Early-retirement wannabe

Marine_life

ermine wrote: »

You can never second-guess what changes before you do the change, and change always has fewer advocates than the status quo because you haven't lived it. However I would venture -

One of the reasons your weekend was perhaps a little bit less dynamic was because you were decompressing from the working week?

I never understood just how much work ruined a perfectly good week, because I had been continuously employed since 21 bar one postgraduate year. Even if the work is good, it blocks up your time, and makes you have to fit in with other things. Like having to travel in the rush hour for a commute. Like having to go shopping at the weekend - it's a terrible time to do that, loads of other people at it



I'm absolutely with you on that. I'd hate to have to work on say half of what I had been earning, for the simple reason that I'd have to plug away for twice as long. For me that meant it was worth putting up with the crap and corporate stupidity for longer so I would be safe from having to shelf-stack at Tesco. If I choose to do that to write an expose about life as a shelf-stacker, that's different, because I can walk away at any time.



It will come Stress at work is insidious, and paints the world greyer a little bit at a time, so you don't notice. And the recovery time is shockingly long, months at least IMO. Inspiration is hard to find until the recovery is well underway...

Thanks - a lot of what you say is right.

You're right - stress at work is insidious. I really like what I do but the big problem is that I am under huge pressure to deliver on sales targets. In addition, the politics and the corporate bullsh1t drives you crazy. So I spend a lot of time biting my tongue and trying to do what will make sure I get paid! The question that's still unanswered is when I no longer need the money will I feel unshackled and able to do all the things I want to? Now that would be fun!

Some people may understand this and others won't - but once you walk away from a job like mine, you are gone for good. These are not the jobs advertised in the papers and nowadays people do what I do for half as much - so I have to sit tight until I am 100% sure that's its time to go.

Believe me though - once that day comes I can imagine letting out a sigh that will last for a week!

elantan

Thanks always great wee read

elantan

My husband is in the same position as yourself marine, anyone that comes into his job now earns half his wage, so whilst he also has to bite his tongue and put up with the bull he does so that we can have a better life, just now nothing is set in stone, the good thing is your thinking about it now and working through things, when the time comes you will be better placed to make your decision

Almo

Hi Marine Life

I am just starting to focus on retirement planning and have to be honest, there are others cards I need to get in order first. I love this thread though and lurk frequently! If I may offer some random, unsolicited and possibly irrelevant thoughs:

I caught up with a former colleague recently, someone I had never been close to. She is very close to retiring (at 'normal' age) and spoke very candidly to me about her worries. She told me quite honestly that she enjoys telling people what she does, and their reactions. She enjoys being able to say she's going to Ireland (from Australia) for work (this is infrequent). She said, quite honestly, that she is defined by her job to a large degree.

She also admitted that the act of retiring feels like turning the page to the last chapter and that is a thought she struggles with.

I was quite touched by her honesty as she has always been seen as a bit of a prickly pear in the office and always seemed so 'together'. Change is, indeed, frightening. In your case, you have planned for this for some time, and in detail and it's always scary when one gets close to a major change which one has invested in heavily (in terms of time, effort, finance etc). Your feelings are natural.

I understand why you might be having second thoughts but I don't see that there's a downside in that; either you retire early as planned with everything already sorted out or you continue working, knowing that you are in a position to walk away as soon as it becomes less enjoyable than unenjoyable.

If you feel that you want to continue in your current position then there's no harm in that, is there? If you feel that you want to leave your current role as planned but aren't quite ready to stop work, well, you have a multitude of options. If I didn't need the money there are a few jobs I'd like to do just for the pleasure of doing them. Sadly, they tend to be poorly paid so not an option now.

As for the issue of having an eternal weekend, I think it would be very different were you not working.

mgdavid

I really feel for your friend - how awful it must be to have no other interest or hobby or passion that you'd rather do than work! Are these the sort of people who often and sadly don't enjoy many years of retirement but end up in an early grave partly through the shock of the retirement process? Then again of course there are the complete workaholics who never give up work but just slow down gently into old age, perhaps they are fortunate in their own way too.

gfplux

"Defined by what you do"
I had planned a great deal for retirement paying particular attention to the finance side and I had no worries about how I would spend my time.
I retired over 15 years ago at 53 years of age and I can only say I am loving it.
However the only shock I had when I retired was the strange way I felt when asked by people the very usual question "and what do you do" I felt very, very strange saying " not much really"
This strangeness stayed with me for over a year and even today I wonder how many other people feel or felt that way if they were very lucky to retire early.
So remember you can plan for a lot of things and even when things go to plan there other surprises waiting for you.

Almo

Yes, I am currently changing careers and so don't have a job. I find it hard to know what to say when people ask what I do, and a number of people are clearly uncomfortable when I respond. It's funny how common the question is, isn't it?

My ex colleague does have outside interests; travel and ancestry that I know of. Her husband, funnily enough, took early retirement on health grounds and seems to be very happily occupied with a part time degree, some volunteer work and the odd bit of paid employment. As I said, we were never close, but I felt very sad on her behalf after our conversation.

Anyway, I didn't mean to suggest anyone here will be in the same boat, I actually meant my little story to be a contrast to the approach people on this thread, and others on this board, have towards retirement. It's that attitude which keeps me lurking here!

elantan

Maybe I'm different but when people ask me what I do ( why is that asked so often ) I reply with ohhh so much I read I spend time in the garden, I go walking, go out for meals etc ... Then when they say no I mean of work I reply oh you mean that ... Well I .... Then I add some convoluted job description that ain't really interesting but it is accurate, something like I work in emergency medical intervention in a high dependency medical unit ... Basically if they are alive when I leave my job is done ..( I go long winded not because i think it makes me special but because i know then that is how the person asking me is defining me by my job ... an i like to wind them up ) But that's not really what I do .. What I do is read books spend time with family and friends etc

I spose it does come down to how you define yourself and also if you really care how others define you also

Marine_life

Almo wrote: »

Hi Marine Life

I am just starting to focus on retirement planning and have to be honest, there are others cards I need to get in order first. I love this thread though and lurk frequently! If I may offer some random, unsolicited and possibly irrelevant thoughs:

I caught up with a former colleague recently, someone I had never been close to. She is very close to retiring (at 'normal' age) and spoke very candidly to me about her worries. She told me quite honestly that she enjoys telling people what she does, and their reactions. She enjoys being able to say she's going to Ireland (from Australia) for work (this is infrequent). She said, quite honestly, that she is defined by her job to a large degree.

She also admitted that the act of retiring feels like turning the page to the last chapter and that is a thought she struggles with.

I was quite touched by her honesty as she has always been seen as a bit of a prickly pear in the office and always seemed so 'together'. Change is, indeed, frightening. In your case, you have planned for this for some time, and in detail and it's always scary when one gets close to a major change which one has invested in heavily (in terms of time, effort, finance etc). Your feelings are natural.

I understand why you might be having second thoughts but I don't see that there's a downside in that; either you retire early as planned with everything already sorted out or you continue working, knowing that you are in a position to walk away as soon as it becomes less enjoyable than unenjoyable.

If you feel that you want to continue in your current position then there's no harm in that, is there? If you feel that you want to leave your current role as planned but aren't quite ready to stop work, well, you have a multitude of options. If I didn't need the money there are a few jobs I'd like to do just for the pleasure of doing them. Sadly, they tend to be poorly paid so not an option now.

As for the issue of having an eternal weekend, I think it would be very different were you not working.

You raise some interesting points which to be honest I had never thought about in that way.
Whether I am defined by my job is a difficult one. It’s certainly an important part of my life and I have worked very hard to get where I am. So in some ways that makes it very difficult to walk away from since “getting there” is an objective I had over a number of years and finding a replacement “objective” in retirement is not immediately obvious.
Do I enjoy the job. Well actually yes I do (although I recognize in some posts that it might not seem that way). It has variety, international travel, a lot of responsibility and a lot of things I can personally control. I had a boring job for about two years so I know how utterly soul destroying that can be. However, I (almost) never wake up in the morning and think “oh no, I have to go to work”. So in fact it’s actually almost the best job that someone with my qualifications can have.
There are those that say it’s a bit sad when someone does not have any interests outside of work. I think that’s a bit too simplistic – not every job is the same! For is certainly not true but long hours and often high mental demands means there is no way to look at things in my personal life with the same degree of energy or commitment.
So when it comes to stopping work it isn’t necessarily about a desperate need to give up, its all about having the option to give up which is a whole different thing. I personally think that the comfort that comes from knowing I could throw it all in at any minute may actually lead to my not giving up. Does that sound strange?
Strangely, having thought the really senior positions in the organization had passed me by, I am now on another upward path which means hopefully more money and definitely more responsibility. Both are quite fulfilling.
So coming back to whether my job defines me, yes to some extent it does but there is also an element of void linked to stopping which is about having strived to achieve something what do you do when that goal is no longer relevant. In fact I would even offer that many of us strive to achieve something but don’t actually realize when we have achieved what we set out to. Were I to walk away today I would still feel I had unfulfilled potential.
Outside of work I dress like a hobo so people would never guess what a senior role I had – so to that extent the job certainly doesn’t define me!
I was also interested in the comment about turning the page onto the final chapter. Well I hadn’t thought about it in those terms but so far I have lived of life of restlessness! The longest we have lived in one house is 5 years and we have lived in 10 houses since we married 24 years ago. I can see me continuing to be restless in retirement and this is making it very difficult to decide where we want to live. But let me come back to that in another post!

Marine_life

mgdavid wrote: »

I really feel for your friend - how awful it must be to have no other interest or hobby or passion that you'd rather do than work!

I think that rather depends on the job (see my post above). Of course there's an implication in what you say that a) Its not possible to enjoy a job and b) what we do in our free time is enjoyable! I would venture neither is completely true.

Through my work i have travelled the world and earned a lot of money and in my spare time I have have a lot of time doing jobs i hate (going to the supermarket, gardening, paying bills etc)

You may be different but i think for a lot of people the cut is not so simple.