Joined the forum last year and been actively lurking and reading for the last six months. I am 55 and DW is 57. She has been a homemaker and we've raised now adult kids without her working. I have run every retirement calculator and personal finance tool, including Quicken, for years and am 99.9% sure of the financial side of retirement. It will be quite a challenge to switch to spending from saving and my wife is rightly worried about my pulling that off. But I think the obsessive calculator use, especially Pralana, has made me very confident. We'd be spending well under 3% even under the most pessimistic scenarios.
I lost most of my motivation and fulfillment in my job years ago as a mid-level technology director, but it pays quite well and has a low level of stress with minor commute. I earn, after tax, about 4% of my net worth each year. There is the usual social interaction of a job, but I am not friends with co-workers, partly because they all work for me. I have no peer management physically near me anymore.
I have read a lot of the non-financial retirement books including How to Retire Happy Wild and Free (on the positive side) and The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams (on the negative side). How to Retire Happy was much more useful and encouraging, but I won’t really know if it was effective until I actually retire. I know I should be engaging in activities pre-retirement to have something to retire to, but I only mountain bike regularly and that can't fill every day.
My biggest concerns are the lack of social interaction and having a purpose with structure in retirement. I am an introvert (ISTJ), but do like social interaction with interesting people. I just don’t like (or am too lazy) to make the effort to have those interactions and DW is also an introvert that doesn’t typically create couples social interactions either.
Can’t bring myself to pull the trigger. Once I retire, it is done, I will have no option for part time work or to return to current job or even a similar job, mostly because of my obvious disengagement. Wouldn’t want to do that anyway since I’ve lost almost all interest and don’t need the money.
The obvious advice from this forum will be to go for it and retire, it's mostly wonderful. Put yourself out there with your interests via meetups, find a purpose, don't just sit there, etc. All valid. Retirement can’t possibly be any more boring and unfulfilling than this job, I just won’t have the big paycheck or the limited superficial social interactions or daily structure anymore. The vast majority on this forum are pro-retirement, but are not indicative of the general retirement population. The retirement research on depression, shorter longevity and lack of identity and structure in retirement are troubling.
Was really just looking for past experiences from those that have retired with similar concerns and/or disposition. Really love the forum and its positive feedback on retirement.
I lost most of my motivation and fulfillment in my job years ago as a mid-level technology director, but it pays quite well and has a low level of stress with minor commute. I earn, after tax, about 4% of my net worth each year. There is the usual social interaction of a job, but I am not friends with co-workers, partly because they all work for me. I have no peer management physically near me anymore.
I have read a lot of the non-financial retirement books including How to Retire Happy Wild and Free (on the positive side) and The New Retirementality: Planning Your Life and Living Your Dreams (on the negative side). How to Retire Happy was much more useful and encouraging, but I won’t really know if it was effective until I actually retire. I know I should be engaging in activities pre-retirement to have something to retire to, but I only mountain bike regularly and that can't fill every day.
My biggest concerns are the lack of social interaction and having a purpose with structure in retirement. I am an introvert (ISTJ), but do like social interaction with interesting people. I just don’t like (or am too lazy) to make the effort to have those interactions and DW is also an introvert that doesn’t typically create couples social interactions either.
Can’t bring myself to pull the trigger. Once I retire, it is done, I will have no option for part time work or to return to current job or even a similar job, mostly because of my obvious disengagement. Wouldn’t want to do that anyway since I’ve lost almost all interest and don’t need the money.
The obvious advice from this forum will be to go for it and retire, it's mostly wonderful. Put yourself out there with your interests via meetups, find a purpose, don't just sit there, etc. All valid. Retirement can’t possibly be any more boring and unfulfilling than this job, I just won’t have the big paycheck or the limited superficial social interactions or daily structure anymore. The vast majority on this forum are pro-retirement, but are not indicative of the general retirement population. The retirement research on depression, shorter longevity and lack of identity and structure in retirement are troubling.
Was really just looking for past experiences from those that have retired with similar concerns and/or disposition. Really love the forum and its positive feedback on retirement.
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