Yesterday (Jan 31st) Was My Retire-versary. 26 Years And No Regrets. What About You?

I retired four year ago at age 61.5
My only regret is that I wished we could have retired sooner but was scared of not having enough monies piled up.
So we did the one more year thing for awhile.
Retirement is much more better than working.
These cartoons really do say it very well...
Time > $ .jpg
More Years Behind vs Ahead .jpeg
 

I was forced to retire due to disability at the age of 52 in 2012.
My Nightmare ex-DH sexually abusing my 14 yo daughter caused me to become disabled.

Before that happened I used to Poh-Poh :unsure: people who spoke of going off the "deep end".
He is lucky he wasn't around the day it happened: he'd be a very dead man right now.

ANYWAY:

I hate retirement because it was never in my life plan, the WAY it happened, too soon and work was play to me.
I love going and getting.
And I loved my military companions dearly and the rules, books of rules:
"Merely suggestions" I would say with a smile OR "Where there is a will there is a waiver" I would tell my Commander and march forward to accomplish very important missions of doing something useful for my fellow Americans and our country.

BUT I had to resigned myself from my military commission in 2000. I was only 3 years from retirement. I had been in the military either Reserve, Guard, or Active Duty since July 1980 and dearly LOVED my career and they loved me!

Promoted from E-1 enlisted rank to E-5 in four short years; tested out of tech school in civil engineering; back to school in 1983 and into AFROTC to become an officer in Dec 1984. With very nice pay increases all along the way...it was fantastic, equal opportunity, etc.

Retirement isn't so good for some Type A personalities.
Am always trying to figure out what to do with the next 30 years. :unsure:

My Viking heritage is proud, strong, and I will live long and prosper or die trying. :ROFLMAO: So I do need things to do with my gobs of time.
 

OneEyedDiva said:
I can't believe that 26 years ago yesterday was my official date of retirement, though I stopped going to work about 10 days before, using the rest of my vacation and personal time. These years have gone by so fast !
What about you? Retired happily or regretfully? Planning to retire in the near future?
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How did I miss this thread? Diva, compliments to you, it's good to know that you are enjoying your retirement. My wife is much the same, when we are not out socialising she spends her time getting creative in the cabin that I treated her to.
Not having a creative hobby like my lady I have always found a stimulus in work. You can read here, the comment that I made yesterday about work and retirement.
It's important to have a stimulus, if you read up on the reasons for and about, dementia, stimulus appears time and again.

I witnessed a great example of working past retirement age when I was just 14. In hospital with a shattered right leg, after having been knocked down by a car whilst crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing, and coming round after the surgeon's second attempt to get the nerve ends repaired, I was asked to, wriggle my toes. Nothing. Amputation loomed.

Step up surgeon Mr. Penrose, 75 year-old Mr. Penrose. "Don't take the boy's leg off," he said, "Let me try." Same scenario as before, coming round from surgery I was asked to, wriggle my toes. "Wriggle, wriggle, wriggle." My father wept when he shook hands with Mr. Penrose.

Mr. Penrose taught the science of surgery to younger doctors, he found great stimulation from his work, he has always been someone whom I have admired. I might not be able to repair fractured bones but, despite turning 80 next year, I still work and I am still stimulated by it.
 
Retired at age 57 about 18 years ago. Never looked back. Have stayed in one-and-only house for 45 years but will move to an apartment in the next couple of years now that we're in our mid 70's. Have found a Chicago 'burb where everything is in walking distance, our primary goal for location along with easier access to family.
 
Workplace culture had changed. We now had multiple "bosses" asking for TPS Reports and holding meetings whining about the inadequate rate of progress, while they kept shifting the requirements of projects and trying to dictate every aspect of how things were done. Most of these "bosses" had no experience or education in the field and were branded as "project managers" even though they had no managerial ability or background, much less actual manager positions.

Pretty much a Soviet-style bureaucracy where everything was centrally-planned and you were handed "workers" completely unsuited to tasks and who needed constant babysitting.

One by one anybody with talent left, especially those younger with no local ties and less investment in things like pensions. Even most of those were no longer Defined Benefit pensions, but instead Defined Contribution plans that the 2008 recession had all but wiped out for many anyhow.

Kind of a microcosm of everything that's gone wrong in the West.

Gutting it out a few more years, it was no longer the sort of career one put their soul into. Then to economize, an early retirement incentive program was announced.

In 2011 this plan took effect, and I'd spent the prior 6 months shuffling a lot of paper and looking into things. I was able to "spend" accumulated banked leave time and such from prior decades to buy service credit for other eligible work history going all the way back to my high school years. That brought my DB pension up to levels that I calculated I could live on. My retiree health benefit would take me to Medicare, and I had less than a year left on my mortgage.

In late 2010 I filed my intent and when 2011 came I was out as soon as a I finished a 2 week pay period.

I never looked back, retiring at 55 years old.

From what I hear, these days there isn't a single male working there... unless you count employees of the contract firms profiteering by doing all of the work using foreign visa workers.

The big annoyance was a new pension tax that was slapped on in order to bail out corporations. Both political parties have held the reins since then but that tax is still there. Oddly, that tax is prohibited by State Constitution, but here we are.
 
I couldn’t work any more and retired at 60 with a mental health disability. Luckily, my last 15 years of working were in a union job and I was able to collect a small pension. I don’t qualify for SSN disability but did qualify through state of California.

I manage okay right now but really worry of anything should change. My apt rent goes up $100 a month every year but my limited pension does not increase.

I thought about going back to work but with my disability, I wouldn’t be able to commit 100%, even part time. I retired 7 years ago.
 
I retired at 58 from the state. 7 months later I was asked to teach an online college course at the local university which I did for 8 years. I have been retired for 13 years but have consulted all but 3 of them. I’m still consulting and love it plus I am able to bank the extra money because the next 4 years are going to be rocky for this country financially.
 
Happily I suppose. I always planned to retire at 50. I just didnt plan to be the resident caretaker for everybody.
I retired for the first time in 2000 from my engineering job at age 50 as part of my ongoing caretaking journey.
Then I started a side business so I could work at my own schedule.
My charges have all passed now. The husband was the last one to go in 2022.
Im semi retired now. I work two days a month. :D
 
My personal retirement was Oct 2009, 35 years with the same aerospace company. Worked construction prior to & during my tenure. Was having health issues since taken care of. Volunteered for retirement, was close anyway. So it's been 16 years & haven't looked back. Hobbies keep me somewhat busy & active. Pension, 401k & SS sustain us. SO has SS & 401k for her garden needs.

My company changed hands so often the welcome sign should have been placed on a turn style. Many different co-workers. Some good friends, some not many who have passed but not forgotten. Moved from the mountain west to the Pacific coast after retirement. I interviewed, hired, worked & retired within a 10 foot circle. A prime 'Peter principle' example.
 
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Retired early at age 54 & coming up on 30 years with no regrets. We've been everywhere we wanted to go & are doing what gives us joy each day. Unlike many years in order to retire early needs always came 1st. That changed in a good way. Since 1st. day of retirement we haven't held back on buying wants.
 
I was 62 when my company was obliterated due to Covid. 50% of the staff was laid off. It will be 5 years in June.

I had planned on working until 70 because my mother was in assisted living and it was expensive. (She passed away in November 2021.) I put the maximum into my 401k.

My boss called me in March 2020 to tell me my job had been eliminated and I would be paid until June 2020. I told him I was mentally and financially ready (even though I wasn't sure I was financially ready). He was crying. I wasn't. I hated my job toward the end. He was devastated because I did all the work for him.

As it turned out, I had plenty in my investments to enjoy retirement. I wish I'd retired earlier.
 
CooCooforCoCoPuffs said:
I was forced to retire due to disability at the age of 52 in 2012.
My Nightmare ex-DH sexually abusing my 14 yo daughter caused me to become disabled.

Before that happened I used to Poh-Poh :unsure: people who spoke of going off the "deep end".
He is lucky he wasn't around the day it happened: he'd be a very dead man right now.

ANYWAY:

I hate retirement because it was never in my life plan, the WAY it happened, too soon and work was play to me.
I love going and getting.
And I loved my military companions dearly and the rules, books of rules:
"Merely suggestions" I would say with a smile OR "Where there is a will there is a waiver" I would tell my Commander and march forward to accomplish very important missions of doing something useful for my fellow Americans and our country.

BUT I had to resigned myself from my military commission in 2000. I was only 3 years from retirement. I had been in the military either Reserve, Guard, or Active Duty since July 1980 and dearly LOVED my career and they loved me!

Promoted from E-1 enlisted rank to E-5 in four short years; tested out of tech school in civil engineering; back to school in 1983 and into AFROTC to become an officer in Dec 1984. With very nice pay increases all along the way...it was fantastic, equal opportunity, etc.

Retirement isn't so good for some Type A personalities.
Am always trying to figure out what to do with the next 30 years. :unsure:

My Viking heritage is proud, strong, and I will live long and prosper or die trying. :ROFLMAO: So I do need things to do with my gobs of time.
Click to expand...
There are a million reasons for people experiencing personal anxiety, most of which no one will ever understand. We endure one day at a time. The sun comes up, the sun goes down.☀️
 
It's been a fascinating thread to read, the general consensus seems to be that retirement is preferable to working. What is it about work that so many want to be no longer a part of? For those whose working life is lived by the clock, whose work can be repetitive and the task lacks stimulation, I can well understand wanting to be anywhere but work.

Nobody ever seems to comment when a celebrity works well into the accepted retirement age. Sophia Loren was 86 when she played the part of an ageing Holocaust survivor who forges an unlikely bond, with a bitter street kid from Senegal, when she takes him in after he robs her.

The ultimate pensioner who was still working well into his 80's has to be Joseph Biden Jr. who was born on November 20th, 1942, an American politician who became the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025.

Twice I have tried to retire, perhaps I didn't try hard enough, the stimulus I get from work is the reason that I keep going. I do keep a watch on my wife's recovery and would stop working immediately if she needed my help, but the lady has made a good recovery from surgery, so I will continue as is, for the foreseeable future.
 
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