Why aren't I more excited?

[Al18]

Retirement is all about reinventing yourself. It’s sort of like adjusting to a new job, but more change. You’ll need to figure out what you will to do fill your time - more vacations, social activities, etc. Here’s a related blog post 9 Proven Ways To Boost Your Happiness in Retirement - The Retirement Manifesto

 

[Koolau]

Retirement is all about reinventing yourself. It’s sort of like adjusting to a new job, but more change. You’ll need to figure out what you will to do fill your time - more vacations, social activities, etc. Here’s a related blog post 9 Proven Ways To Boost Your Happiness in Retirement - The Retirement Manifesto

Also ER is about flexibility. You learn as you go and then adapt. Also, as your health begins to change, you may find flexibility as important as an adequate stash.

 

[tulak]

I don't have many answers, since I'm still working. But I have hit some numbers, and over the last few years, they've come quicker than I expected. So it does make me wonder if they are real.

It could also be that a minimum number isn't quite enough. It's a gradual process getting to that number and if it doesn't allow any difference in spending, then besides not having to work - which is huge! - you're still living the same lifestyle.

But I will say, congrats!

It's still quite an accomplishment.

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

For my wife and me, there wasn't an initial feeling of excitement. But one year on now when we're both retired, we're feeling very grateful and content.

We just finished a month-long vacation in New Zealand. We flew business class. Like we do on most travel adventures we go on, we often reflect on how incredibly lucky we are. Our flight back home had been cancelled and I type this now while sitting in our room at a five star hotel in Singapore waiting to get back home. We had a wonderful lunch, and a wonderful glass of wine. Tonight, we're dining at an outstanding French restaurant that we had been to before on a previous planned stay in Singapore.

We're able to do these things because we had/have options - options that the vast majority of people don't have. We're incredibly grateful and content. And the feeling is ongoing.

 

[pacergal]

Congratulations on hitting your number. You will most likely know when you are ready to retire, or when your work BS meter starts buzzing, even self employed.

A book I frequently recommend is Ernie Zelinski "How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free". Learned about it here on the forum.
Start thinking of what you want to retire to, not from.

 

[Gumby]

Retirement is not a requirement once you hit your number, it's an option. If you're still enjoying work, then don't stop and spend some time thinking about what you want to do with your life after retirement. When you get excited about that, then it will be time to retire.

 

[NeilDH]

I think one more year syndrome feels more like what jumping out of an airplane into the great unknown would feel like. You look at your numbers and where you are in life and it really requires a leap of faith to hand in you resignations and turn off the income streams. You give into the fear and tell yourself I will see how it goes this year. I did it because I liked what I was doing for the most part. It was when they assigned me new daily tasked I dreaded doing that I finally had that push out of the plane. It's pretty great once you do make the leap but do it when you are ready.

Largely this for me. And then like others said, it was more relief for DW and me (FIREd at same time, worked in same place) — a really big relief, frankly. We enjoyed just ... sitting and taking our time.

But it was definitely weird at first. You'll figure it out — and you can take your time to figure it out. As I was advised here, you don't have to figure it out all at once now.

 

[JohnnyPHX]

Could it be the Matrix effect?
To me money seemed more relatable/real when we used to get that physical paycheck handed to us every other Friday that we would have to go and deposit at the local bank. We had a checkbook with that little register we kept track of the balance in manually.
Now everything is automated and the money just magically shows up. Your cyber money is deposited into your cyber accounts in the big beautiful cloud we call the Internets. Kind of scary to have all this cyber money out there floating around in the Matrix as just 0's and 1's. For me anyways staring at the numbers on a screen just doesn't have the same wow factor even though they are larger than I ever thought they could be. I am glad we have had the opportunities we have due to the Internet and cyber investing but it still feels very Matrixy unreal at times. I guess surreal might be a good way to describe the feeling?

 

[Midpack]

My guess is the lack of excitement is

- you don’t hate your job or maybe like it
- you don’t have any things that you are chomping at the bit to do during retirement

Nothing wrong with either but may reduce the excitement.

Reaching FI and retiring are separate milestones. Just because you reach FI, that does not mean you should retire. I felt very satisfied and more secure when I reached FI, but did not retire for another 6 years when I'd really had more than enough of the career. If your job is tolerable and/or you don't really have something to retire to, there's nothing wrong with continuing to work.

It is important to have something to retire to. Some people naturally fall into a good next chapter without much thought, but not everyone. Hard as it is for some in this crowd to believe, there are some people who find retirement boring and depressing - usually those who didn't realize their identity/social status was tied to their job. The husband of my wife's best friend retired and he just mopes around the house all day, doesn't want to go anywhere/do anything, and his health is suffering for it. He really thought he was a big deal at work, though he really wasn't - some people live to have some authority over others and when that ceases, they can't deal.

 

[Koolau]

I've shared many times that I stayed at Megacorp 7 years beyond my Financial Independence Day. I did so because that was what I wanted to do at that time. It was much less about padding my Retirement Stash than reaping the benefits of many years of preparation for the assignment I finally got to live out. The day that assignment changed was the day I decided to leave (the next week).

It's your retirement. Do what pleases you with that Retirement.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

TLR: I’ve essentially reached my minimum FIRE number at 54. Why don’t I feel more excited?


In my 30s, I had a serious health issue. I survived, obviously, but it changed my outlook. At the time we had two young kids, and it forced me to think hard about what would happen if I wasn’t around. That experience pushed me to set a goal of being able to retire by 55. I figured frugality was the best way to provide for my family if **** happened — and if it didn’t, having a lot of retirement savings would be a pretty favorable outcome.


My wife and I were always savers and generally debt-averse, but after that we doubled down. We stayed in our first house, drive older cars (currently a 2012 CR-V and a ’93 F-150 are the daily drivers), buy used when it makes sense, and have kept lifestyle inflation in check. We do have a couple of indulgences — a woodstove-heated 1970s cabin in the mountains and a restored 1976 Monte Carlo — but overall we’ve lived pretty modestly.


We’re essentially debt-free now and nearly done cash-flowing our youngest child’s college. My wife is a civil servant, and I run a nonprofit recovery community center that I started 10 years ago. We’ve never made huge salaries, but through steady saving and investing we’ve reached the point where one of us could retire now — and both of us could likely retire within 2–3 years while maintaining our current lifestyle.


So here’s the part I didn’t expect:


I’ve basically reached the minimum number I was aiming for… and I’m not particularly excited.


No fireworks. No big emotional payoff. Just… okay.


Is this what “One More Year” syndrome looks like? Or is this something else?

Here's an observation. I've seen people reach smaller financial goals on their way to retirement. When some people reach a goal they get so excited that they blow it and have to start over.

Some of us are wired differently and can handle reaching the goal and keeping our heads in place. Your discipline is probably the biggest reason you reached your goal.

Congratulations!

 

[sengsational]

I remember reading this board and then doing calculations for the first time and posting (some number of years of savings at my current burn rate). One of the members here said "why are you still working?" The light bulb went on, but I had a good boss and a satisfying job, work from home, so I just kept going. But the inability to take a long trip nagged at me. Then the company got sold, lost my good boss and it became no fun. I walked, and it felt good! Knowing you have options isn't really about excitement at hitting a milestone, it's more about having an in-control attitude.

 

[Koolau]

Here's an observation. I've seen people reach smaller financial goals on their way to retirement. When some people reach a goal they get so excited that they blow it and have to start over.

Some of us are wired differently and can handle reaching the goal and keeping our heads in place. Your discipline is probably the biggest reason you reached your goal.

Congratulations!

I think this is an excellent point. Most of us who've reached our FIRE goals were disciplined and so there's really no great "surprise" when we do reach our goals. They can seem almost anticlimactic. BUT celebrate your self discipline in your own "disciplined" way!!

 

[RxMan]

Honestly, I was excited to hit early milestones: reaching $10000 or $100000 in retirement savings. Those were numbers that were difficult to reach and very meaningful to me. They also required a lot of contributions because the money wasn’t yet earning a lot on its own.

At higher levels, your money starts to work harder for you. I remember the first year my money made more in earnings than I made in salary at my job. I was shocked more than excited.

To be fair, there were unemployment stints coupled with higher returns that made this feat possible a little sooner than expected. Nevertheless, it was an eye opener to think that my money out earned me.

Things tend to be more abstract as your account balance grows. Part of it is the nature of fully digital accounts. It doesn’t feel as real but more like simple numbers on a screen.

My perspective is this: it’s not the excitement of eventually being able to retire and do what I want. It’s the realization that I no longer depend on a job for financial stability as I did when I was younger.

That realization is more important than actually acting on it. If I continue to work for 5 more years I can still retire before the age of 60 which is pretty good in my opinion.

I get more excited about finding out my nephew has a new part time job at a fast food restaurant. He’s learning about hard work and responsibility.

Honestly, there’s no correct way to react in your situation. Take satisfaction in the fruit of your labor by whatever means you choose. I just want to say congratulations.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

OP, the reason you are not excited is the same reason you got there.

Congratulations and enjoy yourself. Thanks for posting.

 

[jollystomper]

TLR: I’ve essentially reached my minimum FIRE number at 54. Why don’t I feel more excited?

...

Is this what “One More Year” syndrome looks like? Or is this something else?

The question to ask yourself is "what does this mean in terms of my future plans?"

Your reaction is not uncommon for many goals - sometimes you reach a goal, and, for whatever reason, it does not make you feel as you thought you would. In some cases it might be a "is that all there is?" situation.

One approach is to think about, given this knowledge, how will you choose to continue your life with this in place. For example, If you love your job, are dong well, and it is safe, you might choose to keep working and not think about retiring - but you might feel better since you have that initial "FIRE" cushion in place in a worse case scenario. Or, you might think more about what you want (instead of need) to spend in retirement, and ponder "do I want to retire at a minimum, or do I want to go OMY and build up to have more than a minimum "FIRE" retirement?

It might also be "I can retire, but to do what??" In which case one can start considering "if I were to retire, what would I want to do?", and keep working while one figures that out.

Making the foundation might not be exciting, but thinking about how you might want to build on that foundation can be exciting.

In my particular case. I hit Megacorp retirement eligibility at age 51. That was more of a sense of relief than excitement. It was "if I lose my job now, at least I could have some monies coming in and some benefits while I look for another job". Then, at age 54 the Megacorp provided financial advisor said we had enough to retire for a "good" retirement. After joining this site at that point, and learning about FIRECalc, as well as using the Fidelity retirement planner, those planners were fairly consistent with the financial advisor report. At that point I still loved my job, but I seriously thought about "how much would we need for an "extravagant" retirement - having enough to do what we want, without ever having to think about working again if we chose not to. That lead to enough OMY years to build up additional funds at finally retire at 60.

Certainly a lot *could* have happened during my OMY years to regret delaying... but in my view I was more comfortable taking that risk to get to that "extravagant" level.

The process is different for everyone. But maybe something in what I mentioned might help you think about the next step.

 

[livingalmostlarge]

congratulations! It's a number that means nothing until you retire! I have that feeling all the time. We hit our number and here we are working. It's not OMY for us. it's hmm hurry up and graduate kids.

 

[Surewhitey]

We always look for accomplishments and reflect back on them.

The big ones are paying off the house, DD college and married, moved to Cali, building our first mil NW, moving to Mexico for 3 years, moving back to DFW and grands, reaching 3 mil, starting my coast biz, DW going to 4 day WW from home, lots more travel, growth outpacing income... Basically the past 25 years of life.

Always looking for a different way we're winning...