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My only regret is that I couldn't have worked longer to make up for the money that was stolen from my 401k by my former union. I was forced to retire due to ill health before I was financially ready.
But you gotta do what you gotta do and I am enjoying my retirement to my best ability. No sense crying over what might have been, it's not coming back.
#6 (drawing SS too soon) is my only regret. At the time, I had just learned that I have short telomeres. Telomere length is correlated with lifespan, though they don't know exactly how. Longer is better. .....
Well, I learned something new today! Very interesting... the biggest challenge I have with retirement is choosing how to fill my time with new activities & goals. The biggest regret is that I didn't learn more about investing earlier in life.
Looking over the OP list of possible 'regrets' I do not identify with any of them. Sorry
I think that everyone, in every phase of life would like a bit more money.
I left the workforce the instant that I was eligible to get their pension. [They also booted me out at the same time]
We had planned for retirement many years ahead.
We are holding off on the SS at this time.
We have never had very much debt. Our debt was always mortgages, each mortgage was for rental real estate and our rent income covered the mortgage payments.
My retirement income is not high enough to pay income taxes.
We made one move immediately when I retired, from a home in Italy to an apartment building we owned stateside. Then after a few years we made a second move to our retirement homestead.
I made five shopping trips searching for where to settle, and we bought it with cash, no mortgage. We built this house and the first few years were sparse as we settled in and got our farm running.
The only regret I have retiring at 58 is the money we've lost with me not working until 65. We don't need the money now, but one never knows what the future holds. Maybe it's just some residual feelings from being such a workaholic? Other then that, I don't regret leaving the work force early. It may have saved my life. I'm in the very early stages of heart disease and had I continued on that workaholic path? Who knows, and I don't want to find out.
I was 65 (my FRA) and seven months. I had just negotiated a four-day-work week with a very satisfactory salary. Company paid for my health benefits. I liked the people who worked under me and most of the rest of the staff.
We had been bought out by a "big company" a year or so prior and although their work ethic wasn't as good as ours, our clients liked that we were able to customize for their wants/needs so they kept us and we kept on doing as we had been with no interference from our new owner. "Big company" kept absorbing little guys until the balloon burst. They filed for Chap 11 and decided to drop some of the outlying branches - Guess Who?
Our clients were taken over by "big company" who saw no reason to accommodate special requests and so clients found other companies who did, compounding the financial difficulties.
I wanted to work and my health was good enough to do it. Ever try to find a job at 65? I was very resentful for several years although I was still active in the theater and had some new grandkids.
That was 16 years ago and while I'm over it, I do sometimes get a moment of revenge thinking about how "big company" has been absorbed by "Way Bigger Company".
Looking over the OP list of possible 'regrets' I do not identify with any of them. Sorry
I think that everyone, in every phase of life would like a bit more money.
I left the workforce the instant that I was eligible to get their pension. [They also booted me out at the same time]
We had planned for retirement many years ahead.
We are holding off on the SS at this time.
We have never had very much debt. Our debt was always mortgages, each mortgage was for rental real estate and our rent income covered the mortgage payments.
My retirement income is not high enough to pay income taxes.
We made one move immediately when I retired, from a home in Italy to an apartment building we owned stateside. Then after a few years we made a second move to our retirement homestead.
I made five shopping trips searching for where to settle, and we bought it with cash, no mortgage. We built this house and the first few years were sparse as we settled in and got our farm running.
Not even a little twinge of regret you didn't stay in Italy?
Your spread in Maine sounds good, really, but if I were suddenly confronted with either having to move to Maine, or move to Italy, you know, I would at least check out the available real estate in Italy. Not that I have anything against Maine.
Yeah, if you have a good job, if you are really using your skills - whatever they are - work is satisfying. Not just cancer research, plenty of blue collar jobs can be quite satisfying. I have done some things in my current job that were satisfying to me far beyond just the money. Nuclear safety upgrades, mentoring college students, research into advanced reactors, all sorts of good stuff. I can't do this stuff on my own, need to be on a team. Will miss it when I eventually pull the plug. Whenever that turns out to be.
Your superb post is a needed counter-balance to the many posters who write about their jobs as if the jobs were a prison sentence, and as if one only starts to live life when one is retired. I always wonder if the job was that bad why didn't they put serious effort into finding something better?
I always wonder if the job was that bad why didn't they put serious effort into finding something better?
Because we all don't have those opportunities but we do have requirements to be met.
And, at least in this culture, Gawd hep ya if you become too much of a job hopper trying to find your bliss. Some people say we should all strive to find what we're best at and do what makes up happy. I say you can strive but that doesn't mean you'll find it. Also, and this is very important, if everyone did only that which was their heart's delight and oh so fulfilling, who would do all the actual work in this world? The things that need to be done that nobody would find appealing but only hard, dirty, dangerous, tedious, or soul crushing. OOH! I want to do a tedious, dangerous, taxing, soul crushing thing for a living! No such demographic
And what if you find THE THING you are made for and actually get to do it? But it doesn't pay well enough? Then you're a bum, lazy, "not pulling the wagon," either down and out or getting some sort of "welfare" and will be castigated either way.
Not thinking about what my health might be like 10 or 20 years after I retired, before I moved. Not that I would have picked a different location/town but stairs would have been out inside or outside my abode. Thought about inside, not outside and had to move to the ground floor when I began to have leg issues. Luckily, everything else turned out okay regarding location, abode as it relates to health but that's what it was, luck. If I was me going back in time, I would make sure I lived within 3 miles of a hospital and my primary physician, someplace where food delivery was available if I needed it, in an abode with no stairs inside or out, wide hallways and doorways (you never know when you'll need a rollater, wheelchair or scooter and you need to be able to turn around those things and get through doorways), low cabinets, and that my vehicle was one I could easily get in and out of with bad legs. Oh yeah, and a front loading washer (I swear I shrunk).
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