Passing the Time: the Thread for Retired People

There isn't one. There are two when-do-you-retire threads, which is different. This is like that female-posters-only thread; you must be retired to post here. If you're not, you're only allowed to look in and see what it's like on the other side of the divide.

Kidding.

Since I'm on the supply (substitute, if you're American) list for next fall, you could say I'm technically not retired. But that's more like a hobby, just a way to bridge the few months before, if all goes well, I sell my house and move out of the city. I'm retired.

Everyone I see asks me what it feels like (after two or three months of asking me what looming retirement felt like). So far, not a lot different from every other summer--it won't really kick in until the fall. But the one difference is trying to shut off that internal mechanism that is always reminding you that you will--on Monday, next week, next month, whatever--be back at work, and the voice that goes along with it, saying you should have done this, that, and this other thing today, and all you did was this. I haven't been able to shut it off yet, but it does end with a new voice now saying "What's the difference?" That feels good, which is maybe not good, or at least I haven't yet become comfortable with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRLw_qyw9Bw

I am qualified to post here. On the other hand, I haven't much to say on the subject apart from my extreme gratitude that such a thing has been possible for me.

My job as co-guardian to my daughter seems to involve a fair amount of work most weeks, mainly doctor appointments, combined with a permanent state of readiness for emergencies, so my perception of retirement is very much skewed by that. If I were somewhat less tied to those grave responsibilities, I would be spending much more time away from home and away from the city, while I still have the good health, the interest, and the energy to pack up and go. Those resources are not endless.

I thought of you, Aimless, when I started this. "Is there anyone except us two?" I think I could probably guess at two or three others.

(And I knew, from other threads, about your situation, and obviously our retirements are very different.)

I think it's going to get very lonesome in here in a hurry.

It's a forward-looking thread, there for when people are ready. They can come on 10 or 15 years from now when they cross the finish line, look back at the first few posts, and think (best Norm Macdonald voice) "Oh yeah, clemenza...always talking about getting old, and then he started this thread for retired people, then, uh, then I think he died...I remember that guy!"

sup

They can come on 10 or 15 years from now

sadlol

some of the stress that I used to wrap around myself automatically every day lingers in the form of hyper-vigilance about aging parents and related family problems, but the intense feelings of urgency associated with alarm clocks, meetings, and deadlines faded pretty quickly

in my case retirement happened much earlier than I'd planned and has required a very-much-not-in-character level of risk tolerance; the next few years in particular will be financially interesting as we anticipate/postpone Social Security and other age-specific income; this situation has the weird effect of making me feel simultaneously much poorer and much wealthier than I used to be

I feel unbelievably fortunate to have stumbled through to a 20th-century style retirement and worry whether younger family and friends will be as lucky

Best wishes to everyone in this thread. Keep living the dream for the rest of us.

I, for one, will support every possible increment toward a more socialist society in the USA that can be squeezed from that particular turnip, right up to my dying day. The myth of the rugged individual standing apart on his own two feet is an insupportable delusion that must be destroyed.

I'm not there yet, but thanks to a combo of lolcapitalism, generational affluence, random luck, and widespread privilege, I hope to be doing something that looks like "intermittent retirement" within the next ten years (I'm 45). Working on putting together the elements that will allow me to work off-and-on as I choose in whatever time zone I happen to be occupying.

I've met some folks from the generation behind me (millennials, I guess) who are pursuing the FIRE thing. I guess I'm going for something in between FIRE and the boomers' "38 years at one company, sweet pension" plan.

old person dgaf swagga itt

bookmarking for 6th july 2048

My school board never deleted my Google Classroom, so I told the students to keep using it for chat until it was taken down. I took a look today, and in all my posts now I'm identified as posting from "Unknown Location 1" instead of my old school. That one hurt--I feel like Neil Young's song without a home.

very few Americans will make it here

I hope/assume you mean continued work, not early death.

Someone in my position is always going to worry that you pulled the trigger to soon. I think the timing is right, but I could have kept working another eight years, and I'm aware that one serious medical catastrophe will make all my financial calculations irrelevant.

I love listening to bitter former tory voters complaining on Radio 4's consumer rights program about how the party they've voted for have deprived them out of the pension they were expecting and they are now going to have to wait a few more years for it. EAT IT and DIE you old selfish tory bastards!

I'm still working though I'm almost Aimless old.

I was wondering about clemenza's plan to move out of the city. Is this to live more cheaply or something you've always wanted to do? I used to think I'd do this but I like having so many things to do here, and I'm in a relatively low density area of the Los Angeles megaplex.

Enjoying the video's title "Passing the Time-Cream" which sounds like it could be a Tim and Eric bit.

85% to make money on the real estate transaction--I can get a bigger house (everyone who retires downsizes, but I've got lots of stuff I need more room for) for half of what mine is worth.

But I have steadily lost interest in Toronto the past decade. As I've said elsewhere, book/record/video stores are close to extinct (or, in the case of record stores, so expensive they may as well be). Traffic becomes more of a nightmare every year. I'll miss the many rep theatres and the documentary festival. And friends, of course. But if I end up where I want to, I'll still only be a two-hour drive away.

Retiree roll call
Retired means you are old and no longer working

Well that explains a lot

bookmarking for 6th july 2048

― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), 13 July 2019 19:31 (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

brought this forward a bit since, which is progress at least.

Not there yet either but hit thirty years service the other week so it's starting to approach...

I will be collecting cans on the roadside, no rest for the wicked

For just over a year now, loving it but starting to think I'm not making the best use of my time.

I've met some folks from the generation behind me (millennials, I guess) who are pursuing the FIRE thing. I guess I'm going for something in between FIRE and the boomers' "38 years at one company, sweet pension" plan.

Guilt lol of recognition. I’m from the last year of boomers, and reach 38 years work next year - so it’s imminent. This pre-retirement phase is agony tbh: endless re-visiting the pension maths and worrying about how to live be on such a small sum, and then as Clemenza said “aware that one serious medical catastrophe will make all my financial calculations irrelevant.”

one serious enough medical carastrophe will make all of your anything plans irrelevant, which i remind myself of when im trying to maximise as opposed to satisfice

Life is strange. We have no knowledge of our futures, very little control over most of our ever-present contingencies, and both our decision making and our emotions are largely steered by a subconscious that is opaque to our conscious minds. When I notice my equanimity in the face of all this uncertainty I am both amazed and grateful. By all rights it should make me a quivering puddle of anxiety.

rub it in anyway

the only explanation I can give for it is that god must love a fool

But that's more like a hobby, just a way to bridge the few months before, if all goes well, I sell my house and move out of the city.

Me six years ago, talking about the substitute teaching I was planning to do. Surprised I wrote that: I'm still supplying/subbing, with no real intention to stop soon. It's only 50-60 days each winter, the money's good, and most days I stil enjoy it.

2 weeks before my 50th birthday in 2018 i was made redundant.
after trying a small scale local job for a few days, i came to quickly realise that i was done with work.
due to the way that life has gone for me (and some very fortuitous tick boxes on forms that me and bh filled in when we were young),
i am in a priviledged position whereby i no longer need to work.
57 now and have absolutely no regrets re my lifestyle choice.
yeah, i no longer can afford holidays, drive a fancy car, but i never ever have to put up with the corp bullsh&t that had become painful in the last few years of my working life (meetings to discuss what was going to be said in other meetings .. ).
and the question i get asked whenever the topic comes up with friends : 'what do you do all day !?'
my standard answer has become : 'whatever the f^ck i want'.
yeah, most of the time thats music, reading, films, walking ..
so far i have yet to experience boredom.

^people who have figured out how to live

I will never be able to retire, and that's that.

sorry to hear that CGLDI ..
i hear this a lot from people i meet and have had such discussions with,
to the point that i now hold back from explaining my situation due to 'retiree guilt'.

I will never be able to retire, and that's that.

Me either. There's a possibility I'll have money when I'm old (my mom apparently has a bunch of money, and she won't be leaving any of it to my brother as they haven't spoken in decades), but there's no such thing as a retired writer.

It is a complex area. I was talking with one of my older friends who had a farmhouse in Dorset with a swimming pool, a flat in Pimlico (central London,) and an apartment in Mallorca. Retirement was the first period in his life when he experienced heavy depression.

and the question i get asked whenever the topic comes up with friends : 'what do you do all day !?'
my standard answer has become : 'whatever the f^ck i want'.
yeah, most of the time thats music, reading, films, walking ..
so far i have yet to experience boredom.

Out of curiosity, do you have many friends in a similiar situation? Even just working from home, I've found the correlary to "I can do whatever I want" to be "...but not with whoever I want, they're all at their jobs".

Passing the semi-retired time: I joined a second tennis club this summer, where I play three times a week with the morning group (8-10 a.m.). They will, of course, continue for as long as the weather allows. So: when I return to work in the fall, if the weather's nice I'll book off every Monday/Wednesday/Friday through September. Or least for the mornings--I can keep the afternoons open in case a half-day job turns up.

Out of curiosity, do you have many friends in a similiar situation? Even just working from home, I've found the correlary to "I can do whatever I want" to be "...but not with whoever I want, they're all at their jobs".

no.
i am in a very small group.
i.e. just me.
thankfully i have become very accustomed to my own company.

I stopped working last year as well. It became too hard to get writing or editing or proofreading contracts, and too hard to get paid when I did get contracts, so I just stopped. My husband makes enough money for us both to live on, and we don't have kids. He's happy for me to be in charge of the house and be his weekend chauffeur (he doesn't drive), and I'm very happy not to have to scrape around for the shitty leftovers of work available to someone like me. I tried doing some volunteer work teaching English to speakers of other languages, but annoyingly the school closed down before I could really get into it. I might try again in the autumn, but really that's only to provide an answer to "what do you do?" in conversation. I have no desire to work. I've plenty of books, sewing projects, writing projects, and streaming services to keep me happily occupied. Like Mark E, I'm very happy with my own company all day, and in fact get a bit annoyed if one of my retired friends calls to see me.

I was offered a VRIF (voluntary reduction in force) package for those 60 and older in 2020. It was announced shortly after my 60th birthday and I jumped on it. I was exhausted by work and COVID and life in general at that point and truly thought I was done working.

That lasted all of 3 weeks. I started contracting back on the projects I'd been working on. Then found an amazing opportunity with a start-up in a wildly different industry. Laid off from there as an employee in December of 2024, but I agreed to contract back to them for a few things. 65 now, so qualified for Medicare - I've told them my last day will be August 29th. My final (?) phase is shaping up to be an animal sanctuary, but maybe I'll end up just adopting them all and spend my time reading while covered in cats.

Now this how to retire.

IS how etc

maybe I'll end up just adopting them all and spend my time reading while covered in cats.

I think the cats would enjoy that even more than you would. They'd think they were in cat heaven.