Do you dream about retirement?

After 31 years in teaching I look forward to early retirement in 55. That is in 2 years time! I do not know if things will be the same and I could manage it by then as in Greece there is a financial turbulence the last five years and we had so many changes in regulations and laws we hardly know what is valid and for how long.
Any way having my hobbies and no loans to pay I think I will enjoy it! Unfortunately when you wait for something time seems to slow down!!!

Petros
 
I retired 8 months ago at 62 yr. Had a great job and enjoyed it.
Retirement has been GREAT! and I'm busier than I've ever been and not bored at all!
I highly recommend retiring!
Find a good retirement planner to work with. Good one is hard to find!
 
Being self employed, it's pretty hard to retire. And more importantly, my hobby is also my work, or vice versa. I consider myself semi-retired and that means I only have to work on the projects I want to take on. But if it's interesting and challenging, I'm in.

If I actually retired I wouldn't have anything to do. Besides, my customers won't let me retire, they keep calling and asking ''Hey, can you..........''. The only thing I really enjoy doing is solving problems. Those solutions might require software, hardware, or a new machine or process. So I get to work in the shop, write software, design/build electrical and mechanical systems.

I have four proprietary, never been done before projects in process right now, IMHO, retirement doesn't get any better than this.
 
Rick, I could have written your opening paragraph with only one exception, I am only 45 years old, will be 46 in a few weeks.

I have been at my place of employment for 26 years now, started at the bottom as an apprentice maintenance mechanic, worked up to journeyman, then to shop foreman and now have been a supervisor for the past 14 years. It flat sucks!!! The pay is not bad, actually that is how they get you, but the stress level is through the roof and most of the time I am merely an overpaid babysitter.

I have 17 mechanics that I manage, four superiors that I report to and 5 deparments that I manage all of the building, material handling equipment and OTR trucks for. My entire day is spend in defense mode due to the backwards ass way of thinking our company views maintenance. It is viewed as a necessary evil and a major expense rather than a department that cares for and maintains the corporations assets.

I too am so damn sick and tired of the corporate BS and think about retirment each and every day. My wife and I are shooting to retire at age 55 but to do that we have to have multiple investment avenues including liquid money that is not tied down to investments because we will have 4+ years to go from 55 until we can touch our investments.

It is definitely stressful planning but I think we have a solid plan. We sold our race car, race quads and ALL race components about a year ago now and invested part in new equipment to use in our home business and the rest went into our investment portfolio. I had originally wanted to race hardcore when we retired but over the past couple of years seeing how much money was being spend on that hobby, I decided early retirment was more important than running down the quarter mile.

We have cut many unnecessary expenses from our life and focused on retirement so we can enjoy each other and the rest of our life together. It is funny when this topic came up because it is something that my wife and I have been so focused on for the past several years.

Our son only has one more semester of college and then we are done paying for his college. We paid our home off at the age of 37 and nearly have our motorhome paid for.

I look forward to being able to hop in the motorhome with my wife and take off for a couple of weeks or month and not having to be back to report to work. I look forward to spending all day working in my shop rather than having to quite early enough to get a good nights sleep so I can get up @ 4:00 am and do it all over again.

So yes, I think about retirement A LOT!!!!
 
I dreamed about it for several years and finally did it last March. Would have been happy to work longer, but as you say Rick, HR and corporate "Flavor of the Week" management practices just turned me off. It's like they read some article in a management periodical and then have to change everything to they way XYZ Company did it. Nutz! The final straw was when a QC co-worker/friend found much better work. We left on the same day and never regretted it. We were the entire on-floor QC staff, so it might have gotten interesting, but we didn't care.

Managed to become completely debt free a few years ago - and stayed that way. Bought machines and experimental aircraft building supplies, welders, etc. Moved to a big old farm house with 6 acres. Now, I don't seem to have a spare hour. Built a nice go kart for the grandkids, and a deluxe biplane swing, I spend time with family, and sometimes help my son in his excavation business. It's just me and two dogs, so expenses are super low. I could not be happier.

Retirement? Oh hell ya! Highly recommended.

Tom
 
I dont dream of retirement, I revel in every micro second of it.
I planned to retire at 60 but the greedy banks screwing the economy put that off for a further two years.
Its essential you have hobbies, the more the merrier. I design and build recumbent bikes and trikes (pedal power)
Astronomical telescopes including grinding the mirrors, wood work (not very good) Aquaponics, astronomy, metal casting and obviously machining along with a deep interest in steam. (yes, I will be getting back to the little engine sometime soon)
I was a teacher for the last 25 years of my working life, Principle Teacher in Professional Cookery, with awards for excellence in teaching but with the dumbing down of syllabus content and the total bull dust management processes I couldn't wait to get out.
Management wanted to remove as many of us "old" brigade asap (18 with me) because we cost more and could be replaced with part timers with no experience thus lower wages.
To add insult to injury our Director gave as all a retirement gift of 4 crappy glass coasters that had been left over from a promo.
Retire as early as you can whilst you can still do things and your health is good, its not a good idea waiting until you can no longer function before giving up work and most of all enjoy life to the full.:allgood::joy: remember - every day above ground is a good one.
 
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Dream about retirement. what's that mean? I retired 20 years ago from GM. I was 48 years old at the time.

"Billy G"
 
I sure do.
In order not to get a reduced pension, I have to work 6 more years till I am 62. Don't know if I can make it, but I will try. Staying healthy is also hard.
 
Mark has good points. We are all playing with a hand grenade with pin pulled out. Like it or not. lost wife at 48 to cancer. more or less retired at 55 with 36 years to take care mom. loss her going on 3 yrs. adrenals shot. neck shot. lower back shot. just bought mill 8530. have PM 12x36 coming. not sure I can do much but been dreaming about buying machines my whole life. was not going do it till I had moms house empy and sold. its 800 plus miles away and with health goes slow. told myself bs I'm going down hill better get going on it now when I can. hope to try use stool???.
Mark prayers and best wishes........................





mark_f said:
This only my opinion, but retire as soon as you can. I had plans to retire at 55, travel a little and enjoy life. It was all planned out and set in motion. THEN, I got sick at 47 years old and had to go on disability. lost my income for 6 months while Social Security played with my disability application, forced me into bankruptcy and I lost everything I owned.

The moral here is : the best plans can turn to crap unexpectedly. I am 63 now and doing ok. Those people who get bored being retired are nuts. I stay as busy as I want. I can't find enough time to play in my shop and do the things I want to do.

The other reason to retire as soon as you can is , you don't know what is creeping up on you.... I am 63 and got surprised recently after a medical checkup and may only live another year or so without extremely risky surgery. IF I have the surgery , I have a 10% chance of surviving it. If I was still working , I'd be mad because I would have had no time to enjoy myself.

Mark Frazier

Note: I have led a full and exciting life. In the last several years I survived two heart attacks, open heart surgery, have a pacemaker, a morphine pump , and had one stroke. I HAVE NO REGRETS and I also plan to be around another twenty or so years, CUTTING CHIPS, with God willing.

SO, MY OPINION IS .... RETIRE AS SOON AS YOU CAN AND ENJOY LIFE WHILE YOU CAN.
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I spent 44 years in the oilfield, 22 years of days and 22 years of nights. Was lucky to get hired out of university and made what I thought was great money, but lived a normal life. Socked away what I could and retired at 46. Could have worked a lot longer and had a lot more money but was a single parent and decided the kids were more important. Best decision I ever made. Been 12 years now since I had a paycheque but do a little machining and cabinet work to help pay the billions, but only if and when I feel like it.
Stress level now is zero or slightly below.

Greg
 
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