Tomorrow is my 1 year anniversary of retirement. I picked a stellar year to do it! Fortunately I have a hobby that keeps me very busy and engaged. DW retired at the end of October and we are looking forward to things finally opening up and allowing us to go explore.
Making the shift from employed, and saving money to unemployed and no long saving, wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. For the first 6 months after DW retired, we were doing great living on just her pension. I've been watching our finances and thinking "This is great! We are living just fine on her pension and don't have to touch our savings." This retirement transition is a piece of cake! The last two months our spending has kicked up. Prior to this DW was given a nice package from the city she worked for that covered our health insurance for the first 6 months. Now we have to pay that bill and it is tipping us past her pension income. Then our Plasma TV died and we had to buy a new OLED TV. On top of that we prepaid for some events that are coming up later this year.
I've got to head to the well and pull out some savings to cover all the expense. Gak! I like watching it grow. I don't want to take money out. This transition suddenly got really hard! It isn't that we can't afford it. When I decided to retire, we budgeted a 2.5% WR, and right now that same amount is more like 1.9%...It is just that mental hurdle of going from saving to spending that is really tripping me up. In the back of my mind, I can hear my Mom yelling at my Dad "Stop being such a tightwad!" I guess that helps a little bit.
Making the shift from employed, and saving money to unemployed and no long saving, wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. For the first 6 months after DW retired, we were doing great living on just her pension. I've been watching our finances and thinking "This is great! We are living just fine on her pension and don't have to touch our savings." This retirement transition is a piece of cake! The last two months our spending has kicked up. Prior to this DW was given a nice package from the city she worked for that covered our health insurance for the first 6 months. Now we have to pay that bill and it is tipping us past her pension income. Then our Plasma TV died and we had to buy a new OLED TV. On top of that we prepaid for some events that are coming up later this year.
I've got to head to the well and pull out some savings to cover all the expense. Gak! I like watching it grow. I don't want to take money out. This transition suddenly got really hard! It isn't that we can't afford it. When I decided to retire, we budgeted a 2.5% WR, and right now that same amount is more like 1.9%...It is just that mental hurdle of going from saving to spending that is really tripping me up. In the back of my mind, I can hear my Mom yelling at my Dad "Stop being such a tightwad!" I guess that helps a little bit.
