Retirement - when to take that step (leap?)

[aargee]

I never thought about retirement too much but it seems suddenly in front of me, which I guess is a result of the job turning to corporate crap.
The money thing keeps me here but is getting less and less crucial and I can see the time where I just go and say enough is enough. A lot of anecdotal stories go something like "... I wish I'd done this ages ago".
Retirement seems like a dirty word but I'd consider the move to be more like a change in direction, maybe. I'm not necessarily the one to take up the recliner to set up in front of the TV, decline into an aged stupor, and then 'shuffle off this mortal coil'.

Just wondering how others have handled this and the transition to a better (or worse?) life.

[jmh]

I used to hear people say 'best thing I ever did' and 'dunno how I found the time for work'... and both turned out exactly true. I retired at 58 after going through yet another change of management / direction / ethos in IT where I worked. Got fed up and jumped.

YMMV but I checked carefully that I could actually afford to quit my job and end up with 50% of my original take home pay. But going from the daily struggle through traffic and having to cope with endless useless meetings and management reversals the choice was made for me. I ended up going two years sooner than I had planned - I always thought 60 was a good time to go.

Once I retired I started doing all the things I never really had time for. Passed all 3 of our amateur radio exams, started on a shelf full of electronics projects which were waiting, started to volunteer at a steam railway, finally tidied the workshop up (which lasted a whole week)...

One downside is I can never remember what day of the week it is. One upside is I no longer care when Monday comes.

[AntiProtonBoy]

One thing to keep in mind when retiring is to make sure you have something to do. Not necessarily like a job, but some occupation that's not only relaxing, but also keeps you from idling around and waste away in front of the TV. Some people find retiring difficult (like my old man); they suddenly feel useless and one of the things that made their existence meaningful is now suddenly gone.

Some interesting info about retirement, especially early retirement:
https://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/

[retiredfeline]

Your super fund probably offers (online) seminars and materials on various aspects of the process of retirement. Check them out.

[daqq]

Not necessarily like a job, but some occupation that's not only relaxing, but also keeps you from idling around and waste away in front of the TV. Some people find retiring difficult (like my old man); they suddenly feel useless and one of the things that made their existence meaningful is now suddenly gone.

Had an old colleague who retired - he was that age. He managed to endure a whole month of it, then went back to work.

[jpanhalt]

I can echo all of the earlier comments:
1) Be sure you have enough investments/money;
2) Be sure you have something to do (I volunteered at a local  college to teach for a few years, then bought a "hobby farm");
3) Of course, hobbies fill some of the void but for me quickly get boring; and
4) Do it while you are still healthy (Early 60's was the number for me).

There is nothing worse than having nothing to do.   When I see stories about lavish vacations by the wealthy retired, I am thankful I have something else to do.  I never went on a "real" vacation and enjoyed it.

[nctnico]

Retirement seems like a dirty word but I'd consider the move to be more like a change in direction, maybe. I'm not necessarily the one to take up the recliner to set up in front of the TV, decline into an aged stupor, and then 'shuffle off this mortal coil'.

Just wondering how others have handled this and the transition to a better (or worse?) life.

Become a self employed consultant. That is also kind of being retired. Personally I don't think I'll ever retire - retire.

[PaulAm]

Assuming you have sufficient financial resources, retirement can be the best part of your life

A couple of things you need to do:

A top priority is to maintain physical well being.  So spend an hour a day (you can now afford it!) to walking, working out or whatever physical activity you more or less enjoy.

A second priority is to do things that keep your brain active and engaged.  Learn a new language, continue to do consulting, do the design projects you never had time for, volunteer, etc.  Activities that keep you socially connected are also good.

In the US early retirement is difficult if you're not filthy rich because non-employer medical insurance can easily run you $30K USD per year so I had to wait until I was eligible for retirement health benefits.  I ran my own company so I didn't have management issues, but I still enjoyed closing the books on the last client.  I was planning on continuing working at some level until my financial guy said I didn't have to.  Now I just do the stuff I'm interested in.

I had an appt with my dentist the other day.  He's well into retirement age but keeps working at a  pace that he finds enjoyable.   He schedules enough patients to keep him busy without interfering with the rest of his life, so he has time for grandkids, etc.

So figure out what would work for you, everyone's different.   Some people need more structure than others, just don't sit around glued to Netflix all day.  That's about the worst thing you can do.

[Gregg]

I knew it was time to retire when the corporate management was piling on more work than I could handle with my usual diligence. It seemed to be a long standing tradition to force older employees to go away.  I had known others that handled the deluge of work by reducing the quality of their work and cutting corners to the point where they were forced out with bad reviews or other disciplinary action.
I had never been employed long enough in a single company to qualify for a pension; either from company bankruptcy or I had jumped ship for better positions.  But I had carefully utilized all opportunities to put maximum into retire accounts and take full advantage of all cases where matching funds were paid by the employer at the time.  In addition I put at least 25% of any pay raises into investment funds.  Right after I retired, I found a way to roll multiple retirement funds into a couple of accounts just to keep them all together.
When I was working, I kept backups of my company computer on thumb drives and portable hard drives – they didn’t say I couldn’t and the corporate IT department would push downloads on a regular basis that bricked the PC such that it needed a clean install of their less than stellar corporate image.  But at least I had my data, contacts and backed up emails. It got to the point where I had no data on the PC at all; I just kept it on a thumb drive that I backed up daily. Backed up emails were especially important when the management finger pointing started to look for scapegoats and had saved my reputation on several occasions.
Keeping a list of contacts proved a great asset; I kept in touch with a few people and got a few great consulting jobs after retirement. 
As far as keeping busy, my wife and I have a house that is 120 years old and there is always something to fix or gardening to do.  Keeping active and having some time away from my spouse is a necessity for my sanity; full time playing with electronics isn’t distant enough.

[Jester]

My 2c.
About 10+ years ago, age 50, I had had enough of the short term mentality of the place I was working at. I really didn’t need to work for financial reasons, however I still really enjoy doing electronic design. So I started my own gig basically work when I want to (not summers). I love it and I would never go back. I’m doing less and less these days, just take the interesting low hanging fruit type jobs from good clients and turn away anyone and everything else. My dad was self made, fully retired at 47 and never regretted it for a second. IMO too many people work too long and don’t have enough time to smell the roses.

[Oldtestgear]

Planning for retirement is wise. Sometimes nature intervenes & the best plans go wrong. A very good friend of mine had planned his early retiremt (at 63) with meticulous detail.  Nature had other ideas & he died suddenly 3 months into retirement.  In my case I had plans to quite my job at 55, then become a consultant to the customers I hade been working with. Solid plan that made financial sense if I had been able to implement it. At 47 (in 2005) I became seriously ill & have never been able to do a proper job since. Eventually medical advice was to accept that I would never work again & try to enjoy life.

To be honest I have never been happier as work got in the way of my interests & hobbies.  The best advice anyone can offer is " do what is right for you today"  The future will happen and we cannot control what fate has in store for us.  We may be able to have a marginal effect but the big things in life will juat happen.  Keeping as active as possible is wise but not all of us have that luxury.

Just my thoughts.

Phil

[aargee]

Thanks for all your replies and insights!

[Red Squirrel]

With the constant rising costs of living it made me realize that retirement is probably not realisticly in my future unless I find a way to somehow reduce all those costs.  Been starting to plan more for my future as I really want to retire at a decent age and not have to work through my 60's and beyond and at the current rate of costs of living not only will I still need to work at that age I will probably need a second job too.   I really don't want to work my whole life only to die.

So my goal is to move off grid where I will be able to eliminate most of my bills, especially property taxes.  That goes up by 10% every year and takes up about 1/4 of my pay cheque at this point and will continue to take up more. 

Recently bought 40 acres in an unorganized township where taxes are $100/year instead of like $400/month so I will start to slowly build as time and money allows.  Once I have it setup where I can live there year round I will then start looking at a source of income that does not require to be at a certain place for a certain time, as I'm like an hour out of town.  Since I won't have as many bills I will also won't need to be making as much money so I can take even a part time job or a job where you make your own hours. Basically as long as I can do it remotely I will be able to be very flexible.   Ideally I will want a passive source of income though.

I'm 35, wish I had looked into this plan 10 years ago since I feel I'm getting started late.  Will probably take like 5-10 years before I have the homestead ready and I'll be in my 40's.   10 years ago my finances were not as tight as they are now though, I only started to realize in past few years how much costs of living keep going up and how I'm heading towards a point where my costs will exceed my income.  I make good money too so not like jumping to another ship will help much.   If anything it would set me back more as I would need to build up seniority again.   So reducing my costs of living while living a more laid back life style seems like a win win to me. I miss the days where I didn't work and used to go camping a lot.   Being off grid is basically going to be 24/7 camping, but with the amenities of home.

[Bud]

"Camping a lot" made you feel great but that did Not hep build your assets, it was a liability and you were just burning your life.  What you are trying to do now makes much more sense, however I'd carefully explore local Regulations / Laws applicable to it. The $100/ year may well turn to something different once you build a permanent place of living on the land as it will be classified differently. It is likely all sort of licenses and permissions will be required for construction. And by the time you hit 60 the town may move closer and be at your doorsteps. The Taxman knows his shit 

[Red Squirrel]

Not sure what you mean about camping being a liability, it was just something I did for fun and was a kid back then hence not needing to work.   Used to go with my grandparents.  My parents never been into it so once I started to work and my grandparents stopped going regularly I basically had no place to go which was one motive for buying this land. But may as well do more than just  a campground.

Thankfully in unorganized township there's no permits or any of that BS needed to build so it's probably the closest thing to freedom that you can get in this ridiculous society.  I did hear that they sometimes still send assessors in cottage areas though but I'm not lake front or in cottage country so will hopefully be safe from that.   But either way it's still better than being in the city.

Though I do worry that they could eventually amalgamate with the town and no longer be unorganized but no sense in worrying about that now.  I just pray it does not happen.  But if it does hopefully there will still be unorganized land available at that point.  I will probably want to buy something higher north like James or Hudson Bay area if ever I see land become for sale in those areas, just so I have a backup plan.   With climate change I think we're going to see changes for the worse society and weather wise but maybe up there will basically be the same as what it's like here now.

[james_s]

"Camping a lot" made you feel great but that did Not hep build your assets, it was a liability and you were just burning your life.  What you are trying to do now makes much more sense, however I'd carefully explore local Regulations / Laws applicable to it. The $100/ year may well turn to something different once you build a permanent place of living on the land as it will be classified differently. It is likely all sort of licenses and permissions will be required for construction. And by the time you hit 60 the town may move closer and be at your doorsteps. The Taxman knows his shit 

Personally I wish I had spent more time camping and doing other enjoyable things in my youth when I had the time, the social circle and the youthful health to make it more enjoyable. The older you get the harder it is to do that stuff, assets aren't everything.

[victorb]

Retirement definitely snuck up on me too. I was in a similar boat, feeling burnt out and realizing I didn't want to wait until I was too old to enjoy life. So, I started planning my exit strategy early, focusing on what truly made me happy. This was going on trips with my family.

[Smokey]

Retirement seems like a dirty word but I'd consider the move to be more like a change in direction, maybe. I'm not necessarily the one to take up the recliner to set up in front of the TV, decline into an aged stupor, and then 'shuffle off this mortal coil'.

Just wondering how others have handled this and the transition to a better (or worse?) life.

Become a self employed consultant. That is also kind of being retired. Personally I don't think I'll ever retire - retire.

This one.  Assuming you actually have a truly marketable skill and have spent at least a little time thinking about how to personally market that skill.  If you have only been a company man your entire carrier and just show up to work and stay in your corner, it may be a shock actually needing to convince someone you don't already know that they should pay you real money for something.  The nature of the work also needs to be that you can do it mostly independently and don't rely on equipment or outside expertise you won't necessarily have. 

Note:  This is sort of good advice for anyone, not just the retired-curious.  At least something to consider.

[tom66]

Consider a 3-4 day week, with reduced salary, before you retire.

See how you enjoy the extra time off traded against the pay reduction.

As nctnico points out, it may be possible to work as a contractor while retired, though in some cases that may impact your pension access.

[Wil_Bloodworth]

I've done the math... I can probably retire when I after I turn 137.  Anytime before that and I'll just have to live under a bridge and eat squirrel.

- Wil

[CatalinaWOW]

Most of the advice here is good, but actually impossible to follow.  For example:  Make sure you have enough money/income.  But no one knows how long they will live, nor how their expenses will be over decades.  Since it is impossible to do an accurate assessment the secret is to be comfortable with the decision without having hard facts. 

The decision is personal and will be different for everyone. My decision which was based on a combination of factors (not being able to perform at the bleeding edge all the time, family history indicating I might not live all that long, and a regrettable work experience, among others).  Life since retirement has taken a couple of unexpected and unplanned turns, but as with others who have commented I am completely happy with decision.  A few more years could have dramatically increased the nest egg, but even looking back I wouldn't trade the experiences for the money.  That could change somewhere down the line as a result of further life events or in the world around me, but that is one of those unpredictable situations.

[thermistor-guy]

...
Just wondering how others have handled this and the transition to a better (or worse?) life.

I am looking at retirement but can't quite afford it yet. So, similar to what others have advised:

* Make sure you can afford retirement. Do you have a financial plan that shows it's feasible?

* Watch out for retirement homes. If you think you will end up in one, be prepared. The decent ones
are very expensive, with large bonds upfront (roughly AUD 600k per person). Most are not fit to house
livestock.

* Put the effort into staying healthy and active, so your mind and and body function well, and you can
enjoy life. Nothing worse than being trapped in a weak body that hurts, unable to think clearly, taking
medication that depresses you, suffering at the hands of incompetent doctors, all the while leaking
money through medical bills.

 * Think about how you will spend your time. Some people feel lost when they retire.
(I have so many things lined up that I want to do. As soon as I can afford it, I'm out.)

[5U4GB]

Not necessarily like a job, but some occupation that's not only relaxing, but also keeps you from idling around and waste away in front of the TV. Some people find retiring difficult (like my old man); they suddenly feel useless and one of the things that made their existence meaningful is now suddenly gone.

Had an old colleague who retired - he was that age. He managed to endure a whole month of it, then went back to work.

Was going to say the same thing, there's several not-really-retired neighbours close to me, all of whom kept doing what they'd done while fully employed, just on a part-time basis: Two teachers who still teach part-time, an EE who still works 1-2 days a week to keep his hand in, a carpenter who spends most of the day in his workshop... all of these guys are in their 70s and still doing what they enjoyed and/or were used to.

I suspect their wives aren't complaining about having them out of the way a good chunk of the time either.

[nctnico]

Most of the advice here is good, but actually impossible to follow.  For example:  Make sure you have enough money/income.

Over here you can buy/save for a fixed monthly pension from an insurance company. That way the person who dies at 60 pays for the income for the person who lives to be 100.

[guenthert]

Re: finances

Many years ago, when the social security administration still sent out letters in snail mail stating (paraphrasing) "if you continue to earn this much, you will have so much in retirement".  I thought then, well, shit, that isn't even paying the rent.

Not too long ago, I got squeezed out of work (they wanted us to do 60h weeks with no reason given and no outlook of improvement  -- when that company already lost half their support staff a year earlier; I presume in a similar stunt) and found it difficult to get hired again (IT in the S.F. Bay area undergoes some transformation).  I counted my coins and figured I should be ok (assuming no major turmoil in the financial market, but if something like the Great Depression reoccurs in our lifetime, we're screwed in any case).  Funny enough though, I had an advisor at Fidelity walk me through a retirement plan and his Monte Carlo simulations suggested that I need to work til I'm 70.  He however didn't take into consideration (even though I explicitly stated as much) that I do expect to receive social security (which ain't all that much, but more than the average retiree gets in Germany) and that I'm free to move to an area of cheaper cost of living (which I did meanwhile).

I have now doubts, that those financial advisors really have my best interest in mind. ;-}