Retirement-Your Experience

Hiya folks

With retirement on the horizon, I was wondering what changes (enforced or otherwise) the retired amongst us have made/experienced? Have you taken up new hobbies/pastimes? Are you enjoying the extra time on your hands? Is it the best thing you’ve ever done? Downsides? These are just questions that you need not answer, I’m just interested in how it is for you.

Cheers, Freddy.

 

You need to start planning for retirement quite early. I paid the maximum into AVCs for about fifteen years or so. The total you can pay into any sort of pension is 15% of your salary. I knew I would be comfortably off at my target retirement age of 60. I actually retired shortly before my 58th birthday having paid off the mortgage and with no debts of any kind.. I then had the "bonus" of my endowment mortgage pay out, which was fortunate as I still got a sizeable "terminal bonus" (a thing of the past now, some endowments aren't suficient to clear the mortgage), altogether the payout was three times what the house cost to buy.

Retiring is expensive, when you're working "you've no time to spend money," once you're retired you've all the time in the world.

Although I worked long hours, I used to play a lot of squash until I was fifty and I had the garden, my leccy piano and my koi pool. After I retired I took up golf, got into vinyl jukeboxes and took up the saxophone. Those three extra hobbies cost quite a bit of money to either take up or sustain.

The danger for some men is that they have no other interests than work and when they retire it's a case of sitting in a chair watching a lot of TV. Over the years I've seen several people I've known, do exactly that and have died within a few years.
I susbscribe to the view, that when you retire "You wake up each morning with nothing to do and go to bed each night with only half of it done."
Sometimes I feel there's not enough hours in the day.

 

During my working I had run the sales side of Radio Caroline for nearly 40 years.

I was always looking forward to retirement with Jen, sadly she passed.
A few years later when I stopped work I met a lovely lady called Maureen, sadly after a few months she was diagnosed with the Big C, after a couple of holidays in Spain and after all the treatment she was told it had spread to her brain and she passed away after I had known her for four years.

I then decided to refurbish my house, sell and buy an apartment in Spain, my plans didn't work out as my other daughter Maria phoned me from Canada to say she was leaving her Canadian husband and asked to come home with my grandaughter Kat as she had no where else to go. So I get to see Kat grow up.
The lesson life has taught me is not to plan as most of my plans have turned to

 

I can't think of a downside but it all depends on your attitude to life. I have hobbies to fill my time and have done some volunteering and joined U3A (although I am probably one of the younger ones). Now Mrs S has retired we can go to places out of season and do more together (and apart!). More time in the garden and not having to rush to get things done at the weekends.
It takes time to get out of the work routine but being retired is not something to be frightened of as some are. Living within your means is vital.

I'm sure you will enjoy it @Freddy.

 

Well I've got a couple of years to go.
Given good health and a decent amount of money, I cant see a down side.

 

What you may experience in the first six months, is a sort of guilty feeing in the back of your mind, that whatever you're doing at that moment, "you should really be somewhere else."
But it will pass.

 

I can actually get that.
I only need to take a sick day and I dont feel right about it.

 

Been retired 14 years now. It took a fair while to accept that watching the birds in the garden whilst still in a dressing gown at 9 am wasn't wrong and really enjoying it. None of us know where we are on the grim reaper's list and as it says (and always has at the bottom of my posts ) every day above ground is a bonus,
ENJOY

JENNY namaste

 

I do try to get a bit of discipline into my life.

I'm up at either 7.30am or 8.30am depending on tee times, three days a week to go to play golf, (weather permitting) Shopping day accounts for another 8.30am rise, as I like to go when the shops aren't too busy. I do all the household shopping because of my wife's disability. The rest of the week I'm up at around 9.00am, I'm not one of those people who can sleep in.
Neither of us are in bed each evening much before 1.00am. regardless of what I am going to do the following day. My wife spends a lot of time in her chair and has a lot of cat-naps during the day and evening. I never fall a sleep in a chair, though we both have very comfortable Stressless recliners.


It's sad, that because of her disabilities, foreign travel is out of the question for my wife, but we try to get away to Cornwall for a couple of weeks every year..well..untill recently. In the last few years we've spent a lot of money on stuff for the house. Our "disposable income" because we have no debts, mortgage, pension contributions or the boat load of N.I. I was paying, means that a lot of opportunities would otherwise be open to us.

I've offered to buy my wife a mobility scooter, enough time,s to make her more mobile as she has MS. She's always refused, she says she'd rather manage with her crutches... and a wheel chair is out of the question, she says she wouldn't be seen dead in one. She insists that making the effort is the best way to cope with the disability. That's why she spends hours on her decoupage card and costume jewellery making.

However, I have noticed that climbing the stairs in our house is getting more difficult for her.
Yesterday, I suggested I got a stairlift for her. Her response was that she'd rather carry on for a bit as she is. "Maybe in a few years."
I like to be on top of situations, so I looked up the prices. A reconditioned "straight" stairlift comes in around a thousand quid, less or more, depending on the number of stairs. However one with a curve is bespoke and prices start at around £3,000. Not a problem for me.
Our house has "ten straight" stairs to 3ft square landing, then three more at a right angle to the top floor.

I said I looked them up and just out of curiosity she asked me what I'd found, I told her and she replied.
"We'd only need a straight one, I can manage the last three stairs."

Now both my wife and I like to wind each other up a bit occasionally. We always end up laughing about it.
Last night we were going to bed and I stood at the top of the stairs, as she slowly followed me up.

When she got to the landing, she had a moment's pause, then climbed the last three steps.

So I said to her, "Look it's just those last three steps which are the problem for you. Tell you what, I'll just get a short stairlift for those three, It'll save me a fortune!"

I heard her telling her sister about it on the phone this afternoon and they were both laughing.

 

Thanks all for the replies. I’ve worked (pretty much) for the same company for the last 43 years, apart from a six year break, ‘92-‘98. When I left in ‘92, it’s strange but I actually felt homesick, which came as a surprise. As it is, I can’t wait to get out as I’m finding the same routine, day in day out, quite stressful. I’ve had enough of it. The thought though that I might miss the place is in the back of my mind, but I can’t see it.
I thought this was quite interesting....

Once the wife receives her state pension, we will actually be better off than now, all things considered, but you make a good point. I too play golf, and intend to play a lot more. That said, I’ve been suffering with a foot injury for several months (Plantar Fasciitis), which has meant I haven’t been able to play (I like to walk the course).

More generally, we plan to do a lot more traveling, particularly with the caravan. This can be done quite cheaply, paying around £12-15 a night. We just need to resist the dreaded retail therapy Did you hear that Mrs? We’d like to tour this country more extensively, lots and lots of regions we’ve not seen, particularly the south east and east coast. Then there’s the continent, would be nice to take maybe 3 months touring as we please, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany, that kinda thing. A few cruises are also on the cards. We just need to eak out the lump sum without going mad.
The charity thing might well be an option, as the wife is set to retire after me, so I’ll have some time on my hands in the meantime. That said, things are fairly fluid and could change, we’ll see.
Cheers...Freddy

 

I retired about 10 years ago, not by choose but because we had a nasty neighbour which done more in our garden an theirs so we look at the money coming in which ment that i should pack up my job and look after the house and Miss Jiff be the bread maker (more money)
The nasty neighbour is no more
Four years ago Miss jiff then retired and we haven't look back, yes you need things to do

The worst bit for me is that from the very nasty stuff that went on i can't relax like i thought i would any problem get me worked up, so this is one problem i have to sort out but it's going to take a long time

So make the most of your retirement Freddy and have fun