Things To Do Before You Die

[5 Years to Retirement]

I've never understood why more people don't have a goal to retire early. But one exercise that makes you realize why it's important to retire early is to put in writing 100 specific things you want to do before you die. For example, it's not good enough to say you want to "travel" because that's more of a thought than an action. Write down exactly where you want to go, what you want to see, and when you are going to do it. This will scare you if you plan on retiring at 65 because if you're like me, you won't have time to do most of the things you want to do. I'm on the road to retiring at 40 and I think I can do most of what I want to do before I die at 90
That is, unless I keep adding to my list, in which case I'll just have to figure out a way to live longer (or retire even sooner-----or both).

 

[dory36]

... one exercise that makes you realize why it's important to retire early is to put in writing 100 specific things you want to do before you die.

Excellent!

Dory36

 

[John Galt]

Hello Cut-throat! Our list is a bit less exotic than yours
(pretty tight budget).

My wife wants to visit Komodo Island (I don't even
know where that is). That would be a solo trip.
I don't fly any more.

I would like to spend the maximum time on the motorcycle
while I can still ride. Lots of longer trips, all over the country. Also, would like to get a larger power boat
and keep it in a nice marina near our home.

Both of us want to get our Texas ranch project completed while we can still enjoy it.

That's about it for us, except maybe spending more
time with family.

John Galt

 

[Jarhead*]

Cutthroat:

Your planning to go back to New Zealand caught my eye
(Trout fishing).
About 15 years ago, a friend of mine and his wife were transferred to Minneapolis.They were both native So. Calif. types. He has always been an avid fly fisherman, and we spent many days in the high sierras tromping around fishing for Goldens.
In any case, after 3 years in Minnesotta, his wife told him it was either her, or Minnesotta. (He was solidly intrenched with his career there, and had learned to really like the area. He is still there, and his wife has been back in so. calif. for the last 11 years.
For the last 10 years, he has taken a month off and heads for New Zealand and fishing.
Sounds to me like it would be a damn fine way to get out of the tough winters back there, and get your fishing in at the same time.
Beats the heck out of snow birding to the Arizona/Nevada area, where its getting almost impossible to move, because of the number of Canadians that are RVng. down there.
Regards, Jarhead

 

[Cut-Throat]

Jarhead,

I sent you a Private Message!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hmm, things to do before I die:

Finally caulk that seam on the chimney that lets in a little water.

Finish unpacking boxes from my last move 9 months ago.

Convert the pile of tools and whatnot in the garage into an organized tool set that doesnt make looking for a particular tool an adventure.

I think if I get past that, I might consider other items

 

[John Galt]

Hello Cut-Throat..............I have been to every single
place you mentioned, Wyoming, Montana, Big Horn River, etc. although I have not fished in all
of them. You would be hard pressed to make a list
of prettier country. Also, I lived on Lake Michigan
(actually the Bay of Green Bay) for 10 years, and could see Door County out my back door. Trolled for salmon and trout until fall, and then hunted ducks until freeze up. A great life, except for the winters.

John Galt

 

[Billy]

Listing things you want to accomplish before one's demise is a great way to focus on the rest of your life. I think Jimmy Buffett says, " 24 hours, maybe 60 good years, it's really not that long of a stay", and he's right!

But, and here's the proverbial "but". Don't put your list in concrete. Once you retire, your wold is going to open like you've never seen it. Flexibility and open-mindedness is key to enjoying things that you've not dreamed of yet.

Follow your dreams, Billy
Web Site http://www.geocities.com/ba264

 

[BunsGettingFirm]

Tell an annoying co-worker to shove it up his...

 

[Saver to Spender]

Good excercise in goal setting. I started my list to find that I've only done a small fraction of all that I want to do. By putting it on paper, I've come up with dozens of other things I'd like to do. Many of the items are small and personal to me and would not excite most people (like volunteer work), but some of the other items on my list include...

*Travel to at least 10 countries like Italy, Spain, Australia, Japan, England, Brazil, Argentina, Austria, Germany, Greece.

*Travel to all 50 states (by air, train, and by driving cross country)

*Catch a tuna and/or marlin

*Go scuba diving

*Make oil paintings

*Hunt for deer

*Make home-made beer and wine

*Learn how to play a musical instrument

*Run (or walk) a marathon

I have about 30 more items so far, but I think these will keep me busy for a while.

 

[Nords]

Such ambition is so exhausting.

I've read that goal-setters consistently achieve more and report higher satisfaction. Of course in my working years I was rarely a goal-setter and frequently a goal-achiever, so it's nice to take over both sides of the system.

Shortly before retirement I drew up a list of goals. I called "very short range" as a few months, "short range" as less than a year, and "medium range" as 3-5 years. Two years later: VSR is a year, SR is <3 years, and medium range is still 3-5 years (for now).

I think you have to give yourself plenty of time (slack) for doing the things you really like doing, not just for trying new things. You may revisit an old favorite (like recreational reading) or learn something new (like surfing) that'll happily entertain you for years. Or your kid will come home on school break and "nothing" will get done full-time for three weeks (priceless).

But my list is half-finished and I'm not adding to it very fast. The honey-do list is way down and shrinking steadily. We joke that our home/yard improvement & maintenance list includes 400 separate annual tasks... but the laughter is fading fast. Most of the "improvement" has been eliminating the things that need trimming, weeding, or painting.

Major/continuing accomplishments in the last two years:
Visit my grandfather (made it just in time)
Daily naps
Surfing
Tae kwon do
Workouts at least 3x week (see above two items)
Grow a ponytail
Reorganize the garage (hang in there, th!)
Convert legacy CCPlus tickler system to Outlook (nasty project)
Convert Quattro spreadsheets to Excel (even nastier)
Finish painting the house
Clean/organize file drawers
More SCUBA diving
Water conditioner & new water heater
Dig an imu & cook a luau

Here's what's left:
Be a good spouse
Be a good dad
Launch the kid (no hangfires or circular runs)
Braid my ponytail
Great Barrier Reef & Pacific atoll liveaboard diving
Spend a few months in Thailand learning the language
Learn to speak & read Hawaiian
Complete the revocable living trust estate planning
Complete the "What to do if I wake up dead" list & passwords for spouse
"Hike of the Month" club
Plow through exercises in "Drawing for the Right Side of the Brain".
Get off the grid (photovoltaic, batteries, & generator backup)
Achieve a net worth higher than lifetime earnings (I think from TMND)
Collect more retired Navy pension than active-duty salary. (Bonus points: Collect more even after inflation adjustments)
Join the Navy's "Centenarian Sailors" list in their retiree magazine
Join the top ten "Oldest Living Alumni" list of my alma mater. (Minimum admission this month: 100. 99 isn't even in the top ten anymore.)

 

[wabmester]

Heh, I just revisited the list I wrote about a month before I retired. I was able to tick off all of my short-term goals, about 1/2 of my mid-term, and none of my long-term.

Still on my TO-DO list:

-- learn enough botany to identify most of the native plants in my area
-- learn enough geology to do my own geotech work
-- learn Mandarin
-- learn enough astronomy to be able to identify those bright things in the night sky
-- brush up on my celestial navigation skills
-- visit China, the Amazon, and my ancestral homeland
-- learn enough about architecture to design and build a house
-- write a book
-- build a non-kit robot (bonus points for making its behavior complex enough to make people question their own humanity )

 

[John Galt]

Hey wab! That's quite a list. I never made one.
Seems a bit obsessive . Anyway, as I've gotten older
the stuff I liked to do keeps disappearing on me. So far
I've mostly just done more of the things I am still able to
do and the stuff I have put off. There are some things I enjoyed when I was younger that I once figured I might take up again (golf?). However, I am so busy now I really can't see it.

John Galt

 

[Jane]

My wife wants to visit Komodo Island (I don't even
know where that is).
John Galt

John: I think Komodo Island is in Indonesia...Komodo dragon (native to this island and only found wild in this island) is this huge, meat-eating, lizard like.

My parents were born in Indonesia they told me things of their birth country...

Jane

 

[Jane]

5 top things to do before I die (mostly travelling):

- Go to China (Great Wall, Terracota warriors, forbidden city, Tiangmen Square), Japan (cherry blossoms, Tokyo, hot spring bath, japanese garden and sushi) and Hongkong (just because - I heard chinese food is better in Hongkong than in China).
- Go to Australia to visit my cousins and let them teach me how to surf.
- Go to Egypt, Turkey and Morroco: Pyramid, dead kings' mummies , ride a camel, camp in the dessert, and eat local food (okay, I like to eat).
- Snowboard in Alberta and BC, Canada. Apparently they have "real" mountain instead of "lump o' dirt" we have in Ontario (this unfortunately has to be done before I got too old).
- Do a cross-Canada trip for 3-4 months.

Jane

 

[unclemick]

I am prepared to die.

Hence - like Anthony Quinn planting the tree in the movie - I can act like I'm going to live forever.

The usual near term stuff - train the golden retriever to bring the ball back and not go rip tearing afte mink, ducks, possums and especially racoons.

Do/not do the pier extension. Repair a couple pilings in time for winter.

Don't even think about flag football with the neighborhood teenagers(61 is 61). Couch potato is good.

Keep a grip on brain pharts - as to remodel/beat back the wilderness syndrome. Reasearch how to kill chinese tallow and get some more wildlife habit going in the high part of 'my swamp'.

Maybe - get a nightlite from Home Depot/Lowes and do some fall fishing for white trout and redfish off the back porch this winter. Hmmm - may even buy a fishing license.

 

[Traveler]

Just finished reading the obit for Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the New York Times. In all her research on death and dying, she said that people who looked back on their lives and felt they were well-lived (they did the things they wanted to do--my words) had the easiest time letting go.

So, my short "to do" list before I check out:
Spend a couple of months in Europe, especially through Eastern Europe and Scandinavia.
Do a trans-Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary II.
Go back to Japan for a few weeks.
Finally buy the small motorhome and winter in Florida and Baja California.
Hop on my bike and explore "Rails to Trails" bike trails. Have been on a couple of those and they're a blast!
Build a small eco-friendly cottage in the southwest for the day when I can't travel much anymore, if that ever happens.
I suppose I'll do something altruistic as well, but right now I don't know what.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

John: I think Komodo Island is in Indonesia...Komodo dragon (native to this island and only found wild in this island) is this huge, meat-eating, lizard like.

Uh oh, I see a headline emerging...

"Man visiting Komodo island attacked by giant dragon. Beats it to death with ego. Says he was just trying to please wife. Film at 11".

 

[azanon]

I've never understood why more people don't have a goal to retire early.

I do, as ive always been fascinated by ER (such as the power of compounding), but maybe I can take a stab at why.

Some people are just worth a lot and by the time your 50 or so, its probably very hard to voluntarily give up the benefit of being worth 30-40 dollars/hour or more. Great jobs usually dont just fall in people's laps. A lot of blood and sweat goes into getting those, so I suspect they're not so easily given up, whether one has the means to do so or not.

Take me for instance; i'm a federal employee. By the time i have just 15 years tenure, i'll get max leave and only have to work 36 hrs/week if you count leave, and even less if you count federal holidays off. I made and underwent major sacrifices (schooling, costs) to have a GS-12 job at the age of only 30.

Ive read some of those lists and I cant help but wonder why you guys cant do a lot of those things while working. Do I just have an unusual job, that includes leave and no more than standard full time? Perhaps ER isnt really appropriate for a job like mine. Perhaps ER is only for hard jobs and/or ones with high stress/long work hours.

I dunno. Still debating what's right for me.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Uh oh, I see a headline emerging...

"Man visiting Komodo island attacked by giant dragon.  Beats it to death with ego.  Says he was just trying to please wife.  Film at 11".

I remember a few years ago, Sharon Stone's husband was attacked by a Komodo at a zoo near San Francisco. Apparently they were give a special tour inside the living area of the Komodo's. I think the lizard grabbed his leg/foot and was preparing to dine on him.

Sharon Stone and that husband have since divorced. - I still find it impossible to get that 'Basic Instinct' Movie scene out of my mind.

 

[haha]

Ive read some of those lists and I cant help but wonder why you guys cant do a lot of those things while working.  Do I just have an unusual job, that includes leave and no more than standard full time?  Perhaps ER isnt really appropriate for a job like mine.  Perhaps ER is only for hard jobs and/or ones with high stress/long work hours.  

I dunno.   Still debating what's right for me.

Try reading between the lines of some posts here. Many people were more or less pushed out, or would have had to take some ego hits to hang on. They had saved a meaningful amount of money, so they left. In my case, I had liability exposure that was more troubling as my net worth increased, so I opted to leave. There may have been better responses to this particular issue. Once you are gone, it is hard to return for institutional as well as personal reasons. Did you ever play high school sports? Remember how hard it was to get back into serious training after a layoff?

Another group is not exactly retired. They are non-working spouses of workers. This may be nice work if you can get it, but I would imagine also has its stresses, both current and possible. Like becoming a non-working ex-spouse.

Plenty people enjoy work and would not enjoy giving up even a little of what it offers. These people are not represented on this board for obvious reasons. Some spouses of board posters seem to fit this mold.

As to freedom to do what you want, you may have more with your current setup than you would with much less money, and more time.

Some of us are grounded by family ties, lack of funds, or even dogs.

If I were in your place my course would be very plain. Save money, but don't practice so much denial that you cease to enjoy your life and work. You can always exit- it's reversing that decision that can be hard.

I think advice is cheap, including this. But remember, if one has made a more or less irreversible decision it can lessen some of the associated anxiety to recruit others to one's position.

One thing I can absolutely tell you from my own experience. I read what some here say they spend, and I think it must be in some other universe. I don't doubt their truthfulness, I just don't fathom how it can be done and still enjoy daily life.

Horses for courses, right?

Mikey

 

[panhead]

Sharon Stone......Basic Instinct..... Yeah, there's a lot of that movie that sticks in my mind as well, especially the "classsic" scene !!

-Pan-

 

[Martha]

Make a daily walk to the mail box, mumbling in Norwegian, pick up my dividend checks and ride my scooter to the bank to deposit the checks.

Martha

 

[Jane]

The topic os this post was things to do before you die. Not things to do after you are retired.

Exactly.

Stuff on my list will most likely be done before I retire. After those are done, I will make another list of 5 things to do before I die. Snowboarding on mountains is something I want to do before I hopefully turn 35 (er...I heard that broken bones don't really heal after that  ).

To me I am really working towards FI. I like my job now although there are times in my line of work when it is stressful and the hours are long. However, I can't guarantee that in 15, 20 yrs or whatever, I will still like my job (or whatever job I am working on at that moment). If I am FI, I can CHOOSE to leave or stay, and that is the kind of card I want to have on my deck.

Jane

 

[retire@40]

Some people are just worth a lot and by the time your 50 or so, its probably very hard to voluntarily give up the benefit of being worth 30-40 dollars/hour or more.  Great jobs usually dont just fall in people's laps.  A lot of blood and sweat goes into getting those, so I suspect they're not so easily given up, whether one has the means to do so or not.  

That's a good debatable point. But, the way I look at it, every hour of my life is priceless. I even hate wasting a lot of hours sleeping. No matter how good of a job you have, you are still giving those precious hours of your life to your "boss." I am self-employed with very flexible work hours, but I still feel that I'm dedicating those hours to my clients when I could be dedicating them to my family and myself. Even if you say you "only " work 36 hours a week, to me those are 36 hours of your life that you need to put yourself in a specific building behind a specific desk or inside a specific cubicle.

I understand you worked hard to get a good paying job, but is it worth making that job your life? When I used to work at a comfortable high paying job (before becoming self-employed), there were many times I would say I wish I could have been out fishing or at the beach instead of finishing a job for my boss. I even hated terms like "boss" or "supervisor" or that I had to go through "training." (Still gives me the shivers)

So, I know most people can probably do most of what is on their "Things to do before they die" list while they are still working, but the point is why give up those few precious hours of your life to a job when you can enjoy every one of those hours doing something you enjoy more than your job? Why live your life with a "boss" giving your orders or being "trained" like a dog.

The trap that a lot of people fall into is that they dedicate so much of their life to their jobs and careers, that they lose interest in the curiosities of life. Their work becomes their life and their life becomes their work. They tend not to have diverse hobbies or interests and many of them die at 65 when they retire because when the job goes, they feel (consciously or subconsciously) like everything they worked for is gone.

My feeling is my job is a sacrifice I need to make to get me to a point where I could live every hour of it in total freedom. I like my self-employment job, but I like total freedom a lot more.