What Was Your Retirement T=0?

When Does Retirement Start?

  • 1 - End of full time employment (if before #2)

    Votes: 90 43.5%
  • 2 - Collecting employer pension

    Votes: 11 5.3%
  • 3 - Collecting Social Security

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4 - End of paid w*rk

    Votes: 100 48.3%
  • 5 - Received a windfall (inheritance, insurance, lottery, etc.)

    Votes: 3 1.4%
  • 6 - Based on reaching a nest egg goal or FIRE confidence

    Votes: 22 10.6%
  • 7 - It's complicated...

    Votes: 23 11.1%

  • Total voters
    207
I voted end of paid work. Last day of work was March 29, 2013 at age 56. First pension check received April 1, 2013. Last payroll direct deposit April 5, 2013.
I gave three months notice and used up three weeks vacation during that time. The last two weeks were mostly training the new person.
DW, the same age, chose to work three more years even though she didn’t need to.
 
#1 and #4 coincide for me. Officially, my last day was 12/31/12, but we lived overseas, and for expatriate tax purposes, we relocated back to the US from Asia a few days before that, just to avoid triggering taxes on my “parachute” in the country where I had been working. (Parachute was provided to me in exchange for working a couple extra years beyond what I had planned, and yes, it was gilded because I was hard to replace, they needed me to stay, and needed me to not go to the competition). As a courtesy, I stayed available for phone conversations for a couple of months, in case advice was needed.
 
Difficult question. Just checked and the last time social security says I had earned income was 1991 at age 42. $8174 worth. Thing is, we were building our stock of rentals up and this lad was getting plenty of unpaid work as a plumber, electrician, painter, roofer, cleaner, manager, etc. keeping the places running and pushing the maximum amount of the rent received at the property loans, which were all over 11%. Felt like paying the loans down was like a great guaranteed earning on investment and didn't feel retired at all.
Eighteen years later we were rolling, I was 60, and we were going to sell the places off - but oops - property values crashed. Rent kept coming in though, so we kept renting the places out, though I hired out more of the work. Couple years later we bought a place in SoCal, and we started doing six months in the winter down there. Still have19 apartments, but we're getting there, and my hands on involvement is paltry. At 74 I'm now putting "retired" in the little boxes that ask about employment, but darned if I could give a retirement date.
 
Stable work was my boundary. Layoffs and temping and intermittent employment became the new normal. And then it zeroed out entirely. Stable ended in 01, intermittent ended in 08. Called it unemployment for the first 2 years. Hard to stay with that term 16 years later.
 
Mine was 10/02/2020 Friday. Was chosen by my employer (laid off), all team's work finally transferred to the India team (software). Could have stayed and worked on another project, but the package was too good and the time was right. I was 51 years old. It was not quite abrupt. We were notified in January of that year that October would be our last day possible. The time in between was allowed to ship a release and then train the India team. We got paid a severance based on years worked, plus 2 extra weeks pay for each month we worked during that time. Anyone that could find a position elsewhere in the company was free to do so. They would not receive the severance, but could get the extra 2 weeks pay for the training time worked.

I think it was perfect. I would have been in one-more-year syndrome otherwise.
 
Although my last day of work was the end of June, I had so many personal family obligations to deal with in July and August that, until they were completed my mid-August, I did not truly feel retired. Once they were completed, and I was able to wake up and realize I could now choose what I wanted to do that day, and for the rest of the week and month, I finally felt retired :).
Mine was similar. I retired from work at 59 on March 30, 2019 but had heavy family caretaking duties. That ended March 2023 at age 63. Now I am having a great retirement!
 
I did one "pick-up" j*b after retirement - just for fun (not so much as it turned out.) One summer, I repositioned cars which was 3 to 6 hours, one day per week. That was the year after I officially retired. I don't count that as "un-retiring" but YMMV.
 
It's complicated. I quit my job due to workload, stress, and deteriorating health. I didn't have a job lined up because I needed a break and I was honest with myself in that I would have been a horrible employee due to my burned out mindset at the time. Was going to take a couple months and then start looking.

Then parent passed after 5 months (she fell the day after I sent off my first resume, so yeah, I took more than a couple months), knew it wouldn't be a good time to get a job while I was doing the probate. In the meantime, I knew what the windfall was, and was crunching numbers a hundred different ways, because my plan had me working another 6 years to 60. Went ahead and set my decision date at 1 year after I quit my job, probate was wrapped up a month before. Decided I could do it financially, and didn't want to go back to work (so, yes, I retired from something...oh well).

When people ask what I do, I say I quit working and then decided to make it permanent. ;)
 
#1, 2, and 4 for me - they all happened at the same time.
 
I voted end of paid work. Retired June 2023 close to my birthday at age 62. Only income now is coming from our investments until wife is 66 when she starts SS and I'm 70 when I start SS.

Cheers.
 
With a respectful nod to Audreyh1 and her 25 years retired, how does everyone define their retirement start date? I suspect it is very subjective.

IMHO i started retirement when I controlled my schedule, so no full time employment. That's >10 years.

But if retirement starts when pay checks stop, then I'm not yet retired based on occasional consulting income.

I don't expect a universal answer but I'm interested in the consensus.
October 5th 2018, official last day, had my phone exit interview sipping a nice whiskey on the beach. Gave notice mid August and phoned everything in after that. I suppose I should vote "It's complicated" I really retired the day I gave my notice.
 
FI is much easier to define than RE. FI is a mostly a pecuniary matter... dollars in, dollars, out, investments to support the transaction. For some of us here, there's a long runway between FI and RE, possibly even decades.

Retirement was easier to define in the day of.... defined (not coincidentally!) benefit pensions. Upon receiving such a pension, a person become retired, even if immediately going for a second full-time job. Right? The "retirement" was less about cessation of remunerated labor, than of achieving some badge of seniority and recognition of labor. Even today, we speak of military officers who did their full-20, and then retired... as "retired".

Example: Smith reached O-5 in the Army, retiring after 23 years of service, at age 45. Smith realized that he won't make O-6, and therefore declined his final relocation offer, choosing to retire instead. Knowing that he's due for a decent pension, Smith never did save much money. He's not FI. A few weeks after leaving the Army, Smith went to work full-time for Lockheed Martin. Though his cubicle-mates regard him as just another employee, Smith can legitimately call himself a "retired military officer". And we thank him for his service.

On the other hand, Jones started at Lockheed Martin right after getting his electrical engineering degree at Georgia Tech. He was at Lockheed for 28 years, until getting downsized, at age 50. Jones saved his nickels, investing them in the S&P 500, so he's comfortably FI. But feeling distraught at losing his job, Jones returned to GA Tech as a part-time adjunct professor. He's been there for 5 years now. Is Jones retired?

In this vignette, Jones is nearly a decade older than Smith, has considerably more money, has more years of full-time employment, and is currently working fewer hours a week than Smith. Even so, I'd say that Smith is retired, but Jones isn't.
 
October 5th 2018, official last day, had my phone exit interview sipping a nice whiskey on the beach. Gave notice mid August and phoned everything in after that. I suppose I should vote "It's complicated" I really retired the day I gave my notice.
I like your style! Call in from the beach - a real classic FIRE move if ever there was one. All I did was walk out for the last time. Doesn't have the same ring.:flowers:
 
I'm old school. Not sure when retirement became anything other than no longer working for pay.
 
FI is much easier to define than RE. FI is a mostly a pecuniary matter... dollars in, dollars, out, investments to support the transaction. For some of us here, there's a long runway between FI and RE, possibly even decades.

Retirement was easier to define in the day of.... defined (not coincidentally!) benefit pensions. Upon receiving such a pension, a person become retired, even if immediately going for a second full-time job. Right? The "retirement" was less about cessation of remunerated labor, than of achieving some badge of seniority and recognition of labor. Even today, we speak of military officers who did their full-20, and then retired... as "retired".

Example: Smith reached O-5 in the Army, retiring after 23 years of service, at age 45. Smith realized that he won't make O-6, and therefore declined his final relocation offer, choosing to retire instead. Knowing that he's due for a decent pension, Smith never did save much money. He's not FI. A few weeks after leaving the Army, Smith went to work full-time for Lockheed Martin. Though his cubicle-mates regard him as just another employee, Smith can legitimately call himself a "retired military officer". And we thank him for his service.

On the other hand, Jones started at Lockheed Martin right after getting his electrical engineering degree at Georgia Tech. He was at Lockheed for 28 years, until getting downsized, at age 50. Jones saved his nickels, investing them in the S&P 500, so he's comfortably FI. But feeling distraught at losing his job, Jones returned to GA Tech as a part-time adjunct professor. He's been there for 5 years now. Is Jones retired?

In this vignette, Jones is nearly a decade older than Smith, has considerably more money, has more years of full-time employment, and is currently working fewer hours a week than Smith. Even so, I'd say that Smith is retired, but Jones isn't.
Nice scenarios. IMHO neither are retired, Smith has a pension and a FT job. Jones has FI, with a boss who sets his schedule. But, it's complicated.
The bottom line for me is freedom to control your schedule. For example, I have accepted one 4 hour session in the last 8 weeks of the year.
 
Back
Top Bottom