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If so, in what phase are you and how long do you think you have spent in each phase?
1. Pre-retirement - Planning Time
2. The Big Day - Smiles, Handshakes, Farewells
3. Honeymoon Phase - I'm Free!
4. Disenchantment - So this is it?
5. Reorientation - Building a New Identity
6. Routine - Moving On
My retirement hasn't tracked to these steps.
1. Didn't get to finish my planning because i was laid off. I had planned to work another 2 to 4 years.
2. I didn't get to choose the "big day"...same reason, but decided to retire rather than look for work after being laid off.
3. Yes, I did experience the "I'm Free" stage and it went on for a long time.
4. No disenchantment yet and it has been nine years.
5. I never lost my identity to my work. My identity was about family, so no need to build a new one.
6. Routine. I'm still in the "I'm Free" stage to some extent, but of course have a routine of sorts.
I've had nine years of stage 3..."I'm Free" and varying routines during that time. I love retirement and it was a blessing to have been laid off even if it wasn't exactly how I planned it.
Retiring 12-17-31. Plan to do some road-tripping, lots of working out and sitting at downtown Starbux and people watching, after I read the paper. Hanging out at the pool in summer working on my tan, sipping adult beverages. Wine daily, thank you.
I'm looking forward to retiring as much as anyone but I know that I will probably be anxious and depressed for the first week or so. It will be the same Post Project Depression that I experience when I finish a major work activity. I run on adrenaline for weeks focusing on what needs to be done to get the project finished and when it is finished I feel exhausted and mixed emotions of happy but sad with a sense of deflation as if there is a big hole in my life. Retirement will be like finishing a really big project. But then the sense of relief and the Honeymoon phase will start.
I worked hard until the day I walked out the door at 72 and didn't give much thought to retirement. I just knew I was ready. After that, I went through a period of continual, although not vexing, readjustment, taking things as they came. I still am, because it takes time to figure out who I am now that I am not working (although I do have a few consulting jobs).
I'm finding that retirement gives me the time to find out who I am and actually do something about it. I hate to just sit around and feel guilty when I relax. My credo is, now, to do whatever is front of me. Instinctively, I know what that is.
I haven't reached full capacity, using this approach, and the net benefits of acting like this are still very high. When that changes, I'll investigate possible investments for my future well-being. But right now, the short-run adjustments are paying off.
Your poll misses the concern I have. The idea of retirement is career/work based - you work for 30 years or so and then you retire.
I wonder if this will change for Gen X and Millenials. It is a very Boomer state of mind with my Florida neighbors - worked until 65 in a 9 to 5 job, then abruptly stopped. Work was work, retirement is retirement. Often that work was with the same employer for 20+ years.
Now, with most Gen X not getting a pension anymore, with jobs changing more frequently, and with full SS not kicking in until 67, I wonder - body and mind willing - if there will be more of a gradual transition for some.
Full time with an employer leads to contract work for 40 hours which leads to part time contract work which leads to consulting or something similar. The line between work and retirement is blurred.
I don't relate to these "stages" at all. I have been retired almost 6 years. Never felt I had to reinvent myself. I am still me... just doing different things now.
Same here. I never let myself be defined by my job. I just have more time to do the things I've always liked to do.
I started thinking about retirement years ago. I tend to analyze things to death, but also like to "think outside the box". Your mind can get so focused on one thing that you forget to stop and realize that you have a million options. We're on track financially, but unsure as to if we'll move or not. We investigated south, were sure that was it, but have since realized from seeing others come back that it wouldn't be a good home base for us. We have friends that had second homes and all have sold to free themselves of the expense and responsibility. I'm glad i started early to thoroughly investigate each option. By eliminating things, we've started to narrow down the list to the "must haves".
I value peaceful days, so a little space from neighbors as you will always get that "one", a one level house with enough bedrooms for guests, low crime, no heavy traffic, near places to do things like theater, music, shopping, and for my wife, near water, preferably the coast.
We're thinking Maine. It checks all the boxes and we can still vacation south for a few months every winter.
I think that you need to really think about what you NEED in retirement. So many just think south, and many come back in a few years as they didn't investigate the reality of actually living there. My wife does mortgages and sees it more lately or she's just more sensitive to it. They cite the heat and humidity, crime, criitters, traffic, and they missed family.
Forums like this are a great resource to at least get people thinking. I see to many people here just say I'm moving soth and not think through all that that entails. What they gain vs. what they give up.
We were guilty of thinking one thing and actually needed somehing else when we bought a 2nd home.
We planned to eventually retire in the pocono's and bought a home where we went part time . It was really nice there , until it got closer to retirement .
Once we put our retirement hat on it just lacked all the things that were going to be important in that segment of life. So after 5 years there we sold
Right smack in the middle of a very active planning stage for me. I'm down to 120 days before my official retirement date! We've already bought our retirement home about 500 miles away, so we'll be busy getting our current home ready to put on the market and then will start renovations on the new home. So it'll be a little while before I really get to experience any leisurely days in retirement. But for me, I am hoping for a kind of reinvention. I'm hoping for a much more relaxed version of myself to surface and an appreciation for the beauty of the little things in life to return. I can't wait to have time to explore some interests that I've put on hold because I just don't have the time or energy to pursue them. I look forward to having time to not only smell the roses, but also time to plant them!! I've worked for 36 years and have been the primary breadwinner, a single mom for part of that time, a caregiver to aging parents, and I'm honestly just tired and want off the treadmill. I may be wrong, but I think the "I'm free" stage is going to be a very long one!
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