I retired after a 30-year corporate career when my employer reorganized my job away. I had been planning loosely to retire within two years or so, but the nudge from the reorg fall out was decisive. Some years prior, my wife had switched from corporate work to a second career as an artisan cheesemaker and vendor.
Financially, we are in decent shape. FireCalc says 95% - 100% success on a 34 year window (to age 96) without considering SS which we will likely defer to age 70.
Financial Challenges since my retirement:
- Adjusting emotionally to entering withdrawal phase. We have two accounts with scheduled distributions that fund most of our expenses. But I still had my taxable brokerage accounts set up for dividend reinvestment until TODAY.
- Complications of owning signficant financial assets overseas. We had company pensions from our time in the UK that we transferred in 2019 into the SIPPs, the UK equivalent of an IRA, more or less. Financially rewarding but at the cost of much tax and financial asset reporting. Happy to swap stories with others wrestling with FATCA, FBAR, Form 8938 compliance.
Life Surprises since retirement:
- We've done some significant things, but not the ones we thought we'd do (walk the Camino de Santiago, take a touring vacation in Australia)
- I never expected to miss my commute. I have grown to like the 90 minutes a day in a bubble with my podcast playlist.
Overall, I always aspire to, and mostly achieve the experience of a former colleague who had retired at age 50 and wrote to me at my retirement that he "wake up each day like it’s the first day of the summer holidays, and I go to bed each night feeling I have done less than I wanted
Financially, we are in decent shape. FireCalc says 95% - 100% success on a 34 year window (to age 96) without considering SS which we will likely defer to age 70.
Financial Challenges since my retirement:
- Adjusting emotionally to entering withdrawal phase. We have two accounts with scheduled distributions that fund most of our expenses. But I still had my taxable brokerage accounts set up for dividend reinvestment until TODAY.
- Complications of owning signficant financial assets overseas. We had company pensions from our time in the UK that we transferred in 2019 into the SIPPs, the UK equivalent of an IRA, more or less. Financially rewarding but at the cost of much tax and financial asset reporting. Happy to swap stories with others wrestling with FATCA, FBAR, Form 8938 compliance.
Life Surprises since retirement:
- We've done some significant things, but not the ones we thought we'd do (walk the Camino de Santiago, take a touring vacation in Australia)
- I never expected to miss my commute. I have grown to like the 90 minutes a day in a bubble with my podcast playlist.
Overall, I always aspire to, and mostly achieve the experience of a former colleague who had retired at age 50 and wrote to me at my retirement that he "wake
