General question : Retired or not?

[warhammer]

Unfortunately I can't see how I can ever afford to retire.

On the upside I have a great supervisor that has embraced a 4/10 work week so I get large parts of two days a week at the farm AND the still have time for home chores and family.

Warhammer

From another thread:


How many of us are doing this as "retired"?
I'm almost there and looking forward.
I know it's a big difference from holding down a 50 hr/week job and having to squeeze "seat time" in on the odd hour, or having "seat time" as a business.
/edit - retired = OOF - Official Old F@rt

 

[Turbys_1700]

I'll be 50 in September...
Currently have 15 years in with the state at the community college...
Hope to retire @ 60 with 25 years in the system...
Have a son in college and currently working on an EdS. degree...
My dad gave me one of his farms in the will recently...
I plan on staying here and working it before and in retirement...

 

[NSBound]

4 DAYS TO GO!! I will be turning 58 in August, and am retiring at the end of next week. My first job (out of school) was 8 years, my second one was also an 8-year stint, and this one has lasted 21 years, so I figure 37 years of gainful employment is enough! Finally bought my first tractor and have enough plans and projects lined up to last quite a while. With time in between for the odd nap. And the odd trip out in the boat. Or whatever I want!! I am sooooo looking forward to it.

 

[shakin]

not retired just turned forty a few days back. still grinding away every day.

 

[Redneck in training]

I am 60 and intend to retire at 63. We bought a pieced of vacant land in 2003 and built a house on it in 2004. We bought a Morton barn and finished it inside by ourselves to a house with large garage. My wife retired last month after 22 years with MetLife but continues selling insurance for a financial business owned by our son. Finally she makes serious money. I like my work that takes me all over the world and pays very well but I would like to enjoy my farm before I get too old. We bought the farm to keep us busy in retirement. I had several coworkers who told us what they would do when they retire such as garden, travel or play golf while they were counting the days. Only few actually did it. The rest watched TV too much, ate too much and got sedentary. Those were dead few years later. To avoid that I figured that if you get something enjoyable to do that is not necessarily optional (like cutting grass to keep the place nice) you will keep busy and livelonger. Inactivity is a killer. I intend to do part time work that doesn't require travel to make enough money to buy more tools and machines to equip my shop. MetLife pays health and dental until Medicare kicks in so I am not dependent on benefits the job will offer. Well, that is the plan.

 

[farmboy12]

I'm 13 and almost ready to retire. Maybe in a few years.


Kyle

 

[RWolf]

Turning 56 this year and plan on working a 9-5 job for about another 4-6 years. Spent 20 years working for Uncle Sugar and retired from there and now working for a bank doing basically the samething I did for most of my career in the Army working on computers. Spent a short time (5 years) working for a computer store in Copperas Cove Texas. I enjoy my job but am ready to do something else. Currently we're debt free but we're also planning on buying some more property in the country within the next 5 years. If I can pull this off then dougster and I will most likely be neighbors. I currently have 25ac but I made a deal with a friend of mine that when I found something more to my liking I'd sell him the current property. He's helping pay for it now so he'll most likely take over payments and pay me back what I've invested in the place. My wife and I though about moving out to it but to her it's too close to the RR tracks. It actually is at the RR property line in the back. So dougster watch out her I come.

All in all I'm looking forward to retiring. And like many have said retiring doesn't mean stop working it just means you can do what "you" want to do and not what "someone" else tells you to do.

 

[newbury]

I'm 13 and almost ready to retire. Maybe in a few years.


Kyle

Just plan for it. Make sure you are ready for it 10 years out. Too many peeps let it creep up and then they don't have what they want, just what they are getting given.

Death is not an option, just plan on trying to put it off till tomorrow, and it's never tomorrow, it's always today.

 

[The Dougster]

RWolf.... I'e ready when you are... Matter of fact, my wife is now talking more and more about retiring and when that happens, we'll be full-timers in Lampasas Co... as it is now, we spend our weekends here and hed back home on Sunday afternoons... Thank goodness, home is a few miles North of Seward Junction so if I get too bored, I can be at the ranch in about 40-minutes.... BTW, I get bored easily.

 

[Starboard]

Interesting thread. At 66 I just got my first SS check this month, something I never quite thought would happen the way the politicians spend it.

I guess I have been semi-retired for years, just ask my "friends." Still oversee the family business my bride and I started some years back, but our time is sort of our own. Even though it would inconvenience some family members I have been thinking about selling the business, so we can actually experience the retirement thing in earnest.

Been trying to buy some more land so I can get a genuine big boy tractor. Still waiting for the land prices to catch up with everything else that got hammered after the last election. But, like my friend said who is in the same boat, "I do believe at our age we need to quit talking about it and just do it."

This is a great forum. Thanks to all you good people for making it that way.