My Retirement Struggle

[MRG]

Bad thread made me look. I'll celebrate a decade in May and have never looked. Geeze, some chucklehead wants to let me WFH and develop mainframe assembly for $100 hourly? I'm sure that's a teaser, and no, I'm not going to actually go forward, but at one time, that might have attractive.

Yes, people really die from all the nonsense. I've lost a couple of workplace friends who were examples. Poor health driven by too much to do and inappropriate ways to deal with stress.

 

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

Leaving work about 3 months ago makes me realize how much I really did not like my job the last two years (except for the money, which admittedly was significant and difficult to leave). I am thrilled to be retired. My lovely bride is continuing to work, and she loves it. I feel like I have won the lottery.

While I am not working, I am acting as a sales advisor to about half a dozen local startups. It's interesting, I think that I am telling them things that are basic common knowledge to the most casual of observers, but evidently 35 years in high tech sales and sales leadership actually gives you some knowledge and experience that young folks actually find valuable. It's about an hour or so per week, and all I am doing is giving my opinion (no real work to me).

 

[Shabby]

Try Teaching

I still look at j*ob listings and think about being able to do it well. Interesting w*rk, good money, feeling valued, etc... But that is an old mindset.

I had a similar mindset creeping in, but went to my local college and asked them if they needed teachers for the Continuing Education program. I now teach 5 90-minute classes on wine and love it. I owned a winery, so this was something I could teach. So, check out the classes at your local college and then see if you could make up 90 minutes of material to teach it. Yo get paid a little and it's really fun. Here is the group I work with:

https://www.eckerd.edu/olli/

 

[CincyDave]

Retired 2 years ago at 63. Happened to luck into a buyout at the same time I was planning to go anyhow. While I do miss the people I worked with, don't miss the job at all. Every day's a weekend. DW is 63 now and working part time. Just gave her notice yesterday. We've recently had several friends either die or come down with serious health issues and she decided enough is enough. Life is too short.

 

[Timeisprecious]

No struggle. After 4.5 years of retirement, and having more than when I retired, I revel in the blissful lazy mental state of "holy cr*p, I am making more money than I need while doing whatever I want" .

+1 - Feeling similarly after 3+ years of retirement.

 

[PandaBear]

I guess I’d be considered a retirement failure, because after retiring in June I just started a 5 month contract to work part time (essentially 40 seven hour days of work over these next 5 months)

It’s so different, as I worked 31 years in the same district and I am helping out in a new one. They are hugely grateful and I was able to negotiate the terms that worked for me (I don’t go in before 10:30 because I go to water aerobics, I choose the days I want to work, I travel about a week a month so don’t go in then and work remote for everything I want).

I don’t envision doing this for many years, but right now, it’s a good fit.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I guess I’d be considered a retirement failure, because after retiring in June I just started a 5 month contract to work part time (essentially 40 seven hour days of work over these next 5 months)

It’s so different, as I worked 31 years in the same district and I am helping out in a new one. They are hugely grateful and I was able to negotiate the terms that worked for me (I don’t go in before 10:30 because I go to water aerobics, I choose the days I want to work, I travel about a week a month so don’t go in then and work remote for everything I want).

I don’t envision doing this for many years, but right now, it’s a good fit.

Retirement should be about doing whatever you choose to do with your time. If the contract work is something you want to do, rather than have to do, there is no failure in my opinion. Especially since you negotiated your terms. Sounds like success to me!

 

[brucethebroker]

I guess I’d be considered a retirement failure, because after retiring in June I just started a 5 month contract to work part time (essentially 40 seven hour days of work over these next 5 months)

It’s so different, as I worked 31 years in the same district and I am helping out in a new one. They are hugely grateful and I was able to negotiate the terms that worked for me (I don’t go in before 10:30 because I go to water aerobics, I choose the days I want to work, I travel about a week a month so don’t go in then and work remote for everything I want).

I don’t envision doing this for many years, but right now, it’s a good fit.

I think that being able to w*rk PT, AND negotiate your terms would be considered a dream retirement by most still working folks! Congrats!

 

[Sunset]

I guess I’d be considered a retirement failure, because after retiring in June I just started a 5 month contract to work part time (essentially 40 seven hour days of work over these next 5 months)

It’s so different, as I worked 31 years in the same district and I am helping out in a new one. They are hugely grateful and I was able to negotiate the terms that worked for me (I don’t go in before 10:30 because I go to water aerobics, I choose the days I want to work, I travel about a week a month so don’t go in then and work remote for everything I want).

I don’t envision doing this for many years, but right now, it’s a good fit.

If you are self employed, then you can open a self 401K IRA & ROTH, these all much larger contributions than the standard IRA & ROTH and you can contribute to the 401K and regular standard IRA/ROTH as you see fit.

Here is the link in case you want to read more, and don't be thrown off by the business aspect as self employed is allowed as sole proprietor, so don't need an LLC/C/other corp.

https://investor.vanguard.com/accounts-plans/small-business-retirement-plans/individual-solo-401k