What do you want to do when you retire?
What do you want to do when you retire?
Or do you not intend to? Or have you already? Retirement is coming up for me in a few years, so I'm considering my options.
I'm a millennial in the US, what's retirement?
OK Boomer has entered the chat. Seems most comments are from those looking forward. I left the paycheck life in 2019. Except for 2020 (catching up on every episode of The Office), I've been having a measured good time. I have lucky stars to thank. Got married in ’85. Adopted a daughter in ’91. Wife and I inherited a home when my mom died. We spent 30 years saving for retirement instead of paying a mortgage/rent. Was self-employed the whole time in marketing communications. Wife was a mid-level manager in health services, retired 2 years before me. We spent decades living below our means. I threw the towel in at 62. I think being self-employed (and a one-man show) prepared me for my after work life. I wasn't going to miss the office life and friends because I didn't have any, in the conventional sense. These days I work in the garden, getting dirt in my fingernails. I teach QiGong and Tai Chi pro-bono to a dedicated senior group at a local park, and I'm getting a similar gig with the city rec services to do the same. I'm a small-time landlord (one-unit granny flat behind the house). I recently transitioned from Mac to Windows (sorry Linux users, I know...) with great success. I drive a 25 year old stick-shift Toyota truck and hope it makes it to 300K. At 66, I exercise almost every day, and while I could be convinced to take a nap in the afternoon, I never do. My wife is a pickleball queen, and we manage to have lives together and apart. We both have pretty good health for oldies. Several of my peers have died recently, and the end of the road looms closer for me than ever before. My life is devoted to staying healthy and paying it forward as long as I can keep it together.
Least ok boomer boomer I've ever seen
This was a good read! I'm also lucky in that I'm part of an actual retirement plan through the state, although I am also putting money away as well. I actually plan on working, but not in my current industry. Maybe give different things a try and just focus on enjoying myself.
I talked to one person near retirement age who talked about climbing down the corporate ladder. The idea is to take jobs of progressively less responsibility and more vacation and use the time to transfer knowledge to junior staff.
Use the money to fund better and longer vacations.
Jobs with less responsibility typically have less vacation time too, and pay a lot less money.
It depends on the industry. In the kind of industry where someone is running an office department, they can negotiate for more time off and less responsibility in return for a lower salary.
Not starve or be homeless.
Paint and read, and do political organizing or volunteering. Maybe play some guitar if my hands aren't fucked up with arthritis. Kick it strong with the grandkids. Probably some gaming too, my dad games quite a bit
Whatever the fuck I feel like that day. Maybe some gardening, maybe some backpacking, maybe just laying on the couch and fucking around on my phone all day. The best part of this mythical retirement I'm teased with, is that I wouldn't have any obligations on a day-to-day basis.
The obligations thing is huge. Like literally anything I end up doing - even work - will be because I want to and not because I need to.
What do I want to do when I retire? Pretty much nothing! I want to watch TV shows and soccer games, play video games, sleep in, take naps during the day as I see fit, hang out with my wife, and shit-post online.
But I know that hobbies, side-projects, and socializing are important for delaying cognitive decline and staying active. So I'll probably, begrudgingly, do some of that shit too.
Still a decade or two before I can even think about retiring though. And things can change. So who knows.
I am retired and you're describing me, other than the fact that you'd have to pay me to watch soccer. I watch bicycle racing instead. It's a damn nice life.
Not die. But that's a tough ask as my current retirement plan is unaliving.
Yell at clouds
Monthly briskets, brewing alcohols, fine overcomplicated precision woodworking with exotic wood inlays because "bubinga" is fun to say, road trips for natural features and new taco joints, painting, restore/modicfy cars, and a concerning amount of day-drinking because that is the only way I can get through the day knowing what the world has come to when I can't distract myself with any of the other things.
Slowly sail around the world, maybe document it so folks who might not otherwise have the chance to experience those places, can, if they are interested. Live as small and as green as possible on my boat. Solar, wind turbine, water generator.
Retire?
Ha, good one
haha, retire. as long as we're dreaming, i guess i'll spend my time riding unicorns on the moon.
but seriously, if this is somehow really an option for you... i'd teach community education classes. art, programming, basic cooking, whatever. i've met a lot of great friends in community ed. i think it'd be rad to contribute back.
The main thing I really want to do is something that will let me give back and help people, so all of that sounds great. I thought about teaching, but I'm also really sick of IT, so I'm not sure. I did recently get a chance to speak to some college students about IT and really enjoyed that, so maybe that would be OK. Otherwise I've considered personal training or maybe even opening a gym.
Take care of my body so I can enjoy retirement. I hope I find some things that keep me active in the community. I think I would make and enjoy more art.
Start today. You will lose muscle mass between now & then and keeping it up makes a huge difference.
If you're interested I read this useful book on the subject: Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
Attia puts out good content.
I can’t even conceive of that. I’d sit and rot until I died. I’ll be working in some capacity until death.
The trick is to work for yourself instead of for someone else. This is what hobbies are for obviously those can be difficult to achieve under the current system of work for literally every goddamn fucking hour of your life other than sleep and eating but I assure you there is plenty of fulfillment to be found doing something for yourself and sometimes depending on what it is you find a passion for you can even turn it into a little side hustle job to make some extra money
I'm afraid that I've never had a hobby, I don't derive pleasure from the completion of tasks. Work is the only thing I really do.
I just took a week off and was so wildly productive at home, so I assume it would be the same if I could ever voluntarily retire. Haul wheelbarrows of mulch, tend to the garden, make bread and tepache, take care of the animals. Clean up the house. Like a stay at home mom who didn't have to take care of kids, would just manage the house and yard.
In reality it is probably only disability that would force me into retirement though. So I'm not sure.
I just made a batch of tepache. My first time. Delicious!
I used to bake sourdough quite a lot, but then I developed a wheat allergy. Before the allergy I thought quite a bit about switching careers and baking for a living.
20 years for me. Currently my idea is to open up a kiosk. Because I assume money won't be enough...
Play video games. Make myself go outside for twenty minutes a day. Do some stretches as exercise. Hope my daughter visits me.
I'll be 95.
I'm hoping to breathe, and to poop safely.
Go back to college. But this time to stay
That would be pretty neat to do. What would you want to study?
A lot of things. Psychology. Physics, maybe try for more engineering degrees, humanities, creative writing, whatever feels right.
I will probably spend a full year doing Not A Damn Thing™. After that, who knows. Volunteer somewhere maybe.
I'll keep myself in a low key part time job. I've read studies that retirees die sooner if they don't feel like they have a purpose.
Don't believe in 'retirement.' Already have plans to transition into full-time writing.
Travel a little, volunteer in the community, use any (if any) excess funds to try and better the things around me, cook more, adopt pets.
I don't expect to be alive by that point
Travel. Hopefully I am healthy enough and have enough money to go and live in many different places.
Travel, play board games, and watch movies.
Go to Hawaii.
Camping, traveling, hiking and going places that are enjoyable and accessible with my wife and dogs.
Gardening / homesteading in such a way to live as self-sufficiently as possible.
My way I want to give back in retirement is working as a volunteer urban/wildland canine search and rescue team.
I train my dogs in scent/detection sports and tracking now so I'm prepared to understand how to do the real deal once I have time to volunteer in retirement. My current job is in a related field, so I already have many of the other skills and certifications that would be needed, but I don't work with dogs for my job.
If I need extra income in retirement, I'll probably get into offering dog training for detection/tracking.
I train my dogs in scent/detection sports and tracking now
I've been training our puppy in scent work. It's pretty fun. He gets so excited when he finds his little birch tree oil soaked cotton ball in a perforated tin.
Make good, free games. I want to be financially stable enough that I can just make cool stuff and give it away, and not worry about trying to monetize it, or protect it from pirates. I just want to create for the sake of creating. I've got no interest in starting a business/company/indie studio/whatever the fuck else it is people think I should be doing. Added bonus, if anybody ever takes issue with something I've made, I can happily tell them where to stick it. It's free, you have no right to complain
Read.
I think semi-retirement is the way for me. I like what I do, I just don't want to do full work weeks until the day I die. However, I would not mind slowing down with age, and ending up working fewer days a week until I'm old and dying.
At some point, I'd like to leverage the experience I'm currently building to get very comfortable on-site or in-office hours, mixed with work from home hours, and then slow down from there until weekends are longer than the work week towards the end.
Assuming I'm still in good health, I want to go on some long bicycle tours. Like weeks or months long. Maybe start with the GAP/C&O Canal as a warm-up. Then La Route Verte. After hitting a few other sections of the US and Canada I would move across the pond to the UK, Ireland, and western Europe.
If I can find a riding partner who is open to dirt then I would really love to do the GDMBR. There are lots of shorter trails that would be fun warm-up trips, too. Unfortunately, I have yet to meet anyone IRL who is crazy enough to do multi-day off-road trips with me.
Pretty much what I do now, but between the hours of 8-5.
I kind of enjoyed being a tutor in college so maybe go back and be a staff-level instructor (lower level courses). If it wasn't actual work (for pay) probably I'd focus on contributing to open source projects I thought would really help people.
I considered this, but I actually kind of want to get away from teaching what I currently do for a living.
Have enough money to live
Oh model trains and Legos too
Probably sleep late, then spend some quiet afternoons digging through the wreckage for a can of something that doesn't seem too radioactive. Maybe get into painting or something.
Like many others here, travel. I would also like to get into gardening and become a better cook.
Get some fucking peace and quiet.
Make progress on the this is something I want to do list. I'm making progress now but interesting projects build up faster than time to do them. My current list should last about 3000 years...
I don't want to think I "look forward" to retirement. The concept of retirement sounds like the one of the most anti-voluntaryist things I can think of. As my parents might say, give the money toward debt or something.