Retired? Expectations vs Reality

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 57, will retire next year, and worried.
I’ve always been very busy. I’d like to take more time to cook healthy meals with my daytime hours.
I currently already teach a fitness class and travel a lot. We already have a condo in Florida in a 55 older community.
I am a teacher so I know I will miss children and precious co-workers.
DH and I have always been very young acting for our age and don’t fit in with many our age. That doesn’t mean we should keep working though. I don’t know what it means.
Accepting advice.

Just curious, why are you retiring? I know teaching can be a tiring job, at a young 57, it just seems quite young to retire when you don't feel ready to. I am 56 and not even close. We technically could retire, but I feel like I want to hang to healthcare and income as long as I can. My sister does nothing but pickle ball, pilates, and watch TV and I feel like she's just a waste of resources, honestly. Sorry to judge, but it seems unfulfilling in your 60s to be doing basically nothing. By the way, this is two different things I am commenting on, nost suggesting you said you'd do nothing!

Because I want to travel and enjoy the winter in a sunny locale.
Teaching doesn’t really allow for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Right now you’re fine bc you are busy and it’ll stay that way for years. You have kids to raise and elderly parents to watch over. Then you’ll have kids in college and you’ll hover over them - even if you don’t hover, you’ll be doing move ins, move outs, parents weekends etc so you’ll have stuff going on, great.

I do caution you about getting to a phase in life where you have nothing going on and you appear to have set up a life of cooking and cleaning. It will get old. Your kids will launch and be in a time of life where they are too busy to entertain you bc they are launching their careers or off in medical residency, not needing mom and dad moving them into their apartments. It’s easy to say oh we’ll travel then but you seem to suggest you’re not even interested in fitness. So cue maybe a trip or so every year + a whole lot of cooking and cleaning day to day. And given that you’re sooo done with corporate life now that you already aren’t in touch with it, it’s not like you can just jump back into consulting projects some 15 yrs from now. What looks sooo great now sounds like a recipe for miserable a decade or two from now. I’ve seen this movie play out over and over again. Like it or not, humans do better over time if they remain mentally engaged in something other than care taking and running the home.

I have friends/family members who are now retired, in their 50s, and they seem to be having a great time. I can't wait to retire at 56.

It’s not a problem at 50 or 56. It’s super freeing at those ages to not work. It becomes a problem in the late 60s/early 70s when the cumulative effect of doing nothing for a decade+ hits and your kids are off living their own lives, not sticking around to entertain mom and dad.

Your kids are still around at 56?

For lots of people even if their kids aren't home at 56, they may be in college or grad school -- i.e. still needing mom and dad some when it's time to move in and out of college apartments each either; mom and dad may head up to school for parents weekend or a few football games; even if mom and dad don't visit them at school, they still plan on having kids home for a few weeks at a time in summer and winter break. All of that changes once kids launch for real. They could easily be in a new job or medical residency or something with minimal time off and they aren't necessarily spending that time off to visit mom and dad all the time, when they have their own vacations they want to take with their own friends/gfs/bfs.

No shit Chet.

At 56 nobody has kids as the center of their world.

Some of us do bc our kids are still in high school and still super busy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 57, will retire next year, and worried.
I’ve always been very busy. I’d like to take more time to cook healthy meals with my daytime hours.
I currently already teach a fitness class and travel a lot. We already have a condo in Florida in a 55 older community.
I am a teacher so I know I will miss children and precious co-workers.
DH and I have always been very young acting for our age and don’t fit in with many our age. That doesn’t mean we should keep working though. I don’t know what it means.
Accepting advice.

Just curious, why are you retiring? I know teaching can be a tiring job, at a young 57, it just seems quite young to retire when you don't feel ready to. I am 56 and not even close. We technically could retire, but I feel like I want to hang to healthcare and income as long as I can. My sister does nothing but pickle ball, pilates, and watch TV and I feel like she's just a waste of resources, honestly. Sorry to judge, but it seems unfulfilling in your 60s to be doing basically nothing. By the way, this is two different things I am commenting on, nost suggesting you said you'd do nothing!

Your sister sounds fun!

Do you teach? That’s invigorating in a different way.

[Anonymous]

I fully retired at 21. It's been fabulous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 57, will retire next year, and worried.
I’ve always been very busy. I’d like to take more time to cook healthy meals with my daytime hours.
I currently already teach a fitness class and travel a lot. We already have a condo in Florida in a 55 older community.
I am a teacher so I know I will miss children and precious co-workers.
DH and I have always been very young acting for our age and don’t fit in with many our age. That doesn’t mean we should keep working though. I don’t know what it means.
Accepting advice.

Just curious, why are you retiring? I know teaching can be a tiring job, at a young 57, it just seems quite young to retire when you don't feel ready to. I am 56 and not even close. We technically could retire, but I feel like I want to hang to healthcare and income as long as I can. My sister does nothing but pickle ball, pilates, and watch TV and I feel like she's just a waste of resources, honestly. Sorry to judge, but it seems unfulfilling in your 60s to be doing basically nothing. By the way, this is two different things I am commenting on, nost suggesting you said you'd do nothing!

Your sister sounds fun!

Do you teach? That’s invigorating in a different way.

My sister is not remotely fun. Her daughter moved to CA and will never come back because of how annoying she is. Other than pickleball and pilates the only other thing she has in her life is knowing every single thing about her adult children's lives. I was traveling with her one spring when she got in a screaming fight with her 29-year-old son because he turned in an assignment for his online graduate school class, that he pays for, late. This is everyday with her. She is enmeshed with her children because she has not real life of her own. I think people who don't work and have young adult children really risk this. She is not contributing to this world in any way at all. She's a horrible sister and daughter, honestly and it's because she has nothing to do that is fulfilling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 57, will retire next year, and worried.
I’ve always been very busy. I’d like to take more time to cook healthy meals with my daytime hours.
I currently already teach a fitness class and travel a lot. We already have a condo in Florida in a 55 older community.
I am a teacher so I know I will miss children and precious co-workers.
DH and I have always been very young acting for our age and don’t fit in with many our age. That doesn’t mean we should keep working though. I don’t know what it means.
Accepting advice.

Just curious, why are you retiring? I know teaching can be a tiring job, at a young 57, it just seems quite young to retire when you don't feel ready to. I am 56 and not even close. We technically could retire, but I feel like I want to hang to healthcare and income as long as I can. My sister does nothing but pickle ball, pilates, and watch TV and I feel like she's just a waste of resources, honestly. Sorry to judge, but it seems unfulfilling in your 60s to be doing basically nothing. By the way, this is two different things I am commenting on, nost suggesting you said you'd do nothing!

Your sister sounds fun!

Do you teach? That’s invigorating in a different way.

My sister is not remotely fun. Her daughter moved to CA and will never come back because of how annoying she is. Other than pickleball and pilates the only other thing she has in her life is knowing every single thing about her adult children's lives. I was traveling with her one spring when she got in a screaming fight with her 29-year-old son because he turned in an assignment for his online graduate school class, that he pays for, late. This is everyday with her. She is enmeshed with her children because she has not real life of her own. I think people who don't work and have young adult children really risk this. She is not contributing to this world in any way at all. She's a horrible sister and daughter, honestly and it's because she has nothing to do that is fulfilling.

I’m the 57 year old you replied to earlier. I love pickleball, yoga, Pilates, traveling, walking beaches etc.
I would love to continue to teach but only if they let me off for three months every winter, which they won’t.
I would love to get a part time job but who is going to hire me for a couple months here and there?
I wonder about health insurance too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m 57, will retire next year, and worried.
I’ve always been very busy. I’d like to take more time to cook healthy meals with my daytime hours.
I currently already teach a fitness class and travel a lot. We already have a condo in Florida in a 55 older community.
I am a teacher so I know I will miss children and precious co-workers.
DH and I have always been very young acting for our age and don’t fit in with many our age. That doesn’t mean we should keep working though. I don’t know what it means.
Accepting advice.

Just curious, why are you retiring? I know teaching can be a tiring job, at a young 57, it just seems quite young to retire when you don't feel ready to. I am 56 and not even close. We technically could retire, but I feel like I want to hang to healthcare and income as long as I can. My sister does nothing but pickle ball, pilates, and watch TV and I feel like she's just a waste of resources, honestly. Sorry to judge, but it seems unfulfilling in your 60s to be doing basically nothing. By the way, this is two different things I am commenting on, nost suggesting you said you'd do nothing!

Your sister sounds fun!

Do you teach? That’s invigorating in a different way.

My sister is not remotely fun. Her daughter moved to CA and will never come back because of how annoying she is. Other than pickleball and pilates the only other thing she has in her life is knowing every single thing about her adult children's lives. I was traveling with her one spring when she got in a screaming fight with her 29-year-old son because he turned in an assignment for his online graduate school class, that he pays for, late. This is everyday with her. She is enmeshed with her children because she has not real life of her own. I think people who don't work and have young adult children really risk this. She is not contributing to this world in any way at all. She's a horrible sister and daughter, honestly and it's because she has nothing to do that is fulfilling.

That is your sister's problem, not a general rule.

My sister stopped working in her 40s. She is now 58, with grown children. She is not all over their lives. Rather the opposite; she wishes one of her DC's were more independent.

She has tons of friends and travels a lot. She loves her life.

I'll be retiring in a couple of years at 56 when the youngest goes to college. I'm so done with working.