May 15th is my 3rd anniversary of retirement! I recommend it to anyone who can do it.

[old mark]

I was able to retire a few months before my 60th birthday, about 3 years earlier than planned. I can not imagine ever working again for any one else, although I do some eBay sales and we will be doing flea market selling this summer, and I do a few other things to keep myself amused in addition to doing art things. We recently started going to a nearby gym several days a week, and found that a friend of my wife's also goes there almost every day - she is 78!

It is just fine to be able to take a day and NOT DO ANYTHING if you don't feel like it, or go out for a drive or a walk by the lake in mid afternoon any day you want.

We just had some good fortune with money, and things worked out better than we thought, so I left work one day and never went back. I have a small pension and Social Security now, and we do just fine with our fixed income.

I recommend retirement to anyone whenever you can do it - don't wait for the maximum money if you really don't need to - the free time is much more valuable. Every day is a treasure.

mark

[pengillian101]

1. So happy for you!

Sounds like a very wonderful life you've both obtained - congratulations on your good fortune!

:-)

[shanti]

2. i've joined your club, old mark!

tomorrow i will be officially retired! :party: :woohoo: how are you feeling now after all these months of retirement? i've been feeling a lot of mixed emotions, is that normal?

[old mark]

3. At first I spent time looking back over my lifelong struggle with employment,

then I pretty much stopped thinking about it and began to just enjoy every day as much as possible. The biggest problem we have now is that time seems to go by so quickly...we look back on the past year in amazement at all we did, but it went by in a flash.

FWIW, I really did not enjoy most of my working life-I mostly did what was necessary to make a living, without regard to whether I liked it or not.
I feel every day that I am very fortunate to be here and to be able to realy enjoy my time.

I wish you-and everyone here-a very long, happy and healthy life after work!

Coming up on 4 years soon!!!

mark

[old mark]

4. Welcome to the first of many good years- I hope you really enjoy every day!

:hi:


mark

[old mark]

5. Shanti- how is retirement workng out for you? Hope it is

enjoyable.

mark

[shanti]

6. hey mark!

it's been three months, and i seem to be settling into my retirement pretty well now. maybe it's the season too, who knows, but spring always has that feeling of promise. i feel really blessed that i am able to enjoy a relatively young retirement too, as well as decent health.

i retired early, not because i hated my job, on the contrary. i just couldn't stand my micromanaging, asshole boss, and the furlough/pay cuts that california state workers had been subjected to, a moment longer than was necessary. i had a good salary, but at the risk of seeming trite, money can't buy happiness.

last week, i got some sad news about a former co-worker who passed in her sleep from a heart attack. she was only 60, hated her job, and soooooo wanted to retire, but had two years to go. she never made it :( it's something that i hear about fairly often, people dying before they can collect a penny of their pension. some stats say 11 years of pension is the average. i'm hoping to beat that :)

glad that retirement is going well for you!

[DavidDvorkin]

7. Today is my 2nd anniversary

It wasn't planned. I was laid off and couldn't find another job. My being 65 might have had something to do with that. :)

At my wife's urging, I adjusted my thinking and gave up on the idea of full-time work. Now I'm doing the occasional brief contract but mostly concentrating on writing, and I'm happier than I've ever been.

[Uben]

8. 10 yrs for me.......

....and I'm still only 56! The wife and I both retired when she got breast cancer 10 yrs ago. I wanted to spend every day I had left with her, whether it was two months or two decades. It was facilitated when an investment finally paid off and we had some reliable cash flow. I bought two cheap houses I could remodel and rent out, and now they have both paid for themselves...twice!
I got tired of being a landlord so I sold one, and the other one is for sale. We don't live a lavish lifestyle. We live pretty cheap, but we own our time, and that is the most valuable thing we want. No alarm clocks, no schedules, no commutes, no office politics, nothing but me and her, my black lab and our cat. I live right across the street from the boat ramp on our lake, and I can be in my fishing hole in 15 minutes! I can't say I'll never go back to work, but if need be, my last employer offered me a "job for life" and told me if I ever reconsidered, I had a job. The way it looks now, I won't have to worry about taking him up on the offer. I spend a lot of time fixing up this 40 yr old lake home. I've managed to remodel almost all the interior and now I'm working on the exterior. It keeps me busy and I do it as money allows. The very best thing??????? That would be spending the rest of my life with my best friend, my wife.

[badhair77]

9. I passed my first anniversary in Sept.

It's a tremendous gift as I had some health problems and would have really struggled to keep working. Now I'm hoping to find a part-time job since the bills have skyrocketed in that short time. I thought I had planned well but insurance and health costs are the killers. Ironic, isn't it.

It's too bad there's been so little movement in this thread and group. I'd love to hear from other Boomers.

[newfie11]

10. Retired for 5 years and loving it

Hubby and I are still traveling and showing our Newfoundlands. Due to arthritis I think this maybe our last year in the dog show world. Running around the ring is getting more difficult.
So now to do other things with them.

[RebelOne]

11. I had forced retirement in 2010.

I was 70 years old then and planned to work at least another couple of years to build up some more money into 401K. But unfortunately, I was laid off. I knew I did not have a chance in hell of getting another job at my age. And I sure did not want to be a Wal-Mart greeter. So I just decided to retire. I would really rather be working because I am bored.