Retirement

"I remember when Chrystal and I were waffling on the purchase of our second motor home.  It was our first DP and quite a step up in cost from our first one.  We had been looking off and on for about six months and were really uncertain about it.  While we were sitting there contemplating it we looked on the wall behind the guys desk where we were sitting and he had a plaque with a saying on it that really hit both of us hard.  It said "If you have waited until retirement to enjoy life, you have waited too long".

We have tried to be conservative in our life together but continually reflect back on that afternoon and that plaque that said it all.  My dad was one of those people who worked his entire life and when it was time for him to enjoy his retirement, never made it."
Mike.

Susan and I did the exact opposite as I was a committed workaholic and only took two (2) vacations in 33 years. I forgot how to have fun. Even today, I am allowing time to slip by without taking time to get out and have fun. It is a disease that I wish on no one. I encourage my sons in the peak of their busyness to take time away and get out and have some fun.

You are very wise to get out and enjoy life whenever you can as often as you can. Being a workaholic will take its toll on a person. I quit working in 2009 at age 55 not because I wanted to, but I was forced to quit through a variety of reasons. 4 1/2 years later I still don't know how to go out and have fun, but at least I am working on it.

Just recently I allowed another opportunity go by cancelling our trip to the New Year's Rally at Catalina State Park... For me to continue to put business ahead of our fun is idiotic. I continue to delay thinking that I will always have time later on...and that is just not true. 

    John, I received this from a relative who also finds it difficult to sit back and enjoy the roses, I think it speaks to your dilemma, maybe you too can try out this hobby:

The importance of an occupation after Retirement

As we get older we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to "make a difference" in the world. It is at these times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable
achievements of other "seniors" who have found the courage to take on challenges that would make many of us wither.

Harold Schlumberg is such a person:



THIS IS QUOTED FROM HAROLD:

"I've often been asked, 'What do you do now that you're retired?'

Well...I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background and one of the things I enjoy most is converting beer, wine and whiskey into urine.
It's rewarding, uplifting, satisfying and fulfilling. I do it every day and I really enjoy it."

Harold is an inspiration to us all.

Ed

Ditto John from another workaholic.  Workaholism is the only "ism" that people compliment you on.  I retire at the end of 2015 and have likewise been committed to doing so with no debt.  Other than a small balance on our RV, we have achieved that, but the kicker will be to use it.

I am reminded of what an old undertaker who was in Rotary told me:  "Everybody I put in the ground today had plans for tomorrow". 

Take it one day at a time and don't be too hard on yourself when you regress from time to time.  It's just like the other "isms".

Hfx_Cdn said:

    John, I received this from a relative who also finds it difficult to sit back and enjoy the roses, I think it speaks to your dilemma, maybe you too can try out this hobby:

The importance of an occupation after Retirement

As we get older we sometimes begin to doubt our ability to "make a difference" in the world. It is at these times that our hopes are boosted by the remarkable
achievements of other "seniors" who have found the courage to take on challenges that would make many of us wither.

Harold Schlumberg is such a person:



THIS IS QUOTED FROM HAROLD:

"I've often been asked, 'What do you do now that you're retired?'

Well...I'm fortunate to have a chemical engineering background and one of the things I enjoy most is converting beer, wine and whiskey into urine.
It's rewarding, uplifting, satisfying and fulfilling. I do it every day and I really enjoy it."

Harold is an inspiration to us all.

Ed

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Susan and I joined a wine club in the Roseburg, OR area...we have a subscription to their wine releases. I figured that being a wine snob might be a worthy past time.

JimGeorgia said:

Ditto John from another workaholic.  Workaholism is the only "ism" that people compliment you on.  I retire at the end of 2015 and have likewise been committed to doing so with no debt.  Other than a small balance on our RV, we have achieved that, but the kicker will be to use it.

I am reminded of what an old undertaker who was in Rotary told me:  "Everybody I put in the ground today had plans for tomorrow". 

Take it one day at a time and don't be too hard on yourself when you regress from time to time.  It's just like the other "isms".

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We were pretty fortunate in our working careers. I was able to quit working without any debt whatsoever. Had I any debt I would still be in the mix. Being debt free is a B-L-E-S-S-I-N-G.

Good luck in your retirement plans. Perhaps we'll meet down the road somewhere and reminisce about how the world couldn't have made it without our working 80 hours a week... .

BTW, how did the body work come out on the Brave?

I wish my husband would take this to heart.  He will be 69 in August and says he will retire then.  I wonder, if he
doesn't I think he will stay till that job ends, could be 4 or 5 years. There is a possibility his visa may not be renewed
in June, a bunch are coming up and since he is working on a refinery and oil prices are down you never know, so there
is that possibility.

After 30 years of 7 day weeks and some 24 hour days, my wife talked me into retiring. I now realize that they don't even miss me, and none of them seem to be working those hours.

Wizard46 said:

After 30 years of 7 day weeks and some 24 hour days, my wife talked me into retiring. I now realize that they don't even miss me, and none of them seem to be working those hours.

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I always thought that I would be missed in my "world". Nothing was further from the truth. Not a single bump... it was humbling to me, because I thought everything would fall apart as soon as I left and that everyone would beg me to come back to work... . NOPE! Today my sons are running the business far better than I ever did, AND they take their time off.

It just goes to show that we are all expendable. I wish I would have realized that in the 1970s  ???

I suspect quite a few of us have to do something during retirement, but it doesn't have to be "business", or at least not high priority business. It's not terribly difficult to get into activities where you are not totally obligated to be there every day, or which can be done remotely.  The difficult choice for some, however, is to give family and leisure any priority at all. There may be a deep-seated feeling that things won't be done right if you aren't there to lead or supervise, and frankly, that feeling may well be justified. However, we need to realize that the world will still stumble along without us there to lube the gears at every moment, and that there are rewards for spending our precious time at other things. Stop thinking of leisure as "doing nothing" and start thinking of it as "working" at self-education (through travel) and compensating your wife and children for the years you neglected them while to you worked 24/7. A "bucket list" may help - it sets a clear goal and workaholics are often very much goal-oriented. Make your "work" the fulfillment of the bucket list, and devote all your energy to it.

Gary RV Roamer said:

I suspect quite a few of us have to do something during retirement, but it doesn't have to be "business", or at least not high priority business. It's not terribly difficult to get into activities where you are not totally obligated to be there every day, or which can be done remotely.  The difficult choice for some, however, is to give family and leisure any priority at all. There may be a deep-seated feeling that things won't be done right if you aren't there to lead or supervise, and frankly, that feeling may well be justified. However, we need to realize that the world will still stumble along without us there to lube the gears at every moment, and that there are rewards for spending our precious time at other things. Stop thinking of leisure as "doing nothing" and start thinking of it as "working" at self-education (through travel) and compensating your wife and children for the years you neglected them while to worked 24/7. A "bucket list" may help - it sets a clear goal and workaholics are often very much goal-oriented. Make your "work" the fulfillment of the bucket list, and devote all your energy to it.

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Wise words Gary, good food for thought.

Wisdom earned through my own struggle to satisfy a need to be actively engaged in productive efforts, even though I retired from business at age age 49.

Amen! There are a lot of factors that delay retirement. Being a workaholic is just one of mine; There was security (being debt free and having enough cash to last), Health insurance (Tara is younger and diabetic), Ego gratification ("surely this organization I've built will wither without me"), Involvement ( being a born hermit, I'd never see anyone), etc.

Turns out some were good reasons and others imaginary. Since I've retired, we spend the winter in a large RV park, where we've made friends and found new activities (our progressive meal Christmas day lasted from 3:00 until 9:00 PM-many grapes were sacrificed), neither of which I'd have expected. I've started a new project each year - last year it was building a hobby size CNC machine and learning to program it, and this year I'm learning to program an Arduino (microprocessor) with the goal of building a model Segway. Next year who knows?

In summary - Retirement is Good! Together -Do it when you can!

Ernie


Ernie

My husbands problem is letting go of the excellent pay checks.  I keep telling him we have enough, but he thinks just
add some more to savings.  At some point you are either going to enjoy those savings or your kids sure will. There is a difference with us, we intend to keep as much as half possibly for our daughters care.  We are not thrilled with what the state offers, but may have to let that happen, can't say. Of course, I realize everything is higher and who knows what can happen.  But I tell him many years ago we never envisioned having what we have now and would have made it.  But you know as the earnings go up you seem to think more and more things are essentials when they are just choices.  But one thing we do know that will cost a ton more is insurance.  We have been blessed with low premiums for years, even now we pay through his company $280 a month for ins with $3000 deductible for both of  us, I took medicare for short time and mine alone was very high so went back on his.  Also his has a lot of preventive care paid 100%, so that will hurt.

I know my MIL and FIL had excellent ins with low premiums for years.  Medicare $99 I think is their part and $60 or $70 a month premiums.  Over the years her part of the union ins premiums are now $880 a quarter, its still excellent insurance
but she has never really used it.  We figure reduced income for us and $1000 a month premiums is what we are thinking, I would be surprised if its less.  So that has been a huge incentive for him to keep working also.

But my cousin is getting a rude awakening, her husband worked for Marathon Oil, they had good pay, pensions, and she said her ins premiums were $50 a month, she is 75.  She is getting a letter saying they will give her $2000 to go buy her own supplement.  Poor gal hasn't a clue what its going to cost her, at least we know and are prepared.

It is scarey to stop working, I understand that, but has to happen sometime.  And I'm ready to have my companion at home.

I will admit when my wife and I first got married, I was working three jobs.  I would barely see Chrystal except for a few hours here and there.  I was alternating between graveyard and swing shift and so I figured if Chrystal was at work I may as well be doing something productive.

I started working on more and more cars/trucks/motorcycles on the side until it turned into a business.  We got our business license in 1997 and I pushed hard but I didn't want to quit my full-time job due to the benefits.  My goal was to build a shop and outfit it with everything needed to support my racing addiction.  I worked on anything and everything I could get my hands on and it started to interfere with our vacations.

I was forced to take a step back and look at the direction our life was going and although it was heading where I "once" wanted it to, it wasn't where "we" wanted it to go.  Our objective had changed and we didn't even notice it.  What I once thought of as a passion and addiction had slowly evolved into a burden.

Chrystal and I had some long discussions and she asked me why I became a mechanic in the first place.  My response was because I wanted to drive the nicest, baddest vehicles around and wanted to build them myself.  However I had less and less time to work on my own stuff due to demands from other people.  I really had to change my view of the life we wanted.  With Chrystal's insight she helped me to put things in perspective and I realized that I was not enjoying life like I thought I was and this is not the direction we waned our life to go.

Now several years later we are very happy with where we are and where we are headed but it came at a lot of different crossroads until we found what truly makes us happy.  Ten years ago even though we were putting money away for retirement and almost had our home paid off we weren't thinking about retirement like we do now.  The last several years we have been putting a lot of emphasis on retirement and retirment planning even though we are at least 9 or 10 years away at the earliest.

I am encouraged my many of our RV framily that have helped us to see what we really want out of life.  It is refreshing to see the enjoyment people get from traveling around to various rallies and destinations meeting up with other friends who share similar interests.  I am thankful we have met so many wonderful people to help us form our vision of what we want retirement to be.

Thank all of you.

Mike.

This is giving me some food for thought. I am pulling the pin on the corporate world at the end of March. We will be moving, we can't stay where we are on pension and we are tired of big city life but haven't made any plans beyond that other than to enjoy the rv. It will be a challenge, I don't like being idle and am easily bored. I will have part time work if I want it but I really need to learn to slow down.

RoyM said:

This is giving me some food for thought. I am pulling the pin on the corporate world at the end of March. We will be moving, we can't stay where we are on pension and we are tired of big city life but haven't made any plans beyond that other than to enjoy the rv. It will be a challenge, I don't like being idle and am easily bored. I will have part time work if I want it but I really need to learn to slow down.

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Learning how to slow down is a learned art. Like most of us, I want to be as productive as I can without a schedule to tie me down. I have yet to balance the two. I am learning though, after quitting work 4 1/2 years ago.

Gary gave some sage advice, "make slowing down the agenda". I have not thought about my not working in this manner before, but it makes good sense to an agenda driven person like myself.

I don't make New Year's Resolutions, but I do make commitments to myself, and in 2015 I am going to make a concerted effort to not cancel any more reservations. Quartzsite is only a couple of weeks away, and I don't have anything going on in January...that I know of.

Oscar Mike said:

I always thought that I would be missed in my "world". Nothing was further from the truth. Not a single bump... it was humbling to me, because I thought everything would fall apart as soon as I left and that everyone would beg me to come back to work... . NOPE! Today my sons are running the business far better than I ever did, AND they take their time off.

It just goes to show that we are all expendable. I wish I would have realized that in the 1970s  ???

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I guess I figured out how to be missed - without actually planning it that way.  I was a programmer and web designer for the US Bankruptcy Court during the time the Court was coming into the 20th century (just as the 21st century arrived).  Anyway, I designed a web application for managing personnel leave and attendance.  Although clumsy at first, I managed to get it refined to a point where the local court depended on it quite heavily.  Then I retired.  It took several years before they quit calling me.     I haven't heard from them (in a business sense) for some time now.  I guess the sand finally filled in the hole.

I don't like being idle and am easily bored.

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A lot of us thought that before we retired and guess what.  I can't begin to count the number of retirees (including myself) who are so busy they wonder how they ever had time to work.  The list of things seems to grow every day.  You'll find so many ways to keep busy that it just won't be funny.

ArdraF

ArdraF said:

A lot of us thought that before we retired and guess what.  I can't begin to count the number of retirees (including myself) who are so busy they wonder how they ever had time to work.  The list of things seems to grow every day.  You'll find so many ways to keep busy that it just won't be funny.

ArdraF

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So true with me, too.  However, I suspect the speed at which I work nowadays and how long it takes for me to remember what I was going to do has something to do with it.

Yes, I already went through the work life crisis.  Tom either worked away or such long hours we hardly ever saw each other, our whole married life has been around work.

At one time I was working on rentals, doing the lawns, taking care of the books, working a full time job with long hours, taking care of Sue Anne.  I would stop on the way home or paint or work on a rent house till late some nights, Sue
Anne would have sandwiches.  Then home, laundry, cleaning etc.  I was killing myself and stressed beyond belief, was
not a very nice person.  Then I had to take on mom too, I left an excellent job, tried real estate, hated it.  Went to work
as a temp and couldn't even manage that with 2 people pulling at me, Tom was out east somewhere.  It got to the point
something had to give, I was going to have a breakdown or I don't know what.  It killed me, for a year I was the most
miserable person possible, my identity was tied up with my work.  Eventually even then had to put mom in assisted living
but worked my way through it.  After she passed on got into more rentals and even with a handyman was working all the
time  That's when we decided to move up here.  We had a tremendous future income we dont' have now and that was likely
a mistake but the clientele were changing and sadly not for the better, I had off and on 10 renters to deal with.  We had already decided to sell 2 as the neighborhoods were changing so that might have not been good for long anyway.  But now here I am, in the spring, summer, and fall here I have plenty to do.  Make work I suppose, but now winter is here and nothing, I'm lost and bored. I know I'm struggling, I know my husband is going to struggle, I don't know how people become successful ramping down from busy, high charging lives.  Honestly, if not for Sue Anne, I would probably be working like he is and neither of us would likely retire.  I know silly, but he enjoys working and I did too.  It's hard.
I'm doing better except for winter and have to find something to do about that, so this is a partial solution, just leaving