For those retired....what do you enjoy most?

[davrow]

So how did you stay motivated until your retirement date?

What makes you think I am? :laughing:

Actually, we have our retirement home even if we don't get to live there. But we keep finding (expensive) things that we would like to do... extend the deck, put in pantry, barn/workshop, etc. Staying at work will let me have these done professionally so they will be ready for us when we are there full time. So I stay motivated by thinking of what every minute spent at work is buying for my future.

 

[JDgreen227]

What makes you think I am? :laughing:

Actually, we have our retirement home even if we don't get to live there. But we keep finding (expensive) things that we would like to do... extend the deck, put in pantry, barn/workshop, etc. Staying at work will let me have these done professionally so they will be ready for us when we are there full time. So I stay motivated by thinking of what every minute spent at work is buying for my future.

The way I look at it is: Retiring early let me be able to afford a huge addition to my current home and update the older part because I was able to do it myself and not be dependent upon paying someone else to do the work, it would not have been affordable to have it done as I didn't earn enough to pay a contractor $150-200 a square foot.

 

[newbury]

And for those of you that have met the minimum for your particular retirement system - try and figure out how much you are effectively being paid per hour.

Example -
Working -
Annual salary - $100K before taxes
After all taxes, FICA, SS, retirement fund, health etc. - $70K
Expenditures because you HAVE to work - commuting, clothes, meals etc. $5K
NET working $65K

Retired
Annual pension $60K
After all taxes etc. $55K (no retirement fund contribution)
NET $55K

Difference $10,000

So 2,000 hours for $10,000, or $5.00 per hour.

I had gotten down to about $3.50/hr or less for working, wasn't worth it, especially since SWMBO was retiring for health reasons.


I had one friend at work that had never figured it out that way. He had 44 years in. Finally figured out if he retired he'd be making MORE. He retired shortly thereafter.

 

[Paul Thornton]

Now that I am retired I fill my time by working in the woods, volunteering for local hospital fund raising, and as a fishing instructor for the state.

L2800 w/FEL - 72" Land Pride rake

 

[davrow]

Annual pension $60K

I was following your thought process until I got here. What is a pension?

I will have zero income until (and if) social security kicks in in 5 to 7 years. Until then, it is living off meager savings.

 

[newbury]

I was following your thought process until I got here. What is a pension?

I will have zero income until (and if) social security kicks in in 5 to 7 years. Until then, it is living off meager savings.

Well, it's probably too late now. I started planning for retirement after I graduated high school, before I paid my first years college tuition of $600. I won't get Social Security.

A pension is a fixed sum to be paid regularly to a person, typically following retirement from service. There are many different types of pensions, including defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans, as well as several others.

from Pension - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[jtygoku]

15 months and counting to get to full retirement eligibility. I'll only be 55 so not sure I'll pull the plug but I'm envisioning that the fact that you CAN walk whenever the urge strikes will provide a huge reduction in the stress level. I'm curious whether that truly did have that effect on those in that same position. My wife says my dedication/approach to the job probably won't allow me to reduce the stress even with the retirement eligibility in the back pocket. I guess we'll see.

 

[JDgreen227]

And for those of you that have met the minimum for your particular retirement system - try and figure out how much you are effectively being paid per hour.

Example -
Working -
Annual salary - $100K before taxes
After all taxes, FICA, SS, retirement fund, health etc. - $70K
Expenditures because you HAVE to work - commuting, clothes, meals etc. $5K
NET working $65K

Retired
Annual pension $60K
After all taxes etc. $55K (no retirement fund contribution)
NET $55K

Difference $10,000

So 2,000 hours for $10,000, or $5.00 per hour.

I had gotten down to about $3.50/hr or less for working, wasn't worth it, especially since SWMBO was retiring for health reasons.


I had one friend at work that had never figured it out that way. He had 44 years in. Finally figured out if he retired he'd be making MORE. He retired shortly thereafter.

100K while working....what a howler!!!! :laughing: :laughing: The last year I had a full time job, I was paid $19.78 an hour. My employer offered an enhanced early retirement deal...I had just under 31 years in. I sat down and calculated everything carefully...had I kept working, after paying federal tax, state tax, city tax, Social Security, FICA, parking, gasoline and mileage, I would be earning less than $3 an hour NET over what my pension would pay me....and yes, I calculated taxes that would be taken from my pension. I was earning nearly $20 an hour, but my pension paid me $14.75 an hour after taxes because I didn't have to contribute to SS, FICA, union dues, parking, etc. BTW....I cashed in over 340 hours of vacation time, 520 hours of sick leave, and three months of unpaid overtime (comp time) to get the enhanced pension so maybe I should figure that in. But why bother????

 

[Redbug]

Over the years we had paid everything off...lived frugally and maxed out the IRA's and 401 each year and kept up with the market. Knowing all along if something happened...like losing my job...I could land on my feet and be in better shape than most. I had worked rotating shifts most of my career and was ready to go a long time ago. I envy the people that love their jobs. But my job is what caused me to save and become a free man.

Well, I'm now starting on my 6th month of retirement. I am adjusting and now suspicious of the whole affair. There has got to be something criminal about not working, being happy, and not worrying so much about money anymore. What's the catch? My retirement is now about double of what my working take home pay was. That's because of saving and investing so much of my salary.

My life up to retirement was completely structured. How I hated being boxed in all the time. Now, every day is what I want it to be and I am in control of my time and life. What a great feeling! No more having to deal with obxnious people anymore and being with friends whenever I want, now. My favorite day is now Monday! All the worker bees are at work and the mail runs. Stores are empty, roads are less crowded, and it is in general a lot quieter. Weekends and holidays are days to stay home. On the future horizon...We are looking for land further in the country with the owls and bobcats to build our low country home further away from things.

I look back and think to myself about all the years I stuck to the grindstone and slogged along. Rotating shifts, too. I also think of all the things that could have happened in those years that could have marred the chances for a full retirement and freedom. During those years I could have fallen into bad vices, (alcohol, etc), bad decisions, RIFs, divorces, brushes with the law, and lost my job along with the benefits we now have. Out on the street like most of the people today. No future in sight. I have seen those kinds of things happen to old cohorts. Some people cannot learn from their mistakes and make the same life mistakes over and over again. I feel like that salmon finally making it back upstream from the ocean with all the pitfalls along the way. Many others did not make it. Well I made it, and no matter what happens they can't take it away. I am a free man.

Remember when you were a little kid...before the big people sent you to kindergarten? Remember those seemingly endless days of play? Those days when you got up and ate breakfast, then went out to play? Then you'd come in for lunch and a nap, and then go back out to play until supper time? Then after supper you'd go out to play until dark or until bedtime...whichever you could get away with? Then you'd start all over the next day? Well, that's what retirement is for me! I just can't help smiling all the time. I know what a real vacation is! It is my new life!

 

[5030]

Easy answer. Agitating posters on politically sensitive forums.