How will you spend your time in retirement?

[Fern]

Please describe, in as much detail as possible, how you will spend your time in retirement.

Assume the most realistic terms, in other words, not your fantasy land retirement, but the one you will mostl likely end up with.

[simple987]

This is a good question because I been doing a lot of research about retirement planning and so forth. I am only 24.5 years old so I have almost no clue what I will want to do or if I will have a family. Who knows how much I will need so I am just saving the maximum.

[Fern]

Wow, just 24 and thinking about retirement??? You should read my post that i did on my blog today, it's on that subject.

Here's what i plan to do:
1. Get a dog (i've had cats all my life cus they require less time but i REALLY want a dog)

2. Lots of daily walks with said dog. I try to walk as much as possible for exercise anyway, so a dog will give me more incentive.

3. Work part-time. I plan to segway into retirement gradually. I want to retire from full time work at age 60 if i can find a p/t job that offers health insurance. Yes, some do, Like Costco or Starbucks. If it's a p/t job i don't care what i'm doing, but the health insurance is critical as i have a chronic health condition and medicaid won't pick up my medical expenses til 65.

So part of my p/t work will hopefully include continuing my freelance writing, as this will pay far better than any $15/hr job could, and i can do it at home. So while i'm starting a new job that may preclude my continuing my freelance job due to longer hours and greater demands that my current job, i think it will be fairly important for me to try to stay in touch and try to do at least occasional freelance work, even if it's on my wekeends, for my freelance clients.

4. Get more involved in volunteer work and community stuff. I do this now to a limited extent. Continuing ed classes, Whatever. More for a social outlet than anything else.

5. Travel

just a few ideas

[simpleyme]

i will travel and when not traveling i will be a hermit ;-)

too many years in retail have caused me to dislike being with people ;-)

[disneysteve]

What a great question. This is really one that everyone needs to ask him/herself from time to time because you can't financially prepare for retirement if you don't know what it is you are preparing for. It is like trying to save for vacation without having a clue where you are going or what it will cost.

I see us relocating to Florida, no more than 30 minutes from Disney World, so that we are free to visit whenever we wish.

I plan to travel extensively, both US and foreign, both land-based and cruises. I would have no trouble at all spending 2-3 months per year traveling as long as I could afford it.

I expect we'll be very active in our synagogue and other volunteer endeavors.

I plan to maintain my medical license and certification, which will require me to attend continuing education programs on a regular basis. I would try to coordinate that with some of the travel plans already mentioned. For example, there is a big conference each year during the Albuquerque (sp?) Balloon Festival. We'd love to go to that. I would attend the conference and stay in the area for an extra week or so for sightseeing.

I will do more cooking and baking at home, something I love to do but simply don't have the time for usually.

I want to be able to visit the casino regularly and enjoy earning and redeeming comps for meals and hotel stays.

Of course, monitoring and tweaking our vast financial portfolio will take time. And I hope to be able to lend financial support to some charitable organizations.

I want to be able to exercise daily - walk, swim, bike, etc. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do that now and still have time for work, sleep and eating.

That's all that comes to mind at the moment, though I'm sure I'll think of more.

[Knows Money]

Hopefully, when I decide to retire, I will be retiring from working everyday, but having the choice to work here and there, do some philanthropy work, fundraising, teach dance around the world. I'll be able to show my grandchildren, neices, nephews, grand nieces and nephews, etc the simple things, the fabulous things, different cultures and be teaching them how to invest and make good business decisions. I'll get a massage monthly, babysit my grand-kids; and probably keep putting money away for a rainy day, emergency and trust funds. I'm a perpetual planner.

[lgslgs]

Well, we retired early.

We each have small home businesses. (Hubby does musical instrument repair and consults for a couple of manufacturers and I've got an illustration business. ) We grow a lot of our food. We have livestock to tend to. All of our cooking is from scratch - haven't bought loaf bread in over 10 years.

Today we picked up leaves and cleaned out drainage ditches on the land to prepare for rain. Also walked the fenceline to keep an eye on it. I made soymilk. Pat did a bit of business work before lunch and I made time for some illustration work this afternoon.

Tomorrow we finish leaf and drain work before the rains come in - then switch to indoor work. I'll probably bake another couple of loaves of sourdough bread. We'll both do work for our businesses, and we'll both enjoy another day of not leaving the property.

Land, gardens, food prep and animals take up good portions of our day. The rest we fill in with business work and related personal projects. This time of year we're usually not rushed - but we are always busy.

Lynda

[Caoineag]

Travel, lots of travel in my future (and not just in my retirement), I will probably buy books, video games and music, cook from scratch, eat out and maybe pick up a hobby or two. Hmmm...doesn't sound much different from now except I will have more time to do what I do now and I will in theory have no actual job.

[Broken Arrow]

Yes, great question.

First of all, I am hoping to retire late. Believe it or not, but I actually enjoy working. It gives me something to do, I feel like I've done something meaningful, and best of all, they are paying me to do it. Even in retirement, I may still try to work I think, but probably part time and with something that I really enjoy.

Even if I should stop working altogether, I plan on continuing to make money. In that, I think I should still be fairly active in managing my own portfolio. It's been lots of fun so far, and suits me well. Besides, there are financial risks even in retirement, and I need to stay ahead of that.

Finally, I'd like to enjoy my life more. I'm not entirely sure of what this part entails just yet. I'm thinking that I've still got a bit of time before I worry about this part. However, chances are good that I will probably spend quite a bit of time trying to make my home look pretty. Gardening, home improvements, and so forth.

And if I'm still bored, I can always bug my kids.

[Broken Arrow]

I plan to segway into retirement gradually.

Nice!

[disneysteve]

Well, we retired early.

Lynda, how does your actual lifestyle and activity in retirement compare to the retirement you envisioned for yourself 5 or 10 or 20 years ago?

[lgslgs]

Lynda, how does your actual lifestyle and activity in retirement compare to the retirement you envisioned for yourself 5 or 10 or 20 years ago?

Actually quite close.

With the last job I had before retirement, we were able to relocate to an area, house and piece of land that matched our retirement dream. So for the last 3 years of work, everything outside of my work hours was much like our planned retirement. Of course those work hours did really interfere with my being able to enjoy the place fully, (and the last year my boss was a real creep) but living in a very low cost of living area while being paid an engineer's salary based on national job demand, being frugal and investing time and money into our land, and lucking into a downsizing with a nice big severance check all worked to our advantage.

This is exactly what we planned and saved for - but that last job relocation helped us get the dream years earlier than we thought would be possible.

About the only surprise is that until this year I thought I didn't like eggplant. But with a bumper crop of straight from the garden eggplants of about 6 or 7 varieties I found out just how delicious they are.

Other than that, retirement as planned - just earlier than we had originally planned on. Oh - and the nest egg is growing quite a bit faster than planned on our spreadsheet, but we don't spend the extra investment earnings. We also are spending about 15 - 20% less annually than originally planned. Must be all that eggplant.

Lynda

[PrincessPerky]

I plan on playing with my grandkids..taking them to museums..and parks, and plays, baking with them, and letting them make a royal mess, and anything else I can think of... All the fun stuff a mom doesn't always have time for (somehow laundry gets in the way for too much of the day).

Course if I don't have grandkids (just cause I have kids doesn't mean they will have kids) take other peoples grandkids out to museums parks plays and the like.....

I suppose at some point I should ask my husband what he wants to do..since he is the one who can actually retire. (I don't get paid for any work)

[jodi]

Ditto on much of what was mentioned here:
Have lots of time to spend with kids and grandkids
Travel
Garden
I already cook much of our food from scratch, but I guess more time would allow me to be more creative in the kitchen, can and preserve more food, etc.
DH would probably golf more often
Volunteer activities and/or work PT, if I could find something I truly enjoyed

[MonkeyMama]

I don't expect my life to change much in retirement (granted, I am only 30).

My husband has already "retired" and I have a goal to drop full-time work in my 40s. I was aiming for this sooner, but have decided since the kids will be in school (busy) and my job is flexible, maybe 45 is a better goal. On the flip side, if my spouse can find some income stream I can do this sooner.

To me retirement is too much focusing on the destination than the journey (for most people anyway). I have a job I would enjoy, and yes I would go to even if I didn't have to. The only difference I see in retirement is not "having" to and having more time and flexibility.

I would likely work part time, and spend much time volunteering. I would have more time to travel and spend with my grandkids (as well as caring for elderly relatives). I foresee doing that at least until age 65. Maybe longer. When I fully retire I don't know what I'll do. Probably focus more on volunteering than gainful employment since money would be less of an object.

If it wasn't for our insane medical costs I would probably aim for earlier full retirement. I don't expect medicare to be around, or 1/2 of what it is today, when I hit 65, so I figure I will work a long time to pay medical expenses. It's been a long time since we had any employer coverage. It's the biggest obstacle we have to "early" retirement right now. But I've also factored it in our costs and going down to part-time isn't as much as a biggie since we don't have those benefits to lose anyway.

I expect my boss to retire when I hit 35 and I will be looking hard at part-time jobs with benefits. I might be able to make the switch then, but not getting my hopes up. If I can, then I start my retirement segway. I think it's good to ease into it. We are just far too practical to give up large income streams while we are young and healthy. I couldn't quit working until I was no longer able to, personally. But it helps loving my job.