I’m curious to know when you decided it was time to retire. My husband, 66, and I, 62, have been thinking about this for a while. Initially, I thought I could work until I was 65. However, my husband recently had a serious health scare, and my job has become increasingly demanding and stressful. It’s clear that he needs to stop working, and I am also considering the same.
We ran some calculations with our financial planner, who reassured us that we would be fine financially. However, I often worry about our finances. Although we have saved, we also had recent expenses related to our home, and we still have some debt to pay down. While the numbers look good on an Excel spreadsheet, I can’t shake my anxiety.
At the same time, I find it challenging to continue in my current role, which now has impossible targets and endless meetings. I took this position several years ago because I believed it would be fulfilling, and I can WFH several days a week, but it has turned into a revolving door of team members, and my role has absorbed some of those responsibilities and pay raises have stalled. I have looked for other opportunities within the company, but nothing seems suitable for me.
Additionally, I have my mother, who has dementia. Although she doesn’t live with me, I visit her on weekends and manage her caregivers, doctors, and all the associated issues. I am fortunate to have these services for her, but it adds extra stress.
So, what did it for you? and did you find retirement to be as you expected.
I left The Worst Corporate Job Ever in 2012 and decided to downsize to get rid of our mortgage. That freed us up financially so I didn’t have to get a high-paying job with lots of stress. I was able to string together several consulting gigs doing only the part of my old job that I enjoyed, and I was able to do it from home. I finally really retired in 2019. Both DH and I postponed claiming SS until age 70 and we both delayed taking our RMDs until the latest age possible. With a tiny pension, SS, and our RMDs, our income is sufficient and hopefully will be forever. It’s a good life.
If you leave your current job, can you find something that might pay less but be less stressful?? That way, you’ll still have income and therefore hopefully be able to delay claiming SS and taking money from investments.
I retired from my full time job at age 60. I had worked at that job for 30 years. After that, I worked about 10 long term leave positions but I could pick and choose when or if I wanted to do those.
I loved my job and work…but my DH and I wanted to take a three week trip to visit our daughter in the Peace Corps, and the district was not going to give me that time off. That was one reason. Plus, I wanted to leave my job while I was still liked, and respected in my area.
DH continued to work until he was 69…but didn’t collect SS until 70. I collected at 62 (because I never dreamed the SS Fairness Act would ever be a reality). I was able to go on DHs insurance until I was 65 and Medicare eligible. I also have a pension which was good…plus the income from my leave positions.
And we had no debt, and we were done paying for college!
I love retirement. There are so many things to do. I’ve had to learn to say NO when I’m asked to do things that would make me too busy!
I also wanted to be able to enjoy my retirement, having seen a number of my friends have significant health issues, or death…that prevented them from doing so.
Financially, we were assured we were fine. Biggest adjustment is being a spender of those retirement income funds…and not a saver.
Bingo. We are going through this now. Sold out business Dec 31. We paid down debt. Have cash in our accounts. Everyone tells me retirement is great. Well, just getting on Medicare this month is crazy amazing seeing all my doctor’s I kept putting off. Playing pickle ball 3 x week until I hurt my knee. My wife is 63. She will work part time. I am not taking SS till at least 67. But still going through numbers with financial planner so maybe later. I also have seen people like my sister at 64 and all around me pass away. Always wanted to do X or Z and now can’t due to health issues. I don’t see it as retirement, but I see it as we sold our business. I am taking off the winter and will decide my next steps. I will do something. We are both lecturing in Scandinavia for the next 3 week’s. That should clear my head. Lol
We have extreme equity in our house and people want to give us unheard of money to knock it down. We will be doing this to pad the retirement. People ask us “so where will you go “our answer is the same. “when we know we will let you know “lol. It’s a lot of self reflection on what’s really important to you and if financially you can do it. There are plenty of jobs out there if you really want extra cash. They just might not be what you’re doing now or used to. Many do things like baby sitting. Makes good money and who wouldn’t want to hire a dependable mom who’s been there, done that?
While I’m not fully retired I left my stressful government job last month and took that pension. I have health insurance still through that job until I’m Medicare age (and supplemental thereafter). I’ll take social security at 65 or 66 depending on how much I’m earning through consulting and other work and still adding to it. Do the math - present value of money and a couple years extra of collecting social security means you have to live to be pretty old to make it worth waiting until 70. I don’t have a lot of savings but I do have quite a bit of equity in my house. One of the best pieces of financial advice I got was take a home equity line of credit before you retire so that you have resources should you need an unexpected major repair or something. So I have a $50k line of credit I never plan to use - or would only use sparingly for necessary repairs- but it’s there if needed. If I decide to sell my house I might use it to do any needed repairs or upgrades. Stress is a killer and it just gets worse as we age. I’d say if there’s any way to do it you should!
My husband retired when he got laid off at the age of 60 from the company he had worked for for 35 years. It was done, timing was perfect, right before the pandemic.
Yes, it is a big adjustment to being spenders instead of savers, but this is why we saved, to enjoy our retirement.
I say go for it. I don’t know anybody who retired and said wow I should have kept working.
I’m 66. Retired from full time work at end of 2024. Full retirement was not my hot ticket so I landed a part time (basically 3 days, WFH ) job and I have LOVED that blend. H retired 6 or 7 years ago but has done a part time job/hobby from home since then. To be honest, we are both sort of on our own schedule anyway.
I have a pension from my full time job. I’m making decent $ now. For me, doing this part time job for a couple of years gave me more peace of mind $ wise. It won’t be forever. I’m just starting to see/feel that I could maybe graduate to fully retired. Maybe in a year.
One way I’ve looked at it is “if I became ill or dropped dead tomorrow would I regret that I didn’t retire earlier?” (Obviously if I dropped dead I wouldn’t have an opinion, lol). The answer for me is no. I LOVE working part time, I feel like I have plenty of time off to do what I like, my position is NOT high stress.
But I’ll add that I don’t have aging family to take care of or any grandchildren. Those cards might play the situation out differently for me.
I am 66 and have been thinking about retirement. My current job is not that stressful (compared to other jobs I’ve had). There are not that many things that my manager asks me to do that I couldn’t get it done efficiently. There has been few people related issues that frustrated me. I think I will stick it out until next year when I turn 67, but I kind of feel like if there is one more thing that frustrates me then I am leaving. I think this may be a sign that I am getting close.
To be fair, I don’t feel like because I am working I am not able to do the stuff I like. I travel 4+ times a year, and I have ample time to spend with my friends and take care of my personal stuff.
H and I have made the decision to retire in a year. At that time I will be 67 and he will be 70. We will both take Social Security then. We have reviewed our finances and based on current spending and what we have saved we can continue our lifestyle in retirement.
There are many reasons why we have continued working. One of the biggest reasons is that between us we have a very good income and have been able to save well for retirement. H works for a European company and has 6 weeks of vacation per year along with 13 holidays. I don’t have that much leave, but I have negotiated extra time off from work without pay. We take a minimum 6 weeks of time off every year. We do 1-2 big trips abroad each year as well as many trips in the US especially during ski season. We spend a lot of money on travel and include our daughters and families in trips too. We did not want to put off travel until retirement and since college has been paid off for our kids for the past 9 years we spend money enjoying ourselves.
The biggest push for me to retire is that I have my first grandchild. D1, SIL and GD moved from Southern California to CT in January where they bought a lovely home about 30 minutes from SIL’s parents. This was not an easy decision for them. D1 is a SoCal girl born and raised and SIL lived here for 9 years and loved life here. They moved because for $500K in the area of CT they moved to they got a lovely home on 1.5 acres. The comparable space in SoCal would be a studio apartment for that price. We have 4 trips planned to see GD this year and they will come out here in the late fall. I want to be able to spend a lot of time seeing my GD and working is now getting in the way of that.
We also own a paid off home near the beach and have a lot of equity if we ever decide to sell. H has been approached in the last few months by 2 different people who ran start ups (both start ups didn’t make it) H worked for years ago about new ideas they have. If either of them are able to secure VC money and get off the ground then H will work part time for one of them. This is something he would love to do. When I tell my current company I want to retire I have a feeling they will ask me to stay on part time. I don’t think I will do that, but who knows.
I quit my job when I was 59, because the stress was killing me. I had planned to take a short break and find another job, but life happened & I never did. My H had retired the year before, also at 59, when his company did a major old-dude purge. We have had the flexibility to help with the needs of aging parents who live many hours away, and we have had the pleasure of helping our D with our GD. I have enjoyed this life of less stress tremendously.
Financially, it was tough to go from our always-saving mindset to one of spending down our savings. We are actually spending less than we had thought we would - expenses in retirement are lower than they were when we worked, for various reasons. We do not have pensions, but we do have savings that we are spending down - I had nightmares for months about money until I finally came to terms with the fact that we have enough to last. My MIL complains that she didn’t save her money just to spend it on assisted living & healthcare aides, but the truth is, that’s exactly what she saved for … and what we have saved for, as well. It’s okay to spend it. If you have a trusted financial advisor who tells you you’re fine, you probably are. If you need to pivot & get a job at some point, you can always do that in the future.
We’d been talking about retirement in the abstract for a while but were pushed into it when DH”s division was closed by his company and he chose to retire at 65. I reluctantly decided to retire also, in part because of increasing issues at my work and in part so that later on I would have no regrets about work-life balance choices.
Learning to “spend” has been a challenge, and we both had to adjust to not working, since we had loved our jobs and work was a huge part of our identities. But we’re getting there. We’re doing some travel, although not as much as I’d hoped, and spending more time on hobbies and generally enjoying life.
Occasionally, I toy with the idea of taking on part time work and routinely end up deciding that I don’t want to lose the flexibility that making that time commitment would entail.
We retired at 60 and 62 and have not regretted it. We have time now for aging parents and new grandchild. I have access to retiree healthcare through my former employer. I would not have retired without that benefit.
I am unofficially retired after seeing my consulting work dry up last year (I’m 59). Hubby (60) plans to retire in a year. He may pursue some consulting work on the side but that’s tbd. Financially we’re more than set so no worries there. Not sure when we’ll take SS. Maybe 65.
I didn’t really decide. My mother died in 2023. I had just turned 60 and H 65. Two weeks after her death, H lost his job. I kept working but it was challenging. I had taken a position that was allegedly replacing a longtime employee who had some significant health issues. Happily she did recover…and returned to work. When my boss suggested we could “share” the position - and his idea of sharing was that I would work two hours in the morning M-Th and all day Friday - I told him no thanks in April 2024.
It hasn’t been easy. H has had some significant health issues and neither one of us had really thought about retirement so we’re still finding our feet. Unlike many folks here, we had no pension and very little in the way of retirement savings. I am more anxious now about my inherited assets than I ever was when I had nothing.
At 60 I retired with health care benefits as the goal. Being on call (I did not have a choice) was too much. The main issue was the call became way more intense and I just didn’t want to put myself through that anymore. Did probate that year for both of our parents who died. Grand children came a few years later. H retired at 65, then part time work until covid hit at 69 then fully retired. We are able to concentrate more on our health since retirement- more Mediterranean cooking, walking 4 miles a day, etc. Our challenge is new friendships outside of work.
I quit work at 60 and looking back it was the best decision ever. I was managing elderly parents’ care from afar and handling another relative’s serious crisis. I simply could not have done it and work too - especially in the ‘bullpen no privacy’ model of my workplace. I saw experienced co-workers leaving and new trainees with no experience coming in to replace them, and realized any task that was high stress or urgent would be assigned to me. I checked with my financial advisor who told me how much I could expect to live on each month without depleting my finances, then I made the leap. I am so so happy I did.
Thank you all for sharing your experiences. It helps knowing that people who retired younger than us are looking back and saying it was a good decision. Not having a salary is scary for me, but dealing with stress often is also not good for our health. I want to enjoy some carefree years before age really sets in. We will also look to downsize. This is something we have been exploring for the last few years but we cannot agree on the perfect place. After this winter, H said he no longer wants to deal with snow. I am not a fan of going south because of the heat and larger bugs (lol) so I guess a condo in the Northeast will have to be.
We aren’t retired yet, but have been talking about this a lot recently with each other and the financial planner. My spouse is 9 years older than me, I’m 51 and he’s 60. Our youngest child is a freshman in college. I think my H will work until (at least) one year after our youngest graduates - basically enough time that we’ve got the income coming in and that the youngest is hopefully on a path to whatever his next is. At that point, H would be 64 and I’d be 55. He loves his job and it’s low stress, so he may work a few years past that, waiting for me to retire.
I changed jobs 18 months ago and I really like where I’ve landed. That said, my goal is to retire at 57. I’m aiming relatively young for two reasons: (1) that whole H is nine years older thing. Right now we’re both healthy, but the older either of us gets, the greater likelihood that something is going to go wrong. We both want to travel while we have the bodies and energy to do so. And (2) I can’t really shift roles at work. I’m in a leadership position, there isn’t a way to do it part-time, or to do something less demanding. It’s not an unhealthy place to work or anything like that, but I also don’t want to let it get that way. And If H retires years ahead of me, we won’t be able to do the travel we want while I’m in this job. Taking more than a week off at a time is not well received. I may have the leave time (I do) but being gone more than a week or 10 days is really not done. So if we wanted to go to visit my BFF who lives in Australia - which I’ve wanted to do since she moved there 20+ years ago - it would be hard to take the time off to really do such a big trip right.
I retired at 57, and it was the best decision of my working life.
In a corporate program financial accounting job with all of the stress that goes with it. I had way too much vacation time saved & no real opportunity to use it due to monthly & quarterly reporting requirements. I had a family event coming up overseas, and due to the timing of it I knew they wouldn’t give me the time off. Our financial advisor told us we’d have more than enough $$ to last us, so that was it. My mom had passed away the prior year & I regret that while I visited her at least once a week, it could have been more. At one point that year I cried in a meeting that my mom was dying & I had to leave, but they didn’t care
I was eligible for retiree medical at $125/mth, our home mortgage payments were low, and we had no other debts. We also have corporate pensions and healthy retirement accounts.
We travel whenever and wherever, spend time with our grown kids and the granddog, hang at our second home, all the good stuff. Little stress - the huge game changer.
Our advisor ran scenarios of home repair/improvement costs, travel, vehicle replacement, etc.; we’re actually spending less than planned
Remember, you won’t be paying SS tax, income tax burden should be lower, no employment/commuting expenses.
If travel is NOT a thing you or you and your partner have in mind for retirement that kay effect your decision. H and I (mostly him) are NOT going to be doing much traveling at all - it’s not his thing and besides a one week annual family beach trip he is not interested. So long stretches of time off isn’t such a necessity.
Start some new hobbies, interests or friends now. Or make lists of things you truly want to do when you have the time. Not just “to-do” lists like home maintenance but “ta-da” lists - things that give you joy! The worst thing FOR ME would be to arrive at the day after retirement and think “what now”. Some people like that. It’s not for me. I did the same thing when the last child would be heading off to college in a couple of years - I made my life more “me” interesting not “mom” focused.