Questions Re Retirement

[Mr._Clark]

I'm tentatively planning to retire within the next 2-3 years. I've saved a fair amount over the years, but I'm somewhat apprehensive about having no real income during retirement.

I had always assumed I'd just "know" when it was time to retire, but I'm finding it more difficult than I expected.

For those who are retired, do you wish you had worked longer? I've heard quite a few people say they wish they'd retired younger, but I rarely hear anyone say that they wish they'd worked longer.

Also, is there anything you wish you had done differently?

 

[ryanosaur]

I'm tentatively planning to retire within the next 2-3 years. I've saved a fair amount over the years, but I'm somewhat apprehensive about having no real income during retirement.

I had always assumed I'd just "know" when it was time to retire, but I'm finding it more difficult than I expected.

For those who are retired, do you wish you had worked longer? I've heard quite a few people say they wish they'd retired younger, but I rarely hear anyone say that they wish they'd worked longer.

Also, is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Ozzy retired. Look what happened to him!

 

[highfigh]

I'm tentatively planning to retire within the next 2-3 years. I've saved a fair amount over the years, but I'm somewhat apprehensive about having no real income during retirement.

I had always assumed I'd just "know" when it was time to retire, but I'm finding it more difficult than I expected.

For those who are retired, do you wish you had worked longer? I've heard quite a few people say they wish they'd retired younger, but I rarely hear anyone say that they wish they'd worked longer.

Also, is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Discuss this with a financial planner.

Someone who retires fully needs to do something other than sit all day. That's a really fast track toward death.

It's less a matter of "I no longer work" and more "I no longer work for someone else". A friend wondered "What are we going to do after we stop working?" and I told him that a couple of hobbies that provide income always seemed like a good idea, to me.

 

[Mikado463]

Discuss this with a financial planner.

I'm assuming this step has been done or is in the works

As someone who is in his 5th year of retirement my adj were a little different(retiring smack dab in the middle of COVID). For me having a Railroad retirement pension, a wife retired as an Educator with a pension and living conservatively comfortable, money worries were not a real concern.

As for the actual decision to retire, for me, after a 47 year career, it was time to turn over the reigns to the next generation of railroaders. I did consult back for 6 months or so which did help in weening myself from the 'work routine'

Most importantly, as @highfigh noted, keep and stay active. I have and now I usher another famous quote......"I don't know when I ever found time to go to work" !

 

[highfigh]

I'm assuming this step has been done or is in the works

As someone who is in his 5th year of retirement my adj were a little different(retiring smack dab in the middle of COVID). For me having a Railroad retirement pension, a wife retired as an Educator with a pension and living conservatively comfortable, money worries were not a real concern.

As for the actual decision to retire, for me, after a 47 year career, it was time to turn over the reigns to the next generation of railroaders. I did consult back for 6 months or so which did help in weening myself from the 'work routine'

Most importantly, as @highfigh noted, keep and stay active. I have and now I usher another famous quote......"I don't know when I ever found time to go to work" !

It's unfortunate that so many people retired during COVID- their employers weren't able to find GOOD, well-qualified replacements. Customer/technical service have become unusable in many cases and in the AV industry, that has become so much of a PITA that I don't even want to be involved anymore. Brands have disappeared, companies have been purchased and failed because someone didn't follow Dirty Harry's advice ("A man has to know his limitations") and people who had absolutely no past experience in the new job replaced competent employees. One glaring example was at an equipment distributor- he was new and didn't know anything about the products, so I asked how long he had been working there as conversation, rather than getting in his face about it. I then asked what he had done before and he told me that he drove a truck delivering beer. Yeah, that was great. Unfortunately, the manager knew about as much and when I asked about products, he would look on the computer or in their paper catalog, tell me the part number and price. When I was asking for specs, that really didn't help.

I have been doing this for decades and the changes in HDMI, equipment reliability and lack of support from manufacturers makes it impossible for me to want to continue in the business. Add the fact that almost no electronics service shops are left and I jus want to do other things.

Because of my education and training (independent and on the job working for others), I had filled a niche in AV installations- I was willing to work on the old homes that are well over 50 years old, often 75-120 years old and the other dealers/installers weren't interested or willing to do the work because finding cable paths and cutting holes aren't the same as working on newer homes. These make cable failures a real problem if some kind of conduit wasn't used (I always did, unless the path was short and easy).

Oh, I forgot to mention- I have a 1980's boat that wasn't well-maintained by a previous owner, so............