Hobbies you added after retirement

motley

Full time employment: Posting here.
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Just curious what ways some have found to fill the time besides travel etc.
 
Mostly the same activities as before, just more time at all of them.

We both took up pickleball, really enjoying it 3-4 times a week.

DW has also taken up knitting like never before, she’s completed about a dozen projects including a 6’x6’ blanket! She said it took 150 hours, seemed like a lot more to me. She’s also done a bunch of baby clothes for grand nieces & nephews and friends grandkids. My favorite was a sock monkey that went to one of them.

You didn’t ask but we gave up sailing, something we never thought we’d do. Took up all our free time (and a bunch of $$$$) for almost 30 years. Now zero.
 
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Fitness...taking care of your aging body. We bike, walk, kayak, yoga, pilates, and OrangeTheory. Whether you call this a hobby or a j*b, it needs to be part of your life.

Volunteering...we found being an usher at the local theater and orchestra rewarding because we get to interact with many people (fellow ushers and patrons) and also get to see many performances for free. We saw WICKED 15 times and would have enjoyed a few more if they were available.
 
RC sailboat racing, Soling 1M. It's alot of fun and good company too. DH and I joined a casual bocce league last year and have made good friends and improved a bit. More time for volunteering, kayaking and biking.
 
I don't have to try to "fill the time." The days fly by. As mentioned above, I've increased time spent doing some prior activities as well as added others. I spend much more time on fitness activities / exercise - which I do enjoy. I spend more time with the doggo, I "research" health and finances, I listen to podcasts (usually while I'm doing something else), I spend more relaxing time with DH, a little Duolingo and Waffle, chatting on the phone, walking . . .

I don't even have enough time to engage in all the hobbies which interest me.
 
Scuba diving. A real BTD hobby! I was a diver back in the 1980's but stopped because I got a job and moved away from diving spots (and then married with kids). When DW said she's like to dive the hobby resumed. Recertified from scratch, new equipment in our mid 60s. Now we can afford to dive all over the world and it's a great hobby. The downside is that we see the effect that warming oceans are having on the reefs and get sad when we return to areas that have noticeably degraded over the past few years.
 
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New hobbies since FIRE'ing:

- Guitar
- Kayaking
- Paddleboarding/SUP
- Golf
- Bridge
- Pickleball, briefly (Prefer tennis)
- Spanish language classes, including language immersion trip to Costa Rica
- Yoga on the beach
- Sai!ing
 
Having started my training way back in 1982 I finally earned my pilot's certificate (Sport Pilot) in 2012. Initially, I was going for my Private Pilot ticket but had to stop when my wife was injured in a skiing accident. She was off work for 5-6 months. I resumed training in 2010-2011 and successfully earned my ticket in 2012.
 
Health and exercise. I can't believe my nutritional understanding was so lacking.

Tried out car camping for the first time last night. I don't know if it will stick, but I may do it occasionally. I did like hiking all day and not having to drive home. I didn't like getting up at 3:30 am to relieve myself in 35F weather. While taking care of business I could hear something large moving near by. It is rutting season, and I was in bear country.
 
Nothing really new added, simply more time to enjoy the things I was already interested in.

This past year has been training new puppy, who is now a year old. We have not had a puppy for over 20+ some years, and previous dogs were rescues who came from Humane society with much training already done--so nice.
I had forgotten how much time and attention it takes to get a well trained dog, still working on probably the most important "come" command. He does it well in confined yard, don't trust him yet outside off leash!
He is a mini golden doodle, so very intelligent and very, very active. Keeps us both busy, that's for sure.
 
I got the P-Bass and PA out of the closet and got almost as good as I was in my teens. But they damaged my laryngeal nerve and I got rid of all my music stuff. Later on I started playing the ukulele because I missed doing music.

I learned how to fly a paramotor. It's lovely to fly where I trained...easy and beautiful and so many days of perfect weather and you can fly all day long. At home, flying sucks because it's so much harder to fly here. More physically demanding and a narrow window of time (an hour before sunset). I might rent a place at the beach to fly if I keep feeling good.

I learned to write mobile apps, and released an app on the play store and one on the app store. I've got several thousand installs, and as the platforms evolve, I need to tinker a bit, but it doesn't take much time anymore. I did write another "quickie" to capture votes at our brewing club annual festival, but the guy running the database made it feel too much like w*rk ...calls and meetings, so I bailed.
 
Mostly the same activities as before, just more time at all of them.
This. I've been playing with model airplanes since I was old enough to say "airplane" but retirement gave me the time to enjoy it more. I did get my private license in my mid-20's but it just got too expensive to justify on my income so I gave that up and contented myself with R/C models. The other main hobby is photography, and I still enjoy that even more now since with digital the issues of film costs and processing go away.
 
I was into photography for awhile and might get back into it.
 
Discovered Pickleball in my 2nd year of retirement. Now obsessed with it. Play 4 days weekly and teach it 2 other days. No true other hobbies besides learning a little more about investments and playing with tons of what if scenarios.
 
Added volunteering and fly fishing.

And spend a lot more time skiing, biking and hiking.
 
I think I'd be scared to ski at my age. Bunny hill maybe!
 
It's more of a resurrected hobby than a new one. When my square dance hobby dried up in 2018 following the death of my main caller (and the other callers I didn't like), I returned to playing the piano, as I have described in another thread. I don't play nearly as often as I danced, though.
 
We added a puppy and training her has been a fun hobby for me. She earned her CGC title (canine good citizen) in July and we plan to take the therapy dog test so we can volunteer with her.

Also baking! I am a volunteer baker for a charity that provides birthday cakes for at risk youth.

That has been plenty to keep me as busy as I care to be right now.
 
Mostly, the same old stuff. But I added regular cycling right after retirement, which has included 18 trips, mostly to Europe. More recently I added astrophotography which has been a lot of fun and kept my mind engaged.
 
Traveling, fishing, card playing with friends, playing slots at casinos, gardening, hiking, cooking restaurant quality family dishes, most are same things that I was doing before retirement, but with more time and higher frequency in retirement.
 
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