Retired now what?

When the time is right, lots of scuba, learn to sail, learn surfing all over again (I'm terrible right now) maybe dabble in golf, hike, take my bike out for a few laps here and there, visit my buddy who snow skis a lot, have fun one my old JS550 ski. Of course there will be lots of fix it projects too. Would like to see my wife finish out her private pilot license. Maybe there will be grand kids around by then. Shit, I'm already overloading the schedule and retirement is for winding down. Haven't even gotten to travel component yet.

TM

we planned for years to exit the rat race and move somewhere with slower pace, lower cost of living, less crazy population and lots to do especially outdoors. We had no kids, she's 7 years older than me and got a medical retirement then early full SS benefit. I retired early at 56, had to go into Obamacare and deliberately waited until 64 to start SS. Lived off savings and some specialized small withdrawals from company 401k. We lived frugally anyways so never felt strapped.

We had planned to take up Yoga together, I wanted to take up golf and beer brewing, continue our mountain biking and light hiking, some off-roading and more horse quality for her. Almost none of it materialized for multiple reasons but she got her horse thing going with a great group of like-minded gals, I get to ride a couple times a year and spend too much time on forums. Medical issues and cancer seem to take up more time they have a right to. Hope yours goes better!

Well congratulations to you both.

I’ve got 7 more yrs to go until retirement.but I’m on the gradual move to retirement by working only 100 days per year, this gives my wife a slow easement into full time retirement. This year I will be down to 98ndays of work.

18 weeks off from June 9—Oct 13

Work Oct 13–27

Off for the remaining part of the year

I retired on 1-1-26, 

Busier than ever with projects and maintaining bikes. I also have the time to workout more consistently. 

 Upgraded my trials bike and got back into trials, doing an event this weekend, the best part is I show up Saturday afternoon, camp in a nice forest, ride the event Sunday, stay another night and leisurely get back home Monday. Wife is totally supports my hobbies and loves going to the races. I also have more time to travel to more vintage MX races now. Retiremant is tiring , but loving it.

Going to be an "Escapee"?

what vintage races are you going to? I had planned to do couple every year with AVDRA, but they seem to have evaporated now?  I can go to LA area and race with ARX but it's a multi-day commitment with 4 driving days and 1 race day in the middle. The Rocky Mountain Vintage group stopped traveling West on their schedule, so everything is a multi-day deal up and down the I-25 corridor. Don't have any riding partners around here that want to spend much time with VMX so I'm kinda screwed. Getting ready to thin the VMX bike herd as it seems it's pretty much done now.

Gradual slow down is my plan also.

Eyeing vans to convert or buy one already done..

I have a second home in timbuc too Wisconsin but its 3 season.

So we'll Snowbird eventually. 

" Thats the Plan " im 63 and have a little ways to go.

All I can say is fuck all you guys who managed your affairs well enough to retire. Just my jealousy coming through. Have a great retirement.

Those are the plan now that I have the flexibility to do so. I Really want to do Unadilla rewind, Mid Ohio, Those are bucket list for me.

 Really sucks AVDRA closed shop , was a great group of racers.

I turn 60 in Nov depending on when I heal from my 6-27 mx wreck . I,m back on the rd with another EU Chicago co. Next yr I hope to race Mid Ohio & to check out all the other racing .  Not sure about Rewind if I go , not much track time I hear, I,m going rafting in the Lake Placid area. Hit some Midwest vintage & D16 125 class &60+.  Going to try & work to 65 my body is totally shot  . So that will be tough . 

Short term, it's giving me time to catch up on the stages of the, Vuelta de Espana, that I've missed over the weekend. 

Long term, one of the smartest things that Jenn got us doing was, short term rentals in the Gatlinburg area. 

Two are quite profitable. 

One breaking even.

And not living, stupidly, beyond our means for the past two decades.

Other than H-Vac related stuff, being able to maintain our house and cabin myself is a huge money saver at times.

We had both rooves redone a few years ago. 

The vehicles are older, and don't have us saddled with payments. Though her car isn't long for the world.

My truck and 4runner are solid. So one of those are her backup if/when it dies.

All adds up to peace of mind.

Now it it wasn't for property taxes...😤

I planned “side work” as my retirement. Even trying to “work” for enjoyment, people get aggravating as fuck. 

I’m buying a Lake House in the next six months to a year. Between MTB, swimming, fishing, boating, etc; I’ll find plenty to keep myself occupied. 

Get something, a project, to piddle with. 

Most of all, take a moment to breath and realize life is FANTASTIC now. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can truly do what you want, within the limits of law enforcement and physics. 

 

I just passed the 12.5 years to go mark. 12.5 years, minus 2 days and I'll retire at 68. Probably going to do a "soft retirement" and work part-time somewhere while my wife pads her pension, then we're selling the home and leaving CA with the proceeds. (As long as California hasn't decided by then that keeping your own money is illegal.) 
I'm going to move somewhere that I can own a street-legal SxS, pay fewer taxes, and enjoy the fruits of a lifetime of labor without living under the oppressive thumb of a government that hates me. 

PS - way to go, Lumpy. Enjoy your retirement!  

Yup, I went wrong in life when I decided to be a motorcycle mechanic. There is no retirement and will have to keep working until I drop dead.

Congratulations to you guys who have pulled it off.

IMO, the work until you drop thing usually gets tanked by health issues. Only guy I ever heard of literally dropping dead AT work was Dave Miller (DMC) and he did have serious underlying medical issues. My Dad used to say, the best thing about dying is you never have to pay anybody back! Funny, but ignores the reality of who gets the burden of picking up the pieces and settling everything you left undone.

That got me giggling here but yes, someone will have to pick up the tab.

Retire in Vietnam like truckers do, it’s extremely cheap to live there. A lot of 80+ yr olds still driving because there broke.   I had to with draw all my 401k,s to help pay for 900k in injuries & surgeries. Biggest pipeline co with a few divisions paid scab wages 15 an hr not 78 in 94. Total bs because no other men could handle the job . Like most weeks they flew a Marine out & he quit the 1st day or got fired the 3rd. Claim my as an operator for 5 months pension went in there . Then claim me as a laborer , so my hrs never built . Mob smashed up our equipment in 91 to force us to join the ibew , never got a pension or the wages.  I did save 150k through the 90,s but my broken back ate that up. Rates r up rt now it’s possible to gross 450k . Hope it’s like that my last 2 yrs then I let tax man hit it & build my ss up 1k a month. Health insurance goes by what you make , you don’t want to pay 6k a month rt now. I only got vested in 1 union pension & it’s not a lot 888 a month.   Got my 1st letter in 15 yrs from ss , rt now I,d get 2k a month that’s nothing & hv to wait until 65 to get the union pension.  It should be like nfl players when your done at 26 you get it.  Labor Day I figured out what I hv to make to get ss to 4k a month. Probably still work after 65 the max your allowed to make. 

Retirement, now what? That is a real serious question that scares the shit out of me. What the hell are you supposed to do? It's hard enough keeping busy now nevermind when there is no job. ............................. The potential for boredome is crazy!!!

You have to learn to control/fight boredom. It is expensive……….🤣🤣🤣

I,ve seen a lot of dead truckers the fire dept pulls a door off then removes a seat to get his body out . Some r dead for 2 weeks, that’s got to be a nasty smell.  No one cares they hv schedules & go about there buisness.   I knew a few that where terminally ill & said I,m gonna keep rolling until I don’t .  Most hv no interest in dying in a nursing home .  I,m the same way , why be a worthless pile laying in a bed that cost ya 10-20k a month on a bunch of drugs. All alone I knew of an angel of a woman a farmers wive. None of her 10 kids visited her. 

You go to the ymca & hit the pool & try to move your body like the rest of the dumb asses that r old as hell. Lol I hv a bunch of old pals they love hering stories from the rd.  On 6-27 I died a few times in icu . Your last exhale is cool then a wave of your energy of life leaving your body . Is Very cool.  

First off I feel extremely lucky to be in the situation I'm in. I'm retirement "transitioning😄", I turned 67 in January, starting collecting SS (Minimal amount of $ compared to monthly bills) and run the commercial end of the pool route. Our son took over the residentials. I don't have sail off into the sunset money but have been trying to fuck around and go on vacations as much as possible. Sometimes I work all day or weeks at a time, and some days I don't do jack shit. It depends what breaks or if my son needs help with a repair etc. I feel extremely lucky to have enough cheese, time, and mainly healthy enough to fuck around here and there. And I ride my emtb 2-4 times a week to try and keep the ticker ticking. This year we went on a Mississippi river cruise, Helped crew for Jeff Ward and Micky Dymond on their "Vacation" bike race as someone in here called it, went on a S. african safari, saw Willy Nelson, went to speedway a few times, got invited to the Ducati intro in Jan and raced go karts, went to Kanab Utah with the grandkids for a few days a couple weeks ago, we're going on a mexico cruise in November with the grandkids, we're pretty much spending whatever money we have, but fuck it. I've had too many old customers tell me "We should have done more when we were younger and healthy" I'm 67 so fuck it whatever $ comes in were doing something fun with it. On the other side of the "Coin" lol.  We don't go out to eat much, don't go to movies, don't buy new cars or clothes, we live like cheap asses so we can fuck around more while we can. 5 or 10 years from now ? Who the fuck knows, we can rent the house for more than the mortgage, and or sell it and move of Califailure, we really don't know what we're doing long term, but right now were going to fuck around as much as we can. Smart move money wise ? Absolutely not, but I was never that smart anyway so fuck it. 

RDnutz, I'm sending you some good vibes, your story and stories like yours keep me motivated to try and get the most out of every day. Cancer sucks, best of luck to you*  

Cool. 

You are living an experience based life over a possession based one Sundood...at least that is how i would describe it. I kind of try and do that also. 

The biggest thing I learned after retirement- boredom comes easy and doing nearly anything costs money... 

Kids and grandkids make most of our plans, they say “Hey we’re planning to go”… Yes, we want to go. Doesn’t matter what it is sign us up. The grandkids are only going to think we’re cool and want to do stuff with us for a limited time. Whatever it is we’re in. Next weekend is Monster trucks somewhere for a birthday. I have no idea where 😃

I can’t leave the house for less than $100! 😎🤘

Ain't that the truth. 

I'm hoping that repair costs to my home/property/vehicles wont eat us up in retirement. 

We just put an $18,000 roof on my moms house and our roof is now 25 years old. We spent $12,000 back in 2021 for a new HVAC system for our home that is only supposed to last 10-15 years? Major home appliances that only last 5-10 years? Well pump? Sewer/septic tank failure? A load of gravel every now and then?

Property taxes went from $4074 in 2016 to $7036 last year. I'm 56, will it go up a similar percentage by the time I officially retire?

All our vehicles are at least 16 years old and over 123,000 miles. The garage youtube channels like South Main Auto make it seem pretty unaffordable to maintain these new cars that are turbo charged computers on wheels.

Retirement might be a continuation of taking care of elderly parents. I've got the last 5 years into my mom who will soon die but my father in law is 80 and unhealthy and my mother in law is 84. Hell, I ain't very healthy either. 

I kind of came to the conclusion a few years ago that I have basically done anything fun i wanted to do and I am ok with that. I have grandkids that are 5 and 2 that I can watch grow up and if I can still go fishing, walk the dog and make smartass comments on message boards I will be ok.

Damn I sound like a sad sack today. 😑