Retirement
- Thread starter Scottmi
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It is what it is. Yesterday I was 16, in April I'll be 74. Haven't stopped, really.
I dunno, as I recall Abe Vigoda was never dead very long, except for maybe the last time. And that Jesus chap was only dead a couple of days.
It’s said that we only live once.
Thats not entirely true.
We only die once.
We live every day.
Thats not entirely true.
We only die once.
We live every day.
As a millennial I'll be extremely lucky if retirement is ever an option, if it is and I can live comfortably on it I'll certainly find ways to keep myself busy
I was clinically dead twice in my youth. I know that differs from biological death.
I don't believe in reincarnation, but I did in a previous life.
Seems like going to Dr’s appointments is a full time job now.
I wonder how this post pension generation will ever save enough for a comfortable retirement and if there will be work opportunities that pay a living wage for older workers.
Overheard a 40ish guy at the cigar lounge yesterday lamenting his decision to liquidate his retirement account to save his dog. The dog died and now he has nothing saved.
That's absolutely heartbreaking. I don't have any pets and don't plan to get married, if I do I don't want any kids, so I'll probably just have to worry about myself.
Me too! My Dad made me walk it off.
Hmm.. definitions are quite subjective, but methinks most American's in their poll have only the smallest idea of how inflation drives future expenses...
In retrospect, ignoring my first comment, what on earth is retirement? I've been trying to do that since the Plandemic, and have had brief hiatuses (hiati?) only because of occasional infirmities, and the present one is disappearing and I'm slipping back into what I did before . . . .still teaching, interrupted by the occasional foray to the lakes, forests and shooting range. Hope it continues for a while until the next crash and burn 'cause it's been pretty good. 
If he only had enough in his retirement to save his dog, he really didn't have enough to retire anyway. Even if he spent $100K on his dog, that's not even close to what is needed to retire.
I read the article and found some things in it that were very helpful, and some things that don't apply to me.
Look, I'm not your average Sapiens. There's a reason I went for a life in the arts and was successful in it. Being an artist is, well, different. Artists are an alien species. In a very real sense what you do comes from who you are. So that bit about avoiding identifying yourself with your work, well, that would be a psychotic break for an artist.
I've always been someone who could enjoy being with people and equally enjoy being without them. Were that not the case, working as an artist would not be possible. I've always been that way. That's probably why artists are so good at being bad parents.
I didn't exactly "plan" for a retirement. As a child of Great Depression survivors, I just tried to put something aside, invest, take educated risks, and never, ever, entertain the illusion of stability. For anyone working in the arts, with the possible exception of the administrative end of it, stability and predictability are momentary at best.
Somehow, when the time came I had the means to retire from my career. I'm lucky. The average savings in this country for people at 65 is nothing even close to what they will need.
After decades of being "the busiest person I've ever met" to hundreds of people, I'll be damned to hell if I'm going to enroll in a cooking class to keep myself busy or to meet people. I might do it if I want to learn some techniques, but not to stay busy. I WAS busy. Right now I'm enjoying not being busy. I recommend the spiritual benefits of laziness.
I'm enjoying having my own little home with the possessions that have some meaning for me, like the dresser in my bedroom that I bought at an auction in upper state Vermont while I was shooting on location for Something Wicked This Way Comes, or an Art Nouveau lamp that I bought in Scottsdale after winning a national competition in realist painting, or many other items that recall a quite varied life.
People tell me that I ought to travel. I did travel. In the course of working on films I traveled to a lot of states in this here country and always made time to investigate my surroundings. I made several trips to Canada to work on films, and to do some roaming around. I spent several months backpacking around Western Europe. Right now I want to have my Dorothy moment and enjoy my new home in Oregon. I've already been to Oz.
These days, a lot of my time is taken up with exercising, doing PT seven days a week and hitting the gym for a couple of hours a day 3 days a week.
I'm doing a bit of writing and some reading and I'm getting caught up on some of the TV and films I didn't have time to watch over the past several decades.
As for predicting the future, it's not ours to see, que sera sera. Having never known stability, nor security, if I croak out without having "maximized" my remaining time so be it. It will just be another deadline I met.
I will add one thing that didn't appear in that article. If you haven't done a will, or set up a trust, assuming that you want to leave something to your loved ones instead of probate court and a bunch of vultures, get on with it.
Look, I'm not your average Sapiens. There's a reason I went for a life in the arts and was successful in it. Being an artist is, well, different. Artists are an alien species. In a very real sense what you do comes from who you are. So that bit about avoiding identifying yourself with your work, well, that would be a psychotic break for an artist.
I've always been someone who could enjoy being with people and equally enjoy being without them. Were that not the case, working as an artist would not be possible. I've always been that way. That's probably why artists are so good at being bad parents.
I didn't exactly "plan" for a retirement. As a child of Great Depression survivors, I just tried to put something aside, invest, take educated risks, and never, ever, entertain the illusion of stability. For anyone working in the arts, with the possible exception of the administrative end of it, stability and predictability are momentary at best.
Somehow, when the time came I had the means to retire from my career. I'm lucky. The average savings in this country for people at 65 is nothing even close to what they will need.
After decades of being "the busiest person I've ever met" to hundreds of people, I'll be damned to hell if I'm going to enroll in a cooking class to keep myself busy or to meet people. I might do it if I want to learn some techniques, but not to stay busy. I WAS busy. Right now I'm enjoying not being busy. I recommend the spiritual benefits of laziness.
I'm enjoying having my own little home with the possessions that have some meaning for me, like the dresser in my bedroom that I bought at an auction in upper state Vermont while I was shooting on location for Something Wicked This Way Comes, or an Art Nouveau lamp that I bought in Scottsdale after winning a national competition in realist painting, or many other items that recall a quite varied life.
People tell me that I ought to travel. I did travel. In the course of working on films I traveled to a lot of states in this here country and always made time to investigate my surroundings. I made several trips to Canada to work on films, and to do some roaming around. I spent several months backpacking around Western Europe. Right now I want to have my Dorothy moment and enjoy my new home in Oregon. I've already been to Oz.
These days, a lot of my time is taken up with exercising, doing PT seven days a week and hitting the gym for a couple of hours a day 3 days a week.
I'm doing a bit of writing and some reading and I'm getting caught up on some of the TV and films I didn't have time to watch over the past several decades.
As for predicting the future, it's not ours to see, que sera sera. Having never known stability, nor security, if I croak out without having "maximized" my remaining time so be it. It will just be another deadline I met.
I will add one thing that didn't appear in that article. If you haven't done a will, or set up a trust, assuming that you want to leave something to your loved ones instead of probate court and a bunch of vultures, get on with it.
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I've worked the same job for over 35 years and one other job prior for 10 years with a short stint for college between the two. About two years ago I switched to part time, just enough to maintain health insurance and that transition turned into a warm up for retirement. I have about five weeks left with half that time on vacation to burn it off the books. I'm confident I'm ready and have planned accordingly. Tomorrow I get in my car and take that drive to the building I've been walking into for quite some time, I won't miss it.
Twelve working days but who's counting?
Twelve working days but who's counting?
I can show ya how my retirement has worked for me in photos : 1) Before blood pressure 171/104 taking full medicine plus nitro and it's still really dangerously high 2) After retirement 132/69 taking not even all meds (cleared by cardiologist he told me I may have to withhold one if it's low) . So for me retirement probably saved my life.I expect there is a wealth of experience on this topic amongst our forum's membership, with many there already, and many looking forward to it, and many still blissfully removed from this eventual 'state of grace.'
Found this to be an interesting commentary, that I largely agree with:
https://www.fa-mag.com/news/retirement--planning-your-escape-80741.html?section=3
Enjoy...
Attachments
Like Gord, I turned 74 this past April. A close friend from High School days is a financial planner in the Dallas Metroplex. He once told me the problem he sees too often is folks who have a wonderful financial plan for retirement, but no life plan. They retire, have no idea what to do with themselves, and keel over dead not long after for want of something to do. Think of Bear Bryant the football coach - he died within weeks of his retirement. I still practice law pretty much full time. While I want to move out of first chair litigation, and am heading that way, it will be next year before I get there. The other observation I often make when asked "when are you going to retire?" is that I have read the Bible through and have used our current technology for word searches and have yet to find the word "retire" or any of it's derivatives there. So retirement for me will only mean a change in what I do. Plus, I am very blessed that my wife of now 47 years wants me around the house more, not less.
That's both sad and beautiful.
On topic, I am active in a couple of investment fora, though the actual time I spend investing is a few minutes per quarter. I know a few people who have FIREd (Financial Independence - Retire Early) and became catastrophically miserable. I always say it won't happen to me. What's more like it is that early retirement won't happen to me because I started systematic and disciplined saving and investing at 40, and with conservative projections that takes me to "having a decent nest egg at 60, far from being rich, though". Any sort of retirement or even going part time won't happen for me before 55, though I have a couple of bets on the side which if they pan out could push me to "well-off" by 55 and if they don't it's not that a big amount of money lost.
Exactly. I stopped being defined by work when I left academia and research. THAT I was truly passionate about, nowadays I like what I do - which is not something many people can honestly say - but I'm not gunning for retirement like some people I know. I see many miserable people either living like paupers with >1mn invested OR working like maniacs to sustain an extremely high cost living standard. The sad thing - though I have no sympathy - is that one group is defined by their saving/investing and optimizing down to the last 0.01% and the other by the next big thing, to the point where the first end up continuing to live like paupers when their investments are generating tens/hundreds of thousands per year passively (they literally don't know what to do with it other than reinvest it) and the second group cannot afford to stop working.
Luckily I have cheap tastes, I guess, and don't get bored easily