Retirement-Your Experience

For the first few weeks, you won't be able to stop yourself from occasionally waking up just before the alarm would have gone off.

For the first six months, when you're indulging in some activity or hobby you enjoy, you will occasionally have a vague feeling in the back of your mind that you should be elsewhere doing something.

Been there got the T shirt.

I occasionally have dreams about being at work, where I'm sorting out a problem. If it seems to be "getting out of hand," my subconscious is able to tell my brain it's a dream and it stops.

I took early retirement twenty years ago.

 

Thanks @Trunky

5:40 for me. I actually don’t mind my job, just fed up with the routine, day after day.
As I said earlier, we plan on doing a lot of touring. To that end we’ve pretty much decided on our new caravan, and very nice it is too

Will you be going to shiney’s ‘do’? If so, see you there. If not, why not?
Anyway, good luck with your upcoming retirement

 

Good luck Freddy! You'll soon be wondering how you found time to go to work.

 

Ah you've hit the nail on the head there, shiney! I 'retired' a year before we made the move over here but I did and still do miss my lovely clients. I was in the fortunate position of being able to choose who I worked for, so only worked for people I liked. A lot of them were elderly and have now passed away. The actual work side hasn't changed, though. I'm just doing it for me, now.
All the best for your imminent retirement Freddy! I'm sure you'll wonder how you found time to go out to work

 

Good luck on your retirement Freddy . As you normally get up for work at 5:30 , it will take 12 months to stop waking up at that time . You can then get up at the crack of noon

 

Pretty much the same for me Freddy. For the past 10 years I've been fortunate to work in a large privately owned garden for a very kind and generous employer and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. However, it's now a 20 mile drive each way every day for me to get to work since we moved, which is becoming rather tedious. Also, after 40 odd years of working full time, mostly outside, I think I've earned the right to spend time doing what I want, when I want.

Enjoy your touring, if you ever find your way over to this side of the country, you're welcome to pop in for a cuppa anytime.

I hope to be there this year Freddy, not sure yet. Perhaps we could make it our unofficial retirement bash.

 

Good luck with your retirement @Freddy
I finished work early and have never looked back..Still get up at 5am but I love early mornings anyway.The only thing I can suggest is get yourself a Calendar because since leaving work I have to keep checking on the date .
Enjoy Freddy you've earned it

 

Where I worked used to run 'coping/preparing with/for retirement' courses (or something like that). Staff only went on them as an excuse to get out the office and get away from work.

Cor, is that double bubble, redundancy + pension? N.B. That might mean, if you have an indexed linked pension, that those increases may not apply until you reach normal retirement age.

Assuming that's not straight line, so if retiring before 55 is worth 3 years, and before 50 worth 4 years, etc., then I retired when at the equivalent of 23!

 

Thanks Loli. It’ll be nice to do the things I/we want to do. No more sitting in traffic every day

 

Well it least you aren't standing.
I played golf in the rain today, we were having to exercise very accurate course management, driving or chipping over a lot of water, in the places where ponds and lateral streams had overflowed.
At one point I was wishing I was sitting in a nice, dry, warm office!
But then I had a cup of hot Bovril and didn't feel so bad.

 

@Scrungee , not redundancy as such. They’re calling it a ‘compensation payment’. Nowhere near as much as redundancy, but as I was going to retire anyway, the timing is perfect

 

@Freddy , that's one of my main retirement perks. Not sitting on the hell hole called the M6 every morning. Now we can time most journeys to miss the morning and evening rush hours.

 

I did actually play, a couple of weeks ago. My foot injury didn’t bother me too much. I’m pretty sure that having to work on concrete floors and wearing safety boots for the last forty years hasn’t helped. I’m therefore hopeful that I’ll be able to play a lot more, with the summer coming up

 

The ‘norm’ for me is to take 45-60 mins to get home. It’s only 6 miles

 

I'd love to get back in to playing golf but unfortunately I have 'golfers ribs' so my Dr says.