semi retirement?

[couch]

I am sure some of you will understand what I am saying, but today I signed the paperwork to semi-retire into a full time job.

For the last 18 years I have been working 60-80 hours a week as a consultant, stringing multiple smaller jobs into a full time job(really two full time jobs).

So as of June 6th I will start a new full time job with official hours of 37.5 hours a week. I still have some smaller clients that I have to decide how to proceed with but I already talked to my largest client and gave my notice.

Financially I am in a pretty good spot, I was aggressive in my negotiations so this will only result in a 20-30% pay cut. I will have to work longer before I can retire, but things should be more sane along the way.

I am also thinking that it will be a better way to ease myself into retirement.

Anyway, its not retirement, some wouldn't even call it semi-retirement, but everything is relative.

 

[Act2]

Trading for more sanity sounds like a very good move!

 

[donheff]

Makes sense to me. Here is hoping you like the new job.

 

[Andre1969]

I guess it just depends on your perspective, but if I was working 60-80 hours a week for 18 years, and was able to scale it back to 37.5, it would feel like a dream come true! After getting accustomed to working that many hours for so long, cutting back to "only" 37.5 probably would feel like semi-retirement.

I was pulling down 60-80 hours per week, between two (and for a brief period 3) jobs, in the wake of a bad divorce. I already had an evening job working at a department store, but when the finances got really bad, I took on another evening job delivering pizzas, and went on call at the department store. Eventually I phased the dep't store out.

For awhile, I was the closing driver 5 nights a week, which means I had to stay and help close down/clean up the store, and was usually there at least an hour after closing. As things got better, I started cutting back, first to 4 nights a week, and finally to 3, although even at 3 I was still probably averaging about 65-70 between the two jobs. Back then the primary day job was a bit more generous with overtime.

Once I finally cut back, to only one job, when I was 30, suddenly it felt like I had too much time on my hands, and just didn't know what to do with it. Especially weird was having Saturdays to myself again. I had been working on Saturdays ever since I was 13, when I did yard and house work for one of my grandmother's friends.

One thing I did learn though, is that as I phased out those extra hours, the idea of suddenly having "all this extra free time" was short-lived. It's like my life just got accustomed to it, and rather than being grateful for the extra free time, it felt like a new "baseline normal" or whatever, and I started wondering how I had the time to work all that extra, in the first place.

I've even noticed a some of that with my current job. Ever since we started working from home back in 2020, I figure it saves me about 75-90 minutes per day that used to be wasted commuting, depending on traffic. Initially, it felt great having all this extra time, but now it's just the every day routine. There's talk about them trying to get us to go back into the office more often, and just the thought of that gives me the shakes. Right now, we're just supposed to do one day a week, and I'll admit I dread even that!

Anyway, congratulations on your move to semi-retirement! Hope it works out well for you! Even if it pushes the ultimate goal a bit further down the road, at least the journey getting there will be more enjoyable.

 

[arcyallen]

Maximize the happiness, whichever way makes sense to you!

 

[38Chevy454]

Call it what you want, but getting more time to enjoy life and do more fun stuff not working is always a good thing.

 

[pacergal]

Call it what you want, but getting more time to enjoy life and do more fun stuff not working is always a good thing.

Agree!

 

[youbet]

Call it what you want, but getting more time to enjoy life and do more fun stuff not working is always a good thing.

Yeah, terminology and the meaning of words are sure tough things to nail down.

In my case, I'd call working 37.5 hours a week a full time job. But I can certainly see where OP would consider it as seeming like "semi-retirement" to him. He's coming down from working more than 37.5 hours. I've been fully FIRE'd over 18 years. No wonder our views of the same words are different!