Spouse Older - Retiring Together or Separate

[38Chevy454]

Take the package. Time > Money

X2, retire and enjoy the time with your wife being also retired.

 

[NW-Bound]

Many people have found out that in retirement their expenses drop quite a bit. They now have time to shop for bargains, or simply find no need to shop as much. They also discover new ways to entertain themselves less costly.

A lot depends on the amount of discretionary spending in your budget. Hence, before retiring, people spend some effort to track their spending to know what they spend money on. It is so obvious, but I did not know what I had to do. When I first came here to this forum, I was impressed how posters knew more about their finances than I did mine.

You may know and do all the above already. If so, my apology for bringing it up.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Many people have found out that in retirement their expenses drop quite a bit. They now have time to shop for bargains, or simply find no need to shop as much. They also discover new ways to entertain themselves less costly.

A lot depends on the amount of discretionary spending in your budget. Hence, before retiring, people spend some effort to track their spending to know what they spend money on. It is so obvious, but I did not know what I had to do. When I first came here to this forum, I was impressed how posters knew more about their finances than I did mine.

You may know and do all the above already. If so, my apology for bringing it up.

Our annual expenses were more than the OPs before we retired and now they are much less for actually an improved lifestyle over what we had before, even in a very high cost of living area. We found it helpful to compare our budget to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, and a few things jumped out right away that we addressed, like groceries and hair salons. If I had to do it over again I would have optimized all our expenses and retired even earlier. Retirement is great. We've found a of lot fun things to do with our time that don't cost a fortune, like plays and concerts with seat filler tickets or wine country with a Groupon special.

 

[tbis]

So...here's the latest update: I took the package and am coming up on a month in to my "retirement"!

Unfortunately, I have been sick with one health issue or another the entire time (still am!). Not a fun first month. At least my investments have all skyrocketed...oh wait...nope!

Honestly, given my over-reliance on equities in my investment accounts (and pain that is likely still to come as recession hits and the "down earnings" reports arrive), I have a strong feeling I'll be back at work inside of the next 18 months...minimally just to give me more dang runway. I have resisted the urge to re-run Firecalc since I pulled the trigger (note: being sick really helps with that), but not pretty so far I'm sure.

We'll see how month #2 goes!

 

[MarieIG]

Congrats on your retirement and/or sabbatical. Sounds as if you needed the rest.

Feel free to visit us on other threads from time to time.