I've been working since the 1990's, live a pretty conservative life, and met with my financial adviser two weeks ago. He told me there was no reason I needed to work beyond 58. Based on our spending habits and even if we bumped it up considerably that there would be no way we would expend what we have put back into retirement and into our investments.

I honestly, never thought I'd see this day and never really planned on retiring. My grandfather pretty much worked until he died, I see my dad doing the same thing. They were both farmers, I am not.

Retiring now scares the crap out of me and gets me kind of excited as to all the lead and brass I would have time to play with. I honestly have no idea what I would do without working. I use to be a workaholic when I was younger, but realized what I was missing at home an curtailed that in 2010. I have two kids out of the house permanently and one finishing high school in another year. His college, if he wants it, is 100% paid for free and clear. Won't cost me a dime.

So, I ask the now retired form members and perhaps those planning to retire, how did you determine what you wanted to do. A lifetime of "Honey-Do" lists do not appeal to me.

Right now 2.5 years to go for me. I don’t have everything figured out, planning to hold off with SS until 67.

In full disclosure I now have an ex wife, no other choice. That set me back some but zero regrets, still doing ok.

Nobody laid on their death bed and wished they had spent more time working but they do wish they had spent more time with family, traveling, serving God, and helping others. I retired at 55 in 2016 and I keep myself busy with a few ministries at my church, I travel once or twice a year, I go to the gym 5 days a week and I have a couple home improvement projects to keep me busy and some days it's ok to do nothing. Engage your wife in the process, ask her opinion, what activities does she enjoy, and include those in your retirement plan.

The key to a successful retirement is finding things to keep you busy in place of the time you spent at work. You already have one hobby, shooting, so find a few other things you'll enjoy doing to fill out your day. I find helping people very rewarding and I teach a Bible study twice a week, Tuesday evening at a drug treatment center and Wednesday online.

I love retirement and wouldn’t think about returning to a full time job but a part time job a few hours a week doing something you'll enjoy could work for you like working part time at a gun shop or sporting goods store. Again the key to a successful retirement is keeping busy but busy spending time with family, busy with hobbies, busy helping others.

I retired in 2011 to take care of my wife fighting cancer. Planned on going back to work after she passed in 2012. Never did. I get up, I shoot, volunteer some, sometimes I do other stuff, but mostly not. If you are financially secure, retirement is right up there with sliced bread and toilet paper.

My first response is to realize you don't need to act immediately. Give yourself time. Your second paragraph is a good indication of why. You had one of life's AH-HA moments. Let the thought settle in and bounce around a bit.

I am retired. I retired over 4 years ago at age 66. How did I determine what I wanted to do? My plan was keep doing things I enjoy, exercise my body and mind and give back to me community.

One needs to look at what one doesn't want to do. For me it's a short list. I started carrying papers at age 12. To me that means from age 12 to age 66 some part of my time was controlled by my job. Retirement meant stopping that. I want to be where I want to be, not where someone else wants me to be. Second, while I spend time on the Internet, I limit that access. I have watched too many people vegetate in front of a screen.

What do I do with my day? First, I enjoy a good cup of coffee and catch up with the world in the cool quiet of the morning.
I then exercise. Walking, playing disk golf, weights, hiking... Anything to move and stay healthy.
I am learning languages, one needs to exercise one's mind. I have the time to learn, at my own pace and for my own enjoyment.
I give back. Over the course of my career, I developed many skills. I am using those skills to help my sportsman's club work though some projects. It's all volunteer work.
I maintain relationships. I make it a point to get together with friends. My most important relationship is my wife. Every Wednesday is Adventure Wednesday. We hike, go to movies, go to museums... It is basically a date day focused on being together.

My point is do stuff. Retirement is like summers as a kid, you have the whole day to do whatever you want. Carpe Diem and enjoy, there are no wrong answers.

I couldn't imagine retiring either, my life has been so consumed with my career. The business I worked at closed almost a year ago, a month after my 64th birthday. I haven't "officially" retired yet and I won't take social security yet because I'm making sure Kathy Hochul doesn't get another dime in taxes from me, I'll start collecting in the new tax year. I do a little contract work for my wife's new employer, we brought the product me manufactured to one of our suppliers from the old business. Sort of retired has been much better than I ever expected. I spend more leisure time with my wife, ride my bike, play with my guns. 58 is kinda young but it will give you time to learn what to do, I didn't think I knew anything besides work but surprisingly to me, it's ok. Don't let yourself be lazy and if you want to work, keep working, there's no rule that says you have to stop.

Figure out what you enjoy,
I know a half dozen retired guys that are busier now than when they were employed.

One third of the men are enjoying time with kids , grand kids and friends.

Another third donate time to charitable orgs. A few golf or fish, and the rest got jobs for 15 or 20 hours a week

Two of them drive meds. and medical charts and small med equipment around.
Another picks up patients and then takes them back home.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bendable,

I’d call it more transitioned. I transitioned from 5-6 days a week 10 hours a day to part time now to 16-24 hours 2-3 days week. Changed careers, now work in a gun shop.

I do something if I feel like it, sit on my backside if I don’t. Lousy weather days I go to the library and look for “dead relatives” aka genealogy research. Good days, go shoot. Meet up with friends from my last dealership job for lunch here and there.

Can’t really travel a,lot, now we are soon going to be tasked with daycare for a couple month old new grandson. That’s life though.

I’m back to being a night owl as in my teen years. The up at 5 A.M. never did sit well with me even after 47 years of doing that.

First couple of weeks were strange in the transition. By the one month mark I was acclimations to the change.

I was never " terrified " of retiring . I never regretted it either . Man up and control your own destiny . If you don't feel like a Honey-Do list is on your schedule for the day , then say so .

I prefer to work a few more years. Cooking and playing my Avalon Hill and Colombia wargames is appealing but more money is better than less. You could adopt the Advanced Squad Leader lifestyle.

I retired 3 years ago at 61. For me, work was no longer fun, so it was time.

Once you retire, it’s easy to find things to do without living in the perpetual honey do list mode. For me, I volunteer with a few organizations, Fish, hunt, etc…. Just stay busy and you’ll find in retirement you wont miss the BS associated with a job, although you will miss some of the people.

Retired into the pandemic of 2020 at 60. We wanted to be able to spend some quality time with my MIL and my dad in their last years. The thought process was we wanted to be able to say that we "never regretted the amount of time we had to spend with them". I'm glad to say we were successful in that mission.
We have done some PT work in retirement for a couple of reasons. One, to control our out of pocket spending and two for something to keep active.
One of our biggest challenges has been transitioning the mentality of savers to drawing down retirement savings. We haven't touched the retirement due to a pension and my SS.
We are in the final stages of setting up a "salary" generated from our savings going forward. But it has taken us almost six years to get mentally comfortable with that process.

If you’re “terrified to retire” then don’t.

I always figured they'd have to roll me out of the office on a gurney and take me straight to the morgue. Never married, no kids, liked my job, no desire to travel, really no reason not to keep working. Then came 2020.

First up was Covid-19, and suddenly we're all working remotely. I hated that at first, too many distractions at home. After a while I adapted to it, and eventually came to like it. Especially the commute.

Then came George Floyd, and our CEO decided we needed to have a DEI department. Suddenly I'm being told every day that I'm a horrible racist because I'm white.

Then the Covid vaccines came out and our CEO (yeah, same guy) announced that he was considering a vaccine mandate. Even though we were all still working remotely.

Then my team was informed that we have to abandon the development platform that we all liked and were competent and efficient with and switch over to a completely new system that nobody wanted, all because ONE senior engineer with disproportionate influence liked it.

Then the ever increasing level of woke-ness that Oregon (in general, and Portland in particular) had attained, officially reached the "Insane" point when Tina Kotek announced that she was running for Governor. Not that Kate Brown wasn't already insane, but Tina takes it to a whole `nother level.

At that point I realized that I wasn't having fun anymore and that I really needed to GTFO. So in April or May of 2022 I informed my boss that I was going to be retiring. Mid-October that year was my last day of work, and a month later, two days after the election, I left Oregon for a much saner and much redder state. Just me and my two dogs. My last official act as an Oregonian was to vote against Tina, not that it did any good. Retiring and escaping from Oregon has turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. My debts are all paid off, my stress level is WAY down, I'm much happier than I was 3 years ago. My dogs have both passed away since then, but eventually I'll adopt another.

As a side note, when my Dad retired, Mom (still working at the time) was afraid that he wouldn't have anything to do and would be driving her crazy. Between their grandkids (my sister's kids), his golf buddies, and whatnot else, I think he was busier after he retired than before.

I retired at age 60, that was 11 years ago. My advice is to retire as soon as possible. I never heard anyone say, "gee I wished I worked till I died".

Have a plan.

Don’t retire FROM something.

Instead, retire TO something.

Thats critical.

Have a plan. WRITE IT DOWN.

Best wishes to you.
.

I told my wife I would retire when work (software engineering) wasn't fun anymore. The last three months changed my outlook. I don't look forward to going to work on Monday. It's a bit of a grind. I don't hate it but damn, hanging out on the porch with my smarter half seems like fun. Traveling with her seems like a good idea. Now is the time for me to hang up the keyboard. No fears here, I hope you can get your mind wrapped around changing gears.

I retired from military service at 57 and intended to seek another job. Once all the numbers shook out with the VA, I realized I didn’t need to. My children are younger than yours and I was away, deployed, stationed in another state, or just consumed with long work hours for their entire lives up to this point. Being there now can be a double edged sword, as one of them, I’ve become really close to like never before, while the other is a young teenager and he’s bucking a little bit at all the new added “dad scrutiny” (as he sometimes perceives it) in his life. All in all I find that building out and sustaining the relationships in my family is more satisfying than getting up and leaving for work every day, or the extra paycheck that would bring in. I live on my own land and answer to no one as long as I live within the law. I haven’t missed work for one single minute since I left.

Seventeen years ago, I put my working life in my rear view mirror and never looked back. From the time I started working until then, I couldn't wait to retire. I thought about it often and dreamed of life sitting in a beach chair waste high in water drinking beer, that because I wouldn't even have to get up to piss.

I never liked work, it got in the way of everything I wanted to do. Those that say if they retired they wouldn't know what to do with themselves,
simply have no imagination. Just do it. Evert day you get to breathe as a free man, doing whatever the fuck you want to do will make you wonder how you squandered most of your life to get at the point where you could retire. You will find plenty of things to fill your day. So stop agonizing and say bye to that old workaholic jerk and enjoy what time you have left.

Just because you can afford to retire doesn't mean you have to do so immediately.

Some people just aren't wired to sit around the house while occasionally fishing/golfing/etc. (At least at their current point in life.)

When I left my LE career in 2023, my initial plan was to take 1-2 years off in semi-retirement/sabbatical and relax, while slow-rolling into whatever was next.

That was fun for a little bit, but I figured out after a couple months that I was not wired for that, and needed to find another job ASAP. (And after a lifetime of responsible saving, I also didn't like watching my finances perpetually tick downward, despite realistically having plenty of funds available to comfortably sustain a year or two without working.)


But this gives you the opportunity to start working out what might be next in the coming years, and find some hobby or calling to retire into that isn't full time work but also isn't just sitting around the house waiting on the wife to find something for you to do.

And it also means that you now know that if necessary you can tell your current work to take the job and shove it. And that alone is comforting.