How did you feel when you committed to retirement?

Phossy

Today was the day I took the step into retirement - well, in 3 months time to be exact. I notified my clients, I notified my pension provider and I notified my family. I’ve been thinking about this for ages, but for some reason those thoughts accelerated over the last few weeks and days and crystallised into action other than updating spreadsheets. Some days I think I’ll never spend the money, other the days I fear I won’t have enough. The reality is we have enough – I know it’s my mind playing games with me.

How do I feel? I feel numb. I don’t feel relief, I don’t feel trepidation, I don’t feel happy, I don’t feel sad. I just don’t seem to feel anything and that seems really odd.

How did you feel when you first made that commitment to retire?

fwor

I can pretty much guarantee that as you get towards the end of those 3 months, you will start to feel better! What's done is done - you can get on with enjoying it.

I know people react in different ways, but I got great pleasure in doing the job that I disliked as well as I could for the last few months I was there, just to confound the colleagues who expected me to give up.

JGB1955

I planned my retirement (at 58) for several years before. I just felt elation once I'd put the wheels in motion to actually achieve it. I had 'lived' on my anticipated pre-pension income ( and pre-planned savings\0 for at least a year, so had no qualms about 'surviving' on it. Once my occupational pension came into play at age 60 I felt vindicated. Once my state pension came into effect I felt richer than at any time earlier in my life! I still do.

hugheskevi

Some days I think I’ll never spend the money, other the days I fear I won’t have enough. The reality is we have enough – I know it’s my mind playing games with me.

As I approached retirement, I moved away from focusing on total net worth, assets, etc, being the key metric I measured, and increasingly toward the annual income I would take from those assets and which assets would provide the income in different phases of retirement (the main phases being before minimum pension age, from minimum pension age to State Pension age, and after State Pension age).

One psychological impact of that is that 'saving' is still relevant, but in a different way. Saving is now spending less than the annual income figure the assets figures support, with change in investments hopefully giving an additional financial gain over the longer term.

How did you feel when you first made that commitment to retire?

It was almost entirely irrelevant. By then the decision had effectively been made months before, figures and dates agreed, and adding signatures to forms and sending them off was a formality. If anything, I would say there was very mild relief that everything had proceeded as I had expected.

The time between committing to go and the final day in employment was also anti-climatic. Work wound down so there was increasingly little to do, then into leaving events as I saw folks for the last time, etc. I found doing things like declining long-standing meetings, putting day-long repeating calendar entries in saying I was no longer there, and setting up out-of-office emails probably the saddest part of things. I still vaguely wonder how many of those meetings I am still on the invite list of, showing as declined, and how long it will be before all traces finally vanish.

FlorayG

I got pushed into retirement when I got made redundant

It's very weird for MONTHS not to have any commitments and it took me a whole year to get used to it

Sea_Shell

...and I notified my family...

You'll now be added to their "available at a moments notice for chores" list.

Be afraid , be very afraid 😉

Devongardener

I went into my retirement by going part time and then just being a mentor for my replacement.
The hardest and totally unexpected part was adjusting to no work commitments and routine and the realisation that there was no boss to answer to, that my time was my own and it was OK to sit and read or not have any plans for the day. After decades ruled by cash flow planning, monthly reports and financial presentations to the directors, I realised how I had been consumed by it all! It took me a good 12 months to settle into my new life, although I do still miss the office social side and banter!

Good luck.

kempiejon

I made a spreadsheet with my 15 year plan so I was counting down from a long way out. I kept fastidious itemised spending for several years so I knew a minimum and desired income. I saved and invested hard. For a few years I effectively lived of my investments and all my wages [oops meant to write went into investment]. I made plan with my manager to reduce hours over a couple of years. Then like another poster redundancy crystallised that 2 year glide into 30 days.

Shocking but it worked out for the better. The mindset of not having a daily routine and goals to achieve each day takes a while to settle down for some I hear.

clairbear_3

I retired last year aged 56 with my OH (62) it was a no brainer we've never earned much but we've been very good at not wasting ££ .you don't need lots of ££ and we spend 4 months abroad in the cold winter months.for many its massive psychological hurdle to give up work even thou they are very wealthy

maman

I'm another that took about a year to get used to retirement. It was my choice but it was still hard. I found it hard to allow myself to just do nothing but was reluctant to fill my time with, for example, volunteering as I could easily have just replaced one job with another.

Over time, I've returned to various hobbies and found some new ones , socialise more than I had time for when I was at work but most importantly I'm happy to do nothing but potter about at home without feeling guilty about wasting time.

Fortunately, I have no money worries as I'm able to live comfortably on my hard earned pension.

InvesterJones

The reversal of flows from income→savings/investments is a major shock for me - I am so used to putting something away that the prospect of selling/transferring in the other direction is psychologically really hard!