HFWR
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Just gonna be one word. Retired. With a big smile of course.
I'm thinking two: P*ss off...
Just gonna be one word. Retired. With a big smile of course.
Five years after it's passage and all of the news coverage and controversy, especially over the past 6 months, have people still not heard of ObamaCare? That's kind of frightening.
Now, now.......
Being in your 40's and telling your friends you are retired is like being at a banquet and showing your steak to the starving beggars at the window.
I learned that first-hand.
I just tell people I'm retired. Some will look at me and say' "You look too young to be retired." My response, which I smile stating, "I am can assure you I'm old enough to be retired."
Occasionally someone will ask what I did for a living. My stock answer is, "I worked hard."
Usually that is enough and they talk about something else.
One thing I've found interesting. We bought a travel trailer and now camp about 100 days per year. We've made a number of new friends at camping rallies over the past two years. Most are financially independent early retirees about our age. We much prefer towing our travel trailer a few hundred miles to a state park and meeting up with a few of our camping friends four or five times a year for a few days than socializing with our old acquaintances from megacorp.
AJ,Thanks for sharing some very good points, NC. I have thought about the camping thing also. It has been over 30 years since we camped much, but having time and resources to have a travel trailer and go when and where you want sounds nice, and I had thought about the possibility of meeting other FIRE folks as well. I'm not familiar with "camping rallies", can you elaborate a bit on that? Thanks!
That's a good answer. I usually went for the French shrug myself.I just tell people I'm retired. Some will look at me and say' "You look too young to be retired." My response, which I smile stating, "I am can assure you I'm old enough to be retired."
I can understand the possibility for folks who retire really early, say in your late 30's or early 40's, to be questioned about it since it's unusual and few make it to FIRE by then. But for folks working part time (often mistakenly called ESR) or for folks well into their 50's, being questioned about being retired doesn't pass my common sense test. I can't imagine the circumstances where someone might give you a hard time for being retired and especially for only working part time.
I can understand the possibility for folks who retire really early, say in your late 30's or early 40's, to be questioned about it since it's unusual and few make it to FIRE by then. But for folks working part time (often mistakenly called ESR) or for folks well into their 50's, being questioned about being retired doesn't pass my common sense test. I can't imagine the circumstances where someone might give you a hard time for being retired and especially for only working part time.
for folks well into their 50's, being questioned about being retired doesn't pass my common sense test. I can't imagine the circumstances where someone might give you a hard time for being retired.