Class of 2016 in their 5th Year of Retirement

[txtig]

DW and I are coming up on our five year anniversaries. She retired June of 2016 and I followed in August 2016. It’s been a fantastic five years. Bought a big motorhome and have travelled quite a bit of the USA. Watching our grandsons start to grow up. Net worth is up nicely. What’s not to like about retirement? Congrats to all of our fellow 2016 retirees!!

 

[Golden sunsets]

arbeadub >> glad all is going well with you the last 5 years.

Golden sunsets >> Looks like you have done extremely well financially. Very nice that is a nice gain.

Thanks Street. I did that calculation in order to respond to your thread. I didn't realize the gain was as big a % until I did the calculation. We were 55/45 AA at the end of 2016. We slowly reduced that AA to 50/50 over the ensuing 5 years, staying fully invested and rebalancing along the way.

 

[Music Lover]

5 year club for me too. My last day of work was in March 2016 although I didn't officially retire until June 2017 when I reached non-penalty status on my pension.

 

[oscar1]

Class of 2017 - EVERY day I count one more day of total, pure freedom. Its over whelming when you realize you don’t have to work again. I have a lot of friends that just can’t fathom not working. I can’t fathom ever working again but I realize it could happen. I hope this lasts another 4 years, or with some luck, another 30 years.

 

[lem1955]

I’m class of 2016 too, formal retirement began 1/1/2016. But then I got persuaded to do minimal job from home for a non- profit. Just gave notice that I’ll be finished with that as of 9/30/21. I had a lot of needed home improvements in the last five years. Took two European vacations with children, grandchildren. Spent much more than expected and more than a SWR and still have 50% more in my portfolio than I did 1/1/16. Am very grateful for an early bull market.

 

[PageTwo]

DW & I are 2016'ers.

Last month we sold our home in the Phoenix area along with our car and liberated ourselves of the entirety of our possessions save for two carry-on roller bags and two backpacks. Now fully vaccinated, free from the responsibilities of home ownership and with the world beginning to open up, we are looking forward to more roaming about.

Wow - this sounds a bit extreme but oh-so-inspiring! Do you have a place you call home now? Or are you completely nomad?

 

[InTheSticks]

A little late to this post. Yep, class of 2016. I hit 5 years in April.

We haven't traveled as much as we would have like to and now DW is scheduled for a knee replacement in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, after recovery and covid restrictions we will be able to start doing a bunch of short trips at least.

I do still have some work dreams. I wonder when they will end.

 

[candrew]

Wow - this sounds a bit extreme but oh-so-inspiring! Do you have a place you call home now? Or are you completely nomad?

We are completely nomad - vagabonds if you well. Homeless (actually house-less) by choice! "Home" for us is as much a state of mind as it is a physical location.

Currently, a 1BR apartment in Oaxaca City, MX is the location we call "home" - though only until the end of August.

 

[candrew]

I do still have some work dreams.

Are some of those dreams the makings of a nightmare??

 

[chicamuxen]

I retired December 20th 2016. The time has flown by. I am so grateful every day. There is nothing like waking up on a Monday morning. The market has been kind since i retired. Just need to do more traveling. Soon, very soon. Life is great!

 

[PageTwo]

I retired December 20th 2016. The time has flown by. I am so grateful every day. There is nothing like waking up on a Monday morning. The market has been kind since i retired. Just need to do more traveling. Soon, very soon. Life is great!

I can see how Monday mornings can quickly become your favorite My first Monday morning in retirement will be this October 4th. Boy, I can't wait...

 

[pacergal]

Monday mornings are nothing compared to not being bothered by the Sunday Night 60 Minutes tic tic tic......

 

[FreeBear]

Congrats all! Coming here from class of 2015.

Time has flown by. Moved last year to the sunny SW after enduring cloudy and rainy Frozen Flyover all my life. Should have done this in 2015.
Took years to figure out what we really wanted . Now got a great base camp to road trip the beautiful western US. Getting into RVing too, a decades deferred, almost forgotten dream.

Would have never figured out all this if I had stayed at w*rk.

 

[geezee1957]

Class of 2016

Retired Dec 2016 2 motor home trips to Alaska to see our kids,1 trip to Arizona for the winter, a cruise through the Panama Canal.....and a move to Alaska permanently. (Arizona for the winter though) Yes a busy 5 years but great as well. TIME FLIES!

 

[Davis65]

Do you want to hear about the downside of retirement?

You'll have to ask someone else. I don't know anything about that.

Since 2016, we've done lots and lots of travel until the pandemic. I made some paintings, which I never thought I'd do -- I was an economist, not an artist.

I've had time to help family and friends. I volunteered at a community tax clinic this winter helping low-income people file their tax returns (by phone and zoom). And had time to relax and not stress about working during a pandemic.

Financially, we've earned more in the market than I had forecast, and spent less, so we're good. And I don't spend so much time reading early retirement forums.

 

[goodcookie]

Retired December 2015, 5+ yrs of wonderful retirement!! Retired with my wife at 55 and I 56! After selling a big house and getting my pension rolling and the smoke cleared at that time! We have been amazed at how easy retirement is! Not super-rich, but plenty coming in. The investments are growing so much we wonder how we will spend it later after we start SS. Oh we love it. Having so much free time is the way God intended it, I'm sure!! It is heavenly! Doing things on a wimb is in my DNA! And now able to do it! Could have worked few more years to add to the safety of it. Please listen to me, don't hesitate, if you feel you can retire. Please do it, it is easy!!

 

[Calico]

Turk?

It's not meant in an ethnic sense. It's a generational term used in business, politics, etc. "eg, out with the old, in with the young turks"

Definition #2 below:

 

[deserat]

Ahh - well, I kind of qualify. I stood up in December 2015 and ended 30 years of military service (active and Reserve), and then flew to Italy to start medical school. Quit two months later, flew back to try and fix what I thought had been a strong marriage - alas, it did not repair (as someone said earlier 'new' woman for him), divorce final in Dec 2017. I then managed end of life care for my mother who passed in 2018. I decided to come back to the working world as I had the opportunity to go back to Germany - the job is easy for the most part and I was hoping to travel like crazy (which I did until COVID hit).

Now, it's a matter of deciding how long to stay - this location is perfect for traveling in and around Europe - and I have a SOFA card, so I'm sort treated like a European for Schengen zone and 'resident' purposes. Otherwise it would be 90 days max per year here....

Five years - yup - a lot happened, but am happy, healthy and grateful.

 

[DrRoy]

March 2017, and all's well.

 

[SpinDoctorTX]

For the class of 2016 we are in our 5th year of retirement. I looked for the list of 2016 class but was unable to find it.

Just wondering how many of us are still visiting the site, and how your retirement has been going, in the fifth year of retirement?

For me it has went so fast, it is hard to beleive it has been 5 years. It has been all I expected it would be and much more.

It IS hard to believe that on Nov 1, I hit the 5 yr mark as well. I had no idea how freeing retirement life would be, and my only regret is that I waited until 56 yo... I should have taken my Corp 55/50 the very second I hit 55!

 

[bearkeley]

Hi all! We are still here and like most, still can’t believe this is real!

We’ve been traveling 5-7 months in the winter to places south of the equator except for when we travelled on the ICW on our boat a few years back, and this past winter, due to Covid.

We have been working on our real estate exit strategy and have sold our main home on the Chesapeake Bay (we were never there) and move into our beachfront condo in Florida when we are in the country (we rent it out during the winter).

We are a bit bummed that it’s been very windy lately to go fishing, or paddle boarding or kayaking, but they are good problems to have! [emoji2]

Although Florida never really shut down, we now have our shots, feeling grateful, and hope soon, other countries will be ok too.

 

[fire161007]

Class of 2016 here. Best 5 years of my life. Kids are still in school, so they keep us on a schedule. Lockdown has prevented family travel. Original SWR was 3.2%, now down to 2.1%. Can't complain.

 

[SoClose]

Still check in here once in a while. LOVING being retired early at 47 now 52

Things that are different than planned

1. Didn’t sell the primary home to relocate
2. Just bought a second snowbird home [emoji15]
3. Savings is triple what retired with
4. Not doing much of any of the activities planned, but found better things to do. Amazed at things I must have done just to decompress from work that now I have no interest in
5. I could care less how my lawn looks
6. My house is less clean and I don’t care [emoji16]


It’s all about What’s the next sport/game I can play [emoji14]

 

[eyeonFI]

Officially retired June 2016, though I was on unpaid LOA for a year before that. It's been great. I've done a lot of traveling with my kids (now 10 and 13), including a 6-week road trip around the USA in 2017 and trips to Iceland in 2018 and 2019 (The first trip ended in disaster with us spending most of it in a hospital, so we had to go back to actually enjoy it).

At first I kept busy with a lot of projects around my house, now I just take it easy a lot of the time. Three years ago I put one of my kids into a private cooperative school, so I joined the board of directors of the school, and I spend a couple of days a month working as an aide with the kids, which is a lot of fun.

Overall, my portfolio is up about 50%, my WR now hovers around 2%, and my stress level is down about 1,000%. Life is great.

 

[street]

Beautiful! Glad to see 2016'ers are doing well and prospering in life.