What led you to retire??

[Gumby]

My job had little or nothing to do with my retirement. From the time I first started working, I planned to retire at 55. The young wife and I worked and saved and invested with that goal in mind, and things were going along according to plan. But then the Great Recession came along right around my 50th birthday. Suddenly, we had substantially less money, as well as a new understanding of the need to build a bigger cushion into our plan. So we tacked on 5 years and I retired this Spring at age 60. Now I can do all the things that I would have been doing if I didn't have to spend all day at the office.

 

[tsoispf]

Once I made "my number", my motivation to continue working was sapped. Being bounced around the last couple of years (outsourced) didn't help matters.

 

[LRDave]

I never wanted to work in the first place......so, when I could afford not to, I didn't.

+1

Also, DW said: "Jump in...the water's fine..."

 

[Ronstar]

My hobbies/ personal interests began taking more and more time and I realized that the only way I could maximize my play time was to eliminate my work time.

 

[Accidental Retiree]

I was booted into it during the 2008-2009 era. Did some part time stuff but was basically retired..

Pretty much just like this.

 

[HadEnuff]

I never wanted to work in the first place......so, when I could afford not to, I didn't.

pretty much this...which is not to say that I hated my work. At times I really liked it. At times it drove me nuts and gave me stress and anxiety. But mostly, I did it because I wanted/needed to earn money, so I could live reasonably well, and retire comfortably.

I don't think I ever got past the day they made me go to school instead of hanging around the house with my mom...age 5.

 

[CardsFan]

My job had little or nothing to do with my retirement. From the time I first started working, I planned to retire at 55. The young wife and I worked and saved and invested with that goal in mind, and things were going along according to plan. But then the Great Recession came along right around my 50th birthday. Suddenly, we had substantially less money, as well as a new understanding of the need to build a bigger cushion into our plan. So we tacked on 5 years and I retired this Spring at age 60. Now I can do all the things that I would have been doing if I didn't have to spend all day at the office.

Almost the same for me. The plan was always to target 55. Recession started at 53. Recovery in progress at 55, but way too nervous to pull the rip cord then. Waited to 60. Thought about waiting for a package. 4 years later, I would still be waiting. No regrets.

In hindsight, I COULD have gone at 55 (2010) and survived fine, but, at the time, my crystal ball was in the repair shop.

 

[24601NoMore]

Toxic job with totally unrealistic and unachievable goals, massive politics, expectation of working 80-100 hours a week (including any night or weekend), etc.

That, and a lot of people I know that are not far from me age-wise started either dying or having major health issues.

I'd worked for several years on my "Plan B" so pulled the plug when the BS got too much to deal with any longer..and if I hadn't, I would have probably joined those formerly living friends and family who were no longer with us as my j*b was literally killing me and taking a major toll on my health and my wife's health as well.

Looking for another gig really wasn't an option as I worked every single minute that I had any energy to give..once the 80-100 hour week was finally behind me, it was all I could to to collapse into a mangled heap of burned out ashes and try to recover quickly enough to do it all again the next week. So, zero time to look for anything else..

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Way more work than I could possibly accomplish, ever-increasing bureaucracy, silly office politics, reporting to assholes, and a bank balance that kept whispering, "why the heck are you still working??"

In other words, the BS bucket was full.

And looking back, it seemed that people I once knew who were even younger than me were starting to die. I didn't think about it then, but now I'm sure it was in the back of my mind somewhere.

 

[RunningBum]

Bored with work but it was really easy money and very flexible in the 1/2 time hours I was on, so I just waited for a push out the door. It came when they moved my project to India and I'd have had to do some real work on a new project. I had the option of a small exit package, and took it. No regrets or second thoughts about leaving, and no regrets about staying as long as I did.

 

[kaneohe]

A few in my group (including me) were traded in for newer, more beautiful, and cheaper models. Fortunately one of those who had preceded us was one who I had regarded as one of our most valuable workers........that took some of the sting out for me as I used that to assess the quality of the decision makers.

For me, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise since I think by nature I would have kept working essentially forever so I didn't have to decide. One of my co-workers would have taken a step down (tech , instead of engineer) if it had been approved, but it wasn't. I believe that he too now considers the parting a blessing in disguise.

 

[timo2]

I was losing my ability to focus on work and properly interact with coworkers. What kept me going was teleworking. but my boss retired and the new people didn't like telework. The timing was just as I was FI, so it was bye-bye.

 

[Montecfo]

For me it was just the math. It is inescapable that every additional year you work is one less year you have to do your own agenda. For me it came down to that, as I had been FI for some time.

 

[Walt34]

This topic comes up every few years here and I'm always a little surprised and dismayed at how many people retire who actually liked their jobs but retired because the frustration of dealing with poor management.

I too actually liked my job and coworkers. But the job was rapidly changing (computer forensics and computer crime investigation) and of course needed lots of ongoing training and hardware/software updating to stay current. That was getting harder and harder to get so that was a frustration, and traffic in the Washington, D.C. area was making me realize that I hated the thought of going anywhere or doing anything that involved going farther than I could walk.

When I looked at the retirement numbers I realized that when work-related expenses went away, like pension contributions and SS plus a few others, I could make more money selling t-shirts out of the back of a van and it finally occurred to me to ask "Why are you working?" We had zero debt, DW was stressed at her job, and we were banking 49% of our income.

I had made a mistake though. I didn't need to sell any t-shirts. My net income went up a little (single digits) when I retired.

 

[razztazz]

I never wanted to work in the first place......so, when I could afford not to, I didn't.

I dumped my longer answer and replaced it with the above quote

Or, in condensed form, the main reason I stopped working was, in a word: People.

 

[kgtest]

I echo many of the same reasons as others have posted. I *did* have a j*b that I thoroughly enjoyed...flight testing recently modified airplanes. Taking a bigass jet to the absolute limits of it's capability and every now and then...a little bit more. What's not to like? Well, the flying part was only about 5% of my j*b and 95% of it was mere bull squeeze. Since it was a limited tour, I knew my time was short and after having the absolute freedom I had as an independent operator/tester of airplanes, there was NO WAY I was going back to the "real Air Force" with many rules and worse management.

Plus, my mil retirement was ready for me on day one...so pulled the plug. It's almost been 5 years and I am thrilled that I left when I did.

BIL is a commander for a group of Viper pilots. I only see what I see from the outside looking in, but it makes my measly little IT job look like chump change compared to what he does. Saw him launch 8 F16s in less than an hour tooling around the runray on the Guard Cart...and here it takes the bank I work for like 1 week to fund a loan...and you guys are launching 300+ Million worth of aircraft in less than an hour. I am so impressed. He says the only people who thinks his job is cool are 5 year old boys...I disagree! I am a grown man and still badass to me!

 

[steelyman]

When I looked at the retirement numbers I realized that when work-related expenses went away, like pension contributions and SS plus a few others, I could make more money selling t-shirts out of the back of a van and it finally occurred to me to ask "Why are you working?" We had zero debt, DW was stressed at her job, and we were banking 49% of our income.

That’s a good point that I think some people miss (I did). While working, a lot of money went to monthly deductions from gross pay. Pension contributions, Federal/State taxes, health/dental premiums, misc like parking, and contributions to tax-advantaged retirement accounts (I maxed both Roth and pre-tax 457 through work as there was no match and separate individual Roth).

When I left, those dropped significantly and it made a big difference. Can’t get away from taxes though (and I moved away from a state tax-free state).

 

[Franklin]

I am a southern republican guy who moved to Hollywood/Beverly Hills (22 years ago) and made great money in the entertainment business. My fellow C suite peers were way too liberal for me and my political views put me at odds with the boss. That oddity combined with my mom and last sibling passing made me decide it was time to return to my roots. S0, retired and moved east.

 

[CoolRich59]

For me, it was another day at megacorp -- SSDD. But, for some still unknown reason, that day I'd had enough. No major crisis, meltdown, etc. I just decided I was tired of dealing with internal clients who ignored my advice and recommendations, then whined and complained when the bad things I'd warned them about happened.

I went home that day, talked to the DW and we agreed that I would retire as soon as feasibly (i.e., financially) possible.

Next, I found this forum. Within a month, I'd "memorized" http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f47/some-important-questions-to-answer-before-asking-can-i-retire-69999.html, fired my FA, moved my money into Vanguard, and started running FIRECalc and other retirement calculators.

Although my FA had been telling me I needed to work several more years, the retirement calculators were showing I already had enough $$ to last until the DW was 100. That was a very pleasant surprise, to say the least.

A couple of days after that, my manager was telling me about the next steaming pile he was going to dump on my plate and, before I was aware of what I was saying, I told him "Sorry. You'll have to find someone else. I'm retiring."

 

[REWahoo]

For me, it was another day at megacorp -- SSDD. But, for some still unknown reason, that day I'd had enough. No major crisis, meltdown, etc. I just decided I was tired of dealing with internal clients who ignored my advice and recommendations, then whined and complained when the bad things I'd warned them about happened.

I went home that day, talked to the DW and we agreed that I would retire as soon as feasibly (i.e., financially) possible.

Next, I found this forum. Within a month, I'd "memorized" http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f47/some-important-questions-to-answer-before-asking-can-i-retire-69999.html, fired my FA, moved my money into Vanguard, and started running FIRECalc and other retirement calculators.

Although my FA had been telling me I needed to work several more years, the retirement calculators were showing I already had enough $$ to last until the DW was 100. That was a very pleasant surprise, to say the least.

A couple of days after that, my manager was telling me about the next steaming pile he was going to dump on my plate and, before I was aware of what I was saying, I told him "Sorry. You'll have to find someone else. I'm retiring."

This put a smile on my face. Outstanding example of the BS bucket reaching the full mark.

 

[jollystomper]

I had no real complaints about my work, salary, or time. Ultimately it was to choose to have more time for myself, to wake up every day and decide what I did or did not want to do. Running the numbers showed it would have been feasible as early as age 54, but - since I still enjoyed the job, the salary, and had good health - kept working to build a comfortable buffer, and at age 58, with major family expenses behind me, started my "glide path" (documented in another thread) resulting in me retiring at age 60. I still "root" for my Megacorp and former co-workers there to do well (after all, they are paying my pension ), so there is no looking back in bitterness, just satisfaction in what I was able to accomplish.

 

[fh2000]

DW and I both left our IT work place the first week of 2019. We have no pension, and did not receive any severance. We simply planed for this beginning 5 years earlier.

We wanted to travel and stay close to her parents back in our home country for their final years (now 94 and 84), so we purchased a condo right next to them. Once our withdraw rate shows below 3.5%, we gave our notices and started to become international snowbird staying there 4-5 months, and the rest months in Los Angeles.

 

[YakGrl]

Family caregiving reached the point that it needed to take priority over the job.
I was financially prepared for early retirement but had been waiting for a buy-out offer possibility every year, but my position was never on the list.
Family health issues became most important and pushed me to give notice. No regrets.

 

[CoolRich59]

... the BS bucket reaching the full mark.

Exactly!

 

[jpeter1093]

I'm on the same page as Sunset. Personal life got more importance than the IT job and we thought we could pull it off. That was April, 2019 so we're still newbies but now it's ALL personal life!