website: Ernie Zelinski - International Bestselling Author, Innovator, Speaker, and Unconventional Career Expert - Home

 

[RetiredHappy]

I loved working and it was my identity. But when we retired, I woke up the following day and loved not having to go back to work. Now I golf 4 to 5 days a week and still travel about 3 months a year and loving retirement.

 

[flyingaway]

I am also a professor and I feel that I am already adjusted to retirement, even I have a few months to run for my retirement. When I feel uneasy about the upcoming retirement, it is usually about money. Do I really have enough? What if X, Y, or Z happens? My suggestion is to run FIRECalc every day in the morning. If it is still good, go to have fun for the day.

 

[jollystomper]

I retired the end of June 2018, and it took until September for me to feel "fully" retired. This was mainly due to being very active in July and August with travel - some of it international - related to visiting older ailing relatives and a son's wedding, and all the related planning for those activities. These were not true "vacations". In addition, I still had money coming in from Megacorp during this time, so it felt more like vacation from work.

It was not until September, when I had consecutive weeks of not being "scheduled" for anything and doing exactly what I wanted, did I feel fully retired.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

I'm ok doing something.

I'm also ok doing nothing.

Perhaps you can adopt this lifestyle.

 

[Niuatoputapu]

Last month, DW, age 65, retired from a California school district. She has said that she takes every summer off therefore so far it just feels like every other summer. Her concern is that next month, when the "back to school" sales start she will miss everything.

We have explored possibilities of teaching in Japan, Hawai'i, France, and most recently New Mexico. If that is how she wants to retire, I will follow her and support her. Retirement is about doing what you want to do, rather than what you have to do.

 

[Marita40]

I retired this January from a long college teaching career. I have not regretted it at all. After a few months of down time and catch up, I've now started volunteer work several times a week, and I've started actively planning for some future travel. I go to the gym, walk and socialize with a small group of friends, bike, garden, read, and fix up my house. I am active member of my church. I have not had one minute of regret over retiring--it was time. From reading this forum, it definitely seems that people need to adjust to retirement at their own pace.

 

[MRG]

Retirement is a process not an event.

It's taken me 8 wonderful years to figure that out. You're not unique, at least in your struggles. Some folks volunteer some renew old or make new hobbies. DW and I lost weight, a small adult's worth, and walk around a lot.

 

[bloom2708]

One observation:

If you do not want to adjust you likely won't.

Perception is reality.

Not measuring up or not scheduling enough "no plan" time. Go on long walks daily to contemplate nothing.

Change your mind and you might flourish.

 

[ER Eddie]

Can you say more about what sort of difficulties you're having? What do you think is missing? What's driving your dissatisfaction?

So far, I'm not loving it. I've always needed work or school to give my day structure, and I'm not good at relaxing.

Does that mean you cannot provide structure on your own? You can't think of how to fill your time? Or does it mean you are uncomfortable with the loose structure of retirement, where things are not laid out in a schedule, hour by hour, and it's more fly by the seat of your pants?

"I'm not good at relaxing." Why is that? Are you an anxious person, a worrier? What is making you feel restless?

My retirement plan was to get up, go take a class at the Y, clean/purge my house for a couple of hours, read, cook dinner and catch up on television.

Is that enough for you, to have a satisfying and fulfilling life? Is that the extent of your retirement plan? I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong. I'm just saying, do you have anything more in mind than that? And if not, is doing that everyday going to make you happy and fulfilled?

mostly I just worry illogically about losing my paltry teaching salary even though I have a decent pension and good investments.

Sounds like maybe you're a worrier.

How long did it take those of you who required adjustment to retirement to do so?

There were some things that I adjusted to quickly (e.g., the absence of work and colleagues). There were other things that took a year or two (e.g., financial concerns, figuring out what sort of meaningful non-paid work I wanted to do). And there are still other things that continue to remain unresolved (e.g., where to live), even after a couple of years of retirement. So it depends on what the issue is.

In terms of structuring my day, I never had much trouble with that. I disliked the imposed structure of work. I prefer just doing what I want, when I want, for as long as I want, then moving on to something else. I feel constricted and controlled when I have a rigid schedule I have to adhere to. So the unstructured freedom of retirement was a natural fit for me.

 

[rkser]

I stopped working in 2015 at age 59 on partial disability after an unfortunate road accident. I worked as a Doc for 25yrs after many yrs of school & training.

Work was very busy & the remaining time was spent with family, so I could/did not cultivate many hobbies. When I stopped work, the big question was will my savings see us through? interestingly that turned out to be a futile exercise. I am 65, am on Medicare now, & thanks to the favorable market I have not had more money ever in my life.

Initial few years of stopping work were lot of fun, travelled both in & outside the country, took up back yard gardening, exercised & lost some weight, volunteered at a free clinic.
Then the dreaded Covid happened, walks with DW & our dog became the highlight of the day & my laptop became a inseparable part of me. Travel has pretty much stopped apart from few road trips, web surfing, frequenting different blogs/forums take up most of the day.

Although I still do some gardening, volunteer, walk & socialize with friends, sometimes I do feel like going back to work at least part time would be a good thing. So there are my 2 cents, just one data point. I guess initially I adjusted well to retirement but after 6 years I am looking for more meaningful activities.

 

[JP.mpls]

Vafoodie,
My friend got me into road biking. I wasn't expecting this, but I really enjoy it.
We are in a club of mostly retired people, and we go on many interesting bike rides around our community.
We also ride to different brewpubs once a week, and socialize.
I have questionable knees, but biking is considered low impact, and my body has been holding up well.
In summary, I think finding a group activity you enjoy, and adding exercise to your day would really improve your outlook.
Good luck,. JP

 

[Dtail]

I'm ok doing something.

I'm also ok doing nothing.

Perhaps you can adopt this lifestyle.

Same here. Mostly do something, but some very rainy days, we might do nothing and actually we love it.

 

[SnowballCamper]

The beauty of retirement is that you can do something for a day, and never do it again if you don't want to (except, like, pay taxes). So just do something different every day (or few days) until you find what you want to do more of.

 

[Rambler]

…
I was a Type A in my career, but have definitely mostly moved to a Type B in retirement….

Wow, do I resemble that remark!

 

[Rambler]

I’m 8.5 years post retirement now, but boy oh boy, I can tell you that for me, anyway, I do not at all miss the Sunday evening anxiety, knowing what I had to do the next day.

 

[brett]

About a day for me. I knew we had some work to do to get the house ready for sale.

I turned my complete attention to that and to think about where we planned to travel once the house sold.

It has been nine years. Never looked back. Always looked forward. No different than how we lived our lives prior to retirement.

 

[novaman]

Sounds to me like maybe incorporating the substitute teaching and tutoring into the schedule for now might be a good place to start so that you can ease into a retirement routine that works best for you. You said that you love teaching, and if that is true then you should do what you love and just keep teaching, but on your own terms.

I’m a “retired” dentist and it took the pandemic shutdown to help me realize what type of retirement schedule would work best for me.

I sold my dental practice in May 2018 and quickly dropped to just a day of work a week in my old office (the new doc wanted me there to help in the transition). That went on for 20 months and finally came to an end at the end of 2019.

I ramped up volunteer work at a local charity dental clinic to 2 half days a week and figured that would be my life going forward. But then the Pandemic shut everything down.

During the Pandemic I came to realize a few things about myself. First- I still needed dentistry in my life. I really enjoyed helping people with my skills. It is what I was born to do. Secondly- I’m the kind of person who needs to be engaged with other people. I’m an extrovert.

In June of 2020 a friend of mine called me up out of the blue and asked if I would be willing to help him in his struggling practice. I told him I would only be willing to give him 1.5 days a week, didn’t want to work hard anymore, and wanted to be able to take time off to travel. He said “yes” to all.

So for the past 13 months, my schedule has been to work an easy schedule about 1.5 days a week, volunteer a half day every other week, and the rest of the time I can do all the other things I love doing- spending time with the wife, seeing the grandkids, exercising, woodworking, making music, playing, reading, shopping, eating, doing home repairs, sleeping in, and just loafing.

I’ve been able to travel to my hearts content. This year I already went to Cancun, St Augustine, and Chicago, and soon I will be heading to SoCal, then Hawaii, and hopefully Italy after that.

So while some purists would say that I’m not really retired, I say I am. Basically I engage in my hobby of dentistry for around 2 days a week and then I have a 5 day weekend.[emoji16]

 

[iloveyoga]

It took me about a year, which is similar to when I have had other big changes in my life. It's like I need to go through all the seasons to adjust. But I love it and even loved the year of adjustment. My DH and several good friends were very helpful, along with my yoga practice.

 

[dp226]

I am 2 months into retirement and still adjusting but getting better each day. I think breaking any routine is a good thing and starting a new one is probably helpful. A lot of my friends that were already retired suggested taking a trip soon after leaving work and I now thing they were right. I did not and I see where the break in environment would have helped.

I just today got back from my first trip after retirement. I visited my daughter for 4 days. I had the best time I have had in a while since I did not worry about things I had to do when I got back and just relaxed. I even feel that my attitude changed over the last several hours I have been home. Again, I am going to have to see how it goes.

One thing I am doing is walking for 30-60 min every morning 5 days a week. This is really helping if for no other reason it purges any of the stress out that builds up and is allowing me to relax more.