Musings on the First 1.25 Years of Early Retirement (Part 1)
With all the summer travel, finally starting up this website, and my current podcasting & parental commitments, I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t had a chance to write this series of posts until now (hence the title “first 1.25 years of early retirement” instead of just “first year”). My apologies. I’ll try to be more punctual for the Year 2 Update.
So much has happened in my life since I retired in July 2023 that I thought it would be fun and hopefully insightful to capture some of my observations from the past year. To be honest, this post is just as much for me as it is for the community because I feel it’s important to document my current state-of-mind so that I can someday reflect back on this unique time in my life & have a good understanding of what I was going through at the time.
- There was no huge transition for me into retirement. My last day of work was on a Thursday and the next morning I volunteered at my kids’ elementary school for field day. Waking up that Friday morning and going through the day felt completely natural. It wasn’t until a few months later at CampFI when someone asked me about my transition that I actually took some time to even think about it. The fact that I had walked away from a 20-year career was not lost on me, but I also didn’t really feel anything out of the ordinary. Looking back I’m actually surprised because I would’ve thought a momentous, life-changing event would have/should have felt more significant; instead it just felt like any other day. I know that I may be the odd one here since I’ve heard so many stories of others either having a hard time leaving work or treating their first day of retirement with a lot more celebration. I think what made my transition different was the fact that I had been planning it for so long. Not only had I continued to work for 5 additional years after realizing I was FI, but I simultaneously used this time to start planning out my post-retirement life. While I didn’t have all the details worked out, I knew I wanted to spend more time with my family, travel more, start exercising regularly, and explore new hobbies & interests. So when the time came for me to actually transition into retirement there was no major shock because I already had a tentative plan in place and I was just moving forward with those plans.
- Only shaving once (or at most twice) a week is awesome. So is wearing sweatpants and the same shirt all week. In fact, I usually just wear the same dark gray t-shirt and gray sweatshirt (weather permitting) all the time. I’ve never been a fancy dresser and never had any sort of fashion sense (and really never even cared), but during my working career I would try to look at least minimally presentable, which just meant a polo shirt. But now that I’m retired, I’m proud to report that I’ve actually stepped DOWN my fashion game into the all-gray “uniform” I described earlier and I’m happy to say that it’s glorious!
- It’s nice to be out in public on a weekday. For most of my life I had no idea what happened in the world during the middle of the day – throughout my younger years I was obviously in class and when I started working I was always in an office. The only times I ever had a peek into this mysterious world were after a doctor/dentist appointment when I would grab lunch or run an errand. Now that I have the freedom to venture outside of my house whenever I want, I purposely choose to do so in the middle of the day when I expect less crowds. For the most part this is true, but I’m still surprised when I see so many people out & about. I always wonder what they’re doing and why they aren’t at work, but then again I bet they wonder the exact same thing about me. Either way, it’s nice to now be a part of this once secretive world.
- I worry about money way more now. On my path to Financial Independence I thought about money all the time. I always viewed money in a positive light and thought of it as a tool that I could use to someday buy my freedom. Throughout my entire journey and leading up to the very day I retired, I trusted the math (the 4% rule) because I considered FI a pure numbers game. However, after retiring my sense of logic started to fade and psychology started to take over… Not having a steady paycheck was scary and so was the thought of withdrawing money instead of investing it. It felt like I had to totally rewire my thinking from the past 20 years to say that taking money out of savings & investments was actually okay – after all, this is what my wife & I had worked so hard for and had planned for all these years. The uneasiness and fear were compounded by the addition of many large, unexpected expenses that started to eat away at the cash portion of our savings. Also, because we were using the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Exchange for our medical & dental coverage, I would continually monitor income to make sure we still qualified for subsidies. All of this left me constantly thinking about and constantly worrying about money. There were a few times I actually woke up in the middle of the night with worry, but it was mostly continual worrying that kept me from falling asleep. I know this situation may sound stupid or preposterous, because in theory anyone who achieves FI should have no money worries. The logical side of my brain keeps telling myself that, but the emotional side of my brain is just as powerful at times.
- Time is irrelevant/skewed. For most of our lives the majority of us follow schedules that are determined for us – we go to school during certain times of the day, we get vacations at specific times of the year, we have to attend meetings based on when co-workers schedule them, we may work specific shifts at our jobs. After 40+ years it’s easy to get indoctrinated into this sort of time structure where others determine when we do things. So imagine my surprise when I retired and all of a sudden the burden was solely on ME to create my own schedule and fill my time. In theory this sounds completely freeing, but the reality is that it took me a while to gain control of my time. It was easy to lose track of the day of the week since I no longer had an obligation to work Monday thru Friday and the concept of “weekdays” & “weekends” was no longer applicable. This was especially tough in the summertime when my kids were home because I couldn’t even use the school week as an artificial way of keeping time; every single day felt the same.
- Time goes by faster. Another strange thing about time is that it actually seems to go by faster on a daily basis. I know this is completely baffling since I have no work, no commute, and less obligations, so I would’ve guessed that time might feel like it’s slowing down. I don’t know exactly why this is the case, but my hypothesis is that because I no longer have many burdens or annoyances, I am no longer watching the clock as closely (in an effort to see when these bothersome things would end). As the old saying goes “time flies when you’re having fun”; I can definitely attest to this.
- I still deal with time pressure. This is weird, right? How can I have time pressure if I have no obligations (such as a full-time job) anymore? I fill my time with activities that I enjoy and one of those is podcast editing/production which actually does have a schedule since episodes are released on a weekly basis. Add in the fact that I’ve become more involved in my kids’ lives (driving them to/from the bus, taking them to after-school activities, coaching their sports teams, etc) and you can see how my schedule is suddenly full again. Just like in my working days, I still fall prey to time pressure as I try to cram everything in; sometimes it even feels worse than the deadlines I used to have on the job. On the brightside these are completely self-imposed situations since I’ve consciously chosen to partake in all of these activities. So if it ever becomes too much (and there are many days when it feels like that), I can always choose to dial-back without much negative consequence; in my case it would be more of an emotional letdown vs. dealing with any financial penalties.
- It’s easier to think. Seems obvious and it’s completely true. Even though I succumb to self-imposed time pressure once in a while, I still have full control over how I spend my days, meaning I don’t have to spend mental bandwidth on things that are of little to no interest to me (which I had so much of while working). Because I’m able to choose exactly what I want to do and what I want to focus on, it’s been much easier to actually just think. I have a much clearer head with so much less clutter. And if I need to, I can stop & shift my full attention to one thing while letting everything else temporarily fall to the background.
- At times I’ve felt directionless. This was primarily due to all the choices I suddenly had available and to my new time freedom. When everything had been structured for me, it was easy to go into autopilot since my life was fairly mundane – get up, go to work, come home, do chores on the weekend, repeat indefinitely. But when I retired and realized that I could do anything I wanted, I had to put together my own schedule and own list of activities that were not pre-defined for me. At first this involved a lot of experimentation to figure out exactly what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it. I honestly felt lost or directionless many times, but always in a good way – there seemed to be TOO many choices out there. Sometimes it even felt like I had a case of analysis paralysis, which means thinking about something over & over & over to come up with a “perfect” solution, but in the meantime never actually making a decision or doing anything. The good news is that this has started to change recently as I’m finally starting to settle into a routine in Year 2 of retirement – focusing primarily on activities that I really want to do while weeding out many other things.
- I appreciate the little things in life. There were so many things that I couldn’t do or that I missed out on while I was working full-time. Now that I have more space & time in my life, I’m starting to experience a lot of these things and taking the time to enjoy them, no matter how insignificant or dull they may feel to others. This is especially true when it comes to my family – I enjoy making lunches for my kids, driving them to/from the bus stop, taking them to their after-school activities, coaching their sports, volunteering at school. Although I still struggle with time pressure, I am very thankful that I can enjoy a cup of homebrewed coffee, talk to my wife, take a break whenever I want, exercise, or just take time to look out the window & get lost in thought. None of this was possible before with a hectic work schedule combined with a 40+ mile commute that demanded my full attention & sucked the life out of me.
MORE MUSINGS TO COME IN PART 2
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