When did you decide to finally retire

Parent Cafe
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I am a planner at heart. So myself and my wife are 53 and will be 54 shortly we pretty much have it mapped out when we will retire. That will be 9 years from now. DW will qualify for health insurance during retirement from her job at that point. We will be 63. As long as we stay employed at our current level of income we will have the savings to retire.

I want to retire as early as possible so that we can do all the things we have always wanted to do while healthy. If I do take some sort of job on a part-time basis it would be one that if I told them I need a certain day off and they balk then I would quit on the stop. To me retirement is all about doing what you want to do when you want to do it.

We can’t wait to downsize. There is a good shot we will retire to Las Vegas as long as they don’t have water issues in 9 years. We have talked about a 1 bedroom condo at like 850-900 sq ft. I want a simple life in retirement.

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This is great advice. I love to travel and we have traveled a lot. Working for an international company enabled a lot of this. So travel will not increase during our retirement. In fact, we look forward to slow travel such as stay somewhere for several weeks for change of scenery. I love gardening so maybe we will start planting some vegetable items that I never had time for, but need to give this hobby, interests some more thought.

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23

Earlier this year I decided that the end of 2027 I’m going to retire (I’ll be 55). My wife - same age - will likely work another couple of years. She likes her job and it will allow us to keep the kids on insurance until they get jobs. My job has become increasingly less enjoyable the last couple of years.

I’ve always been a saver and lived well within our means so we have plenty saved. It will take some adjusting to go from being a saver to a spender but that’s why we spent so many years saving. I have plenty of hobbies with most of them being low/no cost so it’s just time to pull the cord.

Like someone else above said, I’ve never heard someone complain that they retired too early.

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After many years in elementary ed (volunteer and staff) I was downsized and took a higher ed job as an hourly clerk. 40 hrs/wk, no benefits, no respect, too much work. But my father was increasingly unwell, my children further and further away. This lousy paying job allowed me to take (unpaid) off time as much as I needed, that was the key perk. I just wasn’t ready to do nothing at all, and the students were fun.

AFter 6 yrsthe job was getting worse, and then my favorite parts of it were reassigned and I was given really tedious crap to do. My father’s illness escalated thru the fall of '22 so I gave notice I’d be done April 1. My dad died that July after many hard weeks in hospice. But I was there, giving my siblings a break, for almost all of it.

DH will retire at 65, an arbitrary number based on wrapping up his work of 30+ years. We didn’t want to wait until something bad happened to make it necessary (his FA wanted him to wait until 70 and I was h*ll no way). He has a transition plan in place. And of course, right after Christmas he was dx w cancer.

It’s hard at first. Our society only values people who make money, so I struggled. But I would do it all again in a heartbeat. My ILs always put work first, family second, and it hasn’t had a good outcome. Part of our prep is taking care of house maintenance things – paint, roof, gutters, HVAC, etc — getting those big ticket items done when having a paycheck makes it less stressful.

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25

Sorry so long …

I guess i officially “retired” at 40 when I left my career to be a SAHM for a few years that turned into forever. i still did some PT work here and there but nothing substantial. DH technically retired from his teaching career when he was 60, but he kept working as a tutor and picked up a soul-fulfilling job as well at a grocery store! A FA had told us that if he was going to retire from his FT job that he’d need to bring in some money aside from his pension so that’s what he did. We are both 63 now.

A couple of take-em-or-leave-em thoughts.

One, if you are uneasy about your finances despite reassurance (sounds familiar!), then while you are still mulling retirement, try really living on what you expect your monthly spend will be in retirement and see how it feels. It won’t quite be apples to apples because commuting costs or FICA taxes or whatever won’t be the same, but you get the idea. This is something we did before I quit at 40. Could we REALLY live just on dh’s salary? And then we took my salary for that year and stashed it away as a buffer.

Here’s thought number two: If you do that, don’t pad your “retirement” savings that are subject to the market. Stash that extra money in a brokerage in something like a high-yield savings account or short-term CDs. The extra liquidity will keep you from worrying when the market dips (or dives), and you won’t have to sell to pay for new struts (something my friend had to do because she had so little cash on hand!). Any costs you are expected to accumulate in the next 1-2 years should be in protected money!

The suggestion about the HELOC is a good one.

I also had a mom with dementia. Most of the day-to-day care fell to my siblings, who lived in the same town as our mom. (We kept her at home, so it was a lot!) I am so glad that I had the flexibility to spend up to a week at a time with my mom every month, giving my sibs a break. That time was precious. If taking care of your mom is calling to you, I’d listen to that.

And, yeah, if your dh is in declinging physical health and stress is taking a toll on your mental health and physical health, give retirement now consideration. A good chunk of my friends are a little older than me, and health issues are cropping up. This is our one life. And if you find that you want more money, get a PT job. I think once you are retired, your head will clear in a way that reveals the stress you were under but felt like you had to keep plowing through.

I assume your FA runs a Monte Carlo analysis? The program I use allows me to play with decisions – when to take SS, when to start my pension – and one thing I’ve noticed is that most of the decisions barely move the needle in terms of our plan’s success.

Good luck and let us know what you decide!

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My retirement worry harkens back to a comment someone made earlier - I don’t really have anything that is the thing or activity or hobby or whatever that will bring me joy. Or even that I want to do. I * hate * gardening. My spouse loves it, and he’s already excited about the idea of having so many more hours to putter. This is the first year we’ve been empty nesters, and I thought I’d spend the year figuring out a hobby, and I just… haven’t.

I like to read, but one can only read so much. A few of my retired friends have invited me to join them in some activities they do through the community center but either those are (a) during the workday (and I’m not retired yet); or (b) for ages 55 and up (and I’m only 51, so I can’t register). I can see those potentially being a thing, though, when the time comes.

We sort of fell out of the habit of going to church regularly during the pandemic, but I’ve been thinking that might be a good gateway into some organized activities that I could participate in more robustly once retired. And if I perhaps start easing into that now, then maybe that will work?

I was furloughed for a month and a half in the fall and by the end I was so bored. Everything I wanted to do cost money, and since we weren’t getting paid, I didn’t want to spend money. I imagine retirement will be somewhat similar - yes, I’ve saved money to be able to spend in retirement, but i can’t just be spending money because I’m bored. So that was a good wakeup call that I’m not really ready, I don’t really have a plan for what to do with myself.

I’m not sure how to figure out what to do, but that’s going to be my goal for the next six years until I hit my goal retirement age - to come up with an interest, or hobby, or something that will fill my time in a way that feels fulfilling, or brings joy, or that is just fun.

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I found that there were lots of possibilities I had never noticed, never on the radar, when I was working. You may find that when you actually DO have spare time, all sorts of things may seem appealing.

My oldest child belongs to a club that meets once a month to do something none (or most) of them have ever done. HIs wife taught the group how to roll a kayak. Another member taught them some Bengali. Sometimes we all need a “just try it once” kind of chance to find out what we like.

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I retired in 2023 at 60 and H a few months later at 61. We both endured the last few years of jobs that increasingly became emotionally stressful - others hired to do things we’d been doing for years, new supervisors who didn’t trust us and clearly wanted us gone, watching good co-workers leave because of personnel problems, etc. etc. - until our state pensions reached an amount we could live with. Another big factor - We can continue our state healthcare as retirees until Medicare. We’ve always been thrifty and I decided I’d rather continue to live thriftily and be retired than work for things or experiences to distract from my work misery. We aren’t in career fields with potential for finding other career jobs in our 60s and part-time jobs would be minimal payment/just for something to do. I started social security last year at 62 and H (slightly higher amount) will wait until probably 67. We’ve both found things to do in retirement balanced with a more relaxed pace of life. We travel a little domestically but not the big trips many others take.

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I turned 60 in 2017 and lost a promotion at work to a guy a few decades younger than me ( less qualified, I was already doing the job and had stellar reviews, etc). I loved my Corporate Accounting work , but that gutted me. I transferred to another department, new job was pleasant, nice boss and colleagues , regular hours but I never felt the same about work again. In 2019 our FA told us we could retire in 2021 and be fine and so we started planning for that. Meanwhile, I lost both parents and received an inheritance which also helped.
I have been retired for 5 years now. H ( same age) retired a few months after I did. I’m glad he did as he passed away last year.

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My mom retired at 65 and died 10 years later. She battled health issues her final few years. My dad was so glad that he had time with her to enjoy their retirement together. That was an important lesson for me as I considered whether or not to continue working.

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This thread is refreshing. Great stories and comments. It’s helpful hearing all of this. People ask me what I will do in retirement and I tell them I just sold a business. I am not retired!! :joy:. I guess at some point reality will set in. Lol. But I am not the type to do nothing but since Jan the days do get filled up and go fast so there’s that. I still lecture so right now that’s fine. When I get back mid April I might really think more about my next steps. But I gotta tell ya. Medicare is a wonderful thing. I am saving like $1,000/month on health insurance including the secondary and drug plan. I met many people that said they spend less in retirement but also I keep hearing this:

The 60s are your GoGo years. 70s are your Slow Go years and your 80s are your No Go years.

I think there is “some “truth and logic to this. I just don’t want to look back and say I should of….

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32

For me it was easy—my teachers pension maxed out the year I turned 61. I was able to retire on full pension minus about a 4% reduction to give my wife a survivor benefit. I retired at about 75% of what I was making, so if I continued to work I’d be doing so for only 25% of my salary. Oh, and once I turned 65, Social Security kicked in, along with Medicare, which saved HUGE money on health care.

A student asked me why I was retiring since they all knew I loved my work. Recalling what a colleague told me years ago I replied, “What if you made $10 an hour at Walmart, and one day your boss told you that you could stay home and he’d still pay you $7.50 an hour?” Student immediatey said that they’d absolutely stay home—and now the student understood why I was retiring.

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I retired in June 2011. Except for a favor to a district (9 days of work after the winter storm), I didn’t work at all during the 2011-2012 academic year. Then for 2012-2013 and the following years, I did one long term leave position each year. They ranged from 6 weeks to 4 months. As a speech language pathologist, this was work that kept coming my way…if I wanted to work.

I did pick up a couple of volunteer things that I continue to enjoy, but again, these are on my terms in terms of time.

After a few years, DH and I started ballroom dance lessons together. And enjoy that. As you have seen, I’m now taking water color classes which I really love!

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Following with interest. I turn 58 and husband 60 this year. We’d both been planning to work till he turned 65 but he’s had a health scare and I (..first world problems) got a promotion that I don’t really want as it’s ramping up stress when I want to be winding down at work. We can very comfortably retire now and we are tempted but boy, when we add up the income we’d forgo over the next 5 years it’s still a lot to turn down. Decisions tbd.

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I stopped working in 2023 when I was 75 due to long covid symptoms and retired a year later after my license expired and I realized that despite a zillion promises to myself, I was not going to do the CEUs necessary to renew it. I am not afraid to meet new people in my apartment building, via Facebook groups, reconnecting with old friends, and talking to strangers while waiting in lines, on the subway or bus, etc., etc., etc. As I have said elsewhere here ad nauseum, NYC is a great place to grow old if you have a rent-stabilized (government control) apartment, which I do. Great, accessible mass transit, cheap eats if you look for them in hundreds of ethnic enclaves, and decent weather most of the year.

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I hear from people who have retired the same thing all the time. I am so busy now - how did I ever find time to work!

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I have one word for you… pickleball :wink: Take lessons now or when your retire, start meeting new people. I can’t believe how many pb players I’ve met! I so wish I’d learned during Covid, when I was newly retired and housebound.

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I retired at 59, and husband 1.5 years later at 62. I took a much less stressful “giving back” kind of job when I was eligible to retire, and being at home for many weeks during COVID helped me “see” what retirement would be like, and I I wasn’t bored. We went to 3 financial advisors who each told us we would be fine.
In our case, kids were done with college (we paid/0 loans), we paid off our mortgage, had no other debts, and (unfortunately) my mom had died, so I knew I wouldn’t have to support her. My mom and 3 siblings have all died @70, and at least 2 of them had dementia (my mom’s was pretty bad) so I wanted to retire and enjoy life, just in case the same happens to me.
I thought I might do a fair amount of volunteer work, but retiring into COVID that didn’t happen, and I learned I didn’t want another constraint on my time. I do manage a pickleball group of about 15 people, and play 3 times a week.
I agree with a lot of the other suggestions here. Another thing I did that I haven’t seen mentioned is track EVERY EXPENSE for a couple of years before retirement. The money issue is more about how much you spend than how much you make. It would help to track them as “must pay” and could easily stop if you needed to. For example, we spend a lot on travel, but we could easily stop that if we felt like we couldn’t afford it for a year or longer.

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DH and I retired at 60 and 59, respectively, and haven’t looked back. The difference for me from most here is that I never wanted to work, so retirement was my main goal in life. Because I’ve participated in these discussions for so many years and just end up repeating myself, I’ll share links to some of my replies on relevant threads that the OP may also want to explore as they include a lot of interesting perspective on this significant transition:

What Does Retirement Look Like: Thoughts on When to Retire

Separating Your Identity from Your Work: How Much Do You Think You Need to Retire? What Age Will You/Spouse Retire?

Turning Off the Earnings Spigot: Have You Made It?

@lia_b: If you’re just starting to think about retirement, you may want to start following the “How Much Do You Think You Need to Retire?” thread I linked above as that is our general catchall for retirement topics, though it can get investment heavy at times. We also have a Life in Retirement - We’ve Made It! Now What? thread you might find interesting, too.

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That’s a good idea.
If it seems intimidating to track at a granular level, do what we did… track by big “buckets” of outflow money. For about 6 years before retirement, at balance of checkbook (where all our outflow happens) I logged total of 4 general buckets, which we assumed should be about same in retirement:

  • cash withdrawals
  • checks (omitting college payments from tally)
  • autopays
  • credit card payment - the biggie… annual report can be helpful for analysis
  • note - we had no car loans, so we did know to earmark different method for future car purchase out of investments
  • note - we had employer health insurance, so we had to factor in post-retirement adders for that
  • note - we were already traveling a lot (and pretty grandly a few years before retirement), so we assumed in retirement we would do about the same.

In the logging spreadsheet, there is a Comments column to note nonregular spending that skewed the month’s total. When we consulted finacial advisors, we could tell them the approx post-tax income we need based on the average of our monthly figures. In retirement, I still do the monthly ritual… adjust our monthly “Scwab paycheck” (money from investment to augment pensions and SS) as needed.

Bottom line - most FA will ask “how much income will you need” (beyond pensions, SS), and it’s good to have a reasonable answer. For us, it we wanted to match pre-retirement outflow if possible… though we knew to subtract the mortgage that we paid off right before retiring.

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