Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Congrats?
What's your age? Do you have a pension? How are you bridging to Medicare?
All the unknowns make me nervous.

what do you mean? how old are you?

I agree with all the unknown being nerve-racking. I can’t explain it to you if you know you know and if you don’t know, you don’t know.

I’m retiring too. I do have some money to travel so I’m gonna spend the year traveling and then I’m going to work part-time.

I’m the youngest of a large family so I have a few family members who are also retired.

They’ve said volunteering is very hard because they over schedule or you can’t get shifts. Then you feel like you’re just standing around doing nothing.

I’m going to play pickle ball, golf, work part-time.

I can’t imagine not having a lot of things to do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s boring tbh. Especially if u are retiring young. I’m in my 50s and everyone my age is still working. I could hang out with a bunch of 68 year olds at the senior center where I volunteer but my brain needs the stimulation. Went back to work pt. It’s perfect for me. Good luck and congratulations give yourself a year to figure out the new routine. The first 5 months feels luxurious though.

Why did you retire in your 50s?

DP: Why not? if you can afford to do it? The key is finding something stimulating to fill your days, so you are happy. Some need to keep working to do that, others are able to travel, volunteer, learn a new instrument, workout, etc and find enough to provide fullfillment

There is so much to do other than sitting in an office and working, I don't see how you could possibly be concerned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe I’ll be retiring on December 31st! I’m excited for the freedom, but I have to admit—I’m also a little nervous about what I’ll do with all that extra time. Sleeping 12 hours a day sounds tempting, but I don’t want my days to just slip away.

I don’t have the money to travel, so I’ll be looking for fun ways to enjoy life at home: walks in the neighborhood, hobbies, reading, maybe even learning something new online. And of course, spending more time with friends and family.

Retirement isn’t just about stopping work—it’s about having the freedom to fill your days with things that make you happy. I can’t wait to figure out my new routine!

This is completely an AI generated post. The long dashes -- the colon : list in the second para... even the completely cheesy feel good ending.

Why do people do this? The whole “AI-because-of-dashes” thing isn’t as clever as you think it is. AI works by taking language and making it look like millions of samples of real language. This means that it’s based on the millions of samples of text that actually contain en- and em-dashes. Yes, it’s probably based on older samples, but you know who else is older? Someone about to retire. I am the same age, and I’m facing retirement in a couple of years and I feel the same way. I use dashes all the time - it’s habit. We also learned how to use all different kinds of punctuation.

Contribute to the conversation or just scroll along.

NP. No, don't "just scroll along". Crap like this needs to be called out. We all need to be on alert for this kind of AI slop. It's getting pervasive and it's not stopping anytime soon. This post is harmless, but next thing you know it'll be something really bad.

Also, I agree with the PP, but not (just) because of the dashes. The dashes are a giveaway, but there are a lot of other indications too.

Congrats!

IMO it would be helpful to impose some structure on your days.
My DH retired a few years ago at 60 after he got laid off. So, he hadn't really been thinking about what to do with the time. He volunteers a bit, works out, walks the dog, does some house stuff, but for the most part spends IMO a lot of time playing video games, and it doesn't seem healthy.

I plan to retire in a couple years when I'm 60 and already thinking about new daily/weekly routines - I already go to a regular exercise class but won't have to squeeze it in after work, plan to work a couple days a week for a friend's non-profit (already discussed with her), joining a regular weekly meet-up with already-retired friends, lunch with my elderly mother once a week, etc. In some ways, it's like when I was a SAHM when my kids were little - life worked best when we had a loose routine that got us out of the house every day.

Day drinking, DCUM, spying on neighbors, binge eating, text gossiping online shopping, grocery store shopping, ordering around the maid and gardeners - all fill the time.

Anonymous wrote:Congrats?
What's your age? Do you have a pension? How are you bridging to Medicare?
All the unknowns make me nervous.

what do you mean? how old are you?

Congrats?
What's your age? Do you have a pension? How are you bridging to Medicare?
All the unknowns make me nervous.

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe I’ll be retiring on December 31st! I’m excited for the freedom, but I have to admit—I’m also a little nervous about what I’ll do with all that extra time. Sleeping 12 hours a day sounds tempting, but I don’t want my days to just slip away.

I don’t have the money to travel, so I’ll be looking for fun ways to enjoy life at home: walks in the neighborhood, hobbies, reading, maybe even learning something new online. And of course, spending more time with friends and family.

Retirement isn’t just about stopping work—it’s about having the freedom to fill your days with things that make you happy. I can’t wait to figure out my new routine!

Don't know how old you are, but being afraid of too much free time is just plain dumb. We are so conditioned to be wage slaves that we don't know what to do when the shackles come off.. like dogs that doesn't know what to do when the owner lets go of the leash.

Your time is now yours. Do with it what you will. I got laid off at 56 (now 61). Didn't get the right job so just stopped. I wake up when I want, do what I want. Life is good. No money issues, so that's not a concern. Do I miss work? Yes. Many things about a work environment cannot be replaced. No amount of volunteering or otherwise will not replace it, but life changes and you move on..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe I’ll be retiring on December 31st! I’m excited for the freedom, but I have to admit—I’m also a little nervous about what I’ll do with all that extra time. Sleeping 12 hours a day sounds tempting, but I don’t want my days to just slip away.

I don’t have the money to travel, so I’ll be looking for fun ways to enjoy life at home: walks in the neighborhood, hobbies, reading, maybe even learning something new online. And of course, spending more time with friends and family.

Retirement isn’t just about stopping work—it’s about having the freedom to fill your days with things that make you happy. I can’t wait to figure out my new routine!

This is completely an AI generated post. The long dashes -- the colon : list in the second para... even the completely cheesy feel good ending.

Why do people do this? The whole “AI-because-of-dashes” thing isn’t as clever as you think it is. AI works by taking language and making it look like millions of samples of real language. This means that it’s based on the millions of samples of text that actually contain en- and em-dashes. Yes, it’s probably based on older samples, but you know who else is older? Someone about to retire. I am the same age, and I’m facing retirement in a couple of years and I feel the same way. I use dashes all the time - it’s habit. We also learned how to use all different kinds of punctuation.

Contribute to the conversation or just scroll along.

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe I’ll be retiring on December 31st! I’m excited for the freedom, but I have to admit—I’m also a little nervous about what I’ll do with all that extra time. Sleeping 12 hours a day sounds tempting, but I don’t want my days to just slip away.

I don’t have the money to travel, so I’ll be looking for fun ways to enjoy life at home: walks in the neighborhood, hobbies, reading, maybe even learning something new online. And of course, spending more time with friends and family.

Retirement isn’t just about stopping work—it’s about having the freedom to fill your days with things that make you happy. I can’t wait to figure out my new routine!

This is completely an AI generated post. The long dashes -- the colon : list in the second para... even the completely cheesy feel good ending.

Get a credit card with a good points program and you'll be able to travel sometimes on points alone.

(Pay it off every month though!)

Anonymous wrote:It’s boring tbh. Especially if u are retiring young. I’m in my 50s and everyone my age is still working. I could hang out with a bunch of 68 year olds at the senior center where I volunteer but my brain needs the stimulation. Went back to work pt. It’s perfect for me. Good luck and congratulations give yourself a year to figure out the new routine. The first 5 months feels luxurious though.

Why did you retire in your 50s?

Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe I’ll be retiring on December 31st! I’m excited for the freedom, but I have to admit—I’m also a little nervous about what I’ll do with all that extra time. Sleeping 12 hours a day sounds tempting, but I don’t want my days to just slip away.

I don’t have the money to travel, so I’ll be looking for fun ways to enjoy life at home: walks in the neighborhood, hobbies, reading, maybe even learning something new online. And of course, spending more time with friends and family.

Retirement isn’t just about stopping work—it’s about having the freedom to fill your days with things that make you happy. I can’t wait to figure out my new routine!

You may end up disappointed OP. My dad had so many friends but as soon as he retired 1 by 1 his friends started disappearing..some died, some became depressed, others are broke and bitter as hell in retirement, while others are battling endless health issues. Old life can be really lonely