There’s a mix of ages here on these boards, but there are quite a few of us in our 50’s. Retirement isn’t that far off for some of us, and for others you probably have thought about it a bit.
So what do people want to do when they give up the day job? Finally work on that Steam backlog? Work past 65 or 67? Retire and then what?
What we (girlfriend and I) want to do is sell the house and then rent and be gypsies for 4-6 years or more, depending on health, and live in Europe and maybe Asia a bit, see the world, experience different cultures. I think our first stop may be Italy, somewhere in Florence, so we can soak up the art and culture. We’d rent an apartment for 6-12 months and be Florentines and otherwise use it as a staging base for trips to other parts of Europe.
We’d also like to live in Scotland or Ireland for six months or so too. Maybe somewhere in France. The girlfriend also would like to live in Thailand for a bit. New Zealand seems cool to us too – her mom was from there so she can get dual citizenship I think. I could settle down to be a hobbit there.
I don’t want to abandon the US but both of us are very tired of all the shootings and the shift of power to the wealthy, right-wingers. We don’t expect that to change. If we do sell the house we might very well become ex-pats other than visits.
Other than the cold weather Toronto seems like a really nice place to live once we want to settle down. Maybe we could be exotic snowbirds and live in Toronto part of the year and Italy the other part of the year?
There was a time when talking about retirement plans would have made me feel old and unhappy, but I’m over that. I am looking forward now to giving up the day job. How about you?
It still seems pretty far off to me, with two kids in college.
But I love the ideas you have for travel, especially with a flock of grandkids on the other side of the US that I’m longing to hang out with. Plus, I just love the idea of tooling around and being a hobo.
What did you do with your investments Mark? I’m talking about IRAs and so forth. I’m probably at the right age that I should do something with ours to make sure it’s all at the right risk level, but I’m sort of procrastinating. I talked to a young guy at the bank who wanted to charge me a lot of money, but I just felt like, huh. I don’t want to work with an agent, unless I find a really good one.
Our idea is to rent an apartment with at least two bedrooms and invite the kids to visit. We are lucky enough that we can probably help pay for the airfare to come see us in Europe. And we’d like to come back to the US and rent short-term to see family too. You can visit and hang out with us too! I’d like to have guests all the time.
The idea of being a hobo – travelling light – appeals to us. Why pay a mortgage every month? I love where we live now, and I love the house we are in, but we can rent a nice apartment in Europe for less than our mortgage payment.
I don’t have a lot so I’m the wrong guy to ask. What we do have is the girlfriend’s pension, both of our social’s, her 401k, and the profit from the house sale. We are lucky (I am mostly) because she has a nice pension and it looks like just the pension and the combined socials will let us live abroad without touching the 401k. We don’t spend all that much, really.
And I hope I can make a bit of money through writing. Not a lot, but something. I am also not averse to working part-time after retirement. I think it’s healthy to continue to work in some fashion.
Thank you for the generous offer to hang out in europe. I would LOVE to do that!
And man, that’s a great idea about getting a two bedroom and inviting the kids. Our college kids have been clamoring for some time in Europe and I’m ready to go too. I like the idea of having a home base and then maybe helping them with airfare at some point. And I may just take you up on that visit, because I can totally see myself wanting to do something wild once all the obligations around college are tied up.
For my retirement, I haven’t given it as much concrete thought as you, but I’d like to rent out my house and find a much cheaper place to live. If I can get rental income that meets the demands of the mortgage, I might be able to keep the house. I’m already trying to figure out how to write for a second income. I’m actually doing it right now, and while I’m not making much, I see others using it as a primary income. If I can figure out a good place for myself in one of the niche genres, I’d love to write for some retirement income.
My plan is to work until I have a paid off house and 1 house for rental. Id really like to get 2 houses for rental.
I would like to spend my time traveling and gaming. I would love to have the resources to have one big trip a year and two smaller trips a year by the time I retire. There is so much in the world I want to see. Unfortunately the world is kind of fucked up right now and seems to be getting even worse. Maybe by the time I retire, Egypt will be in a good state to visit.
I will not be able to retire so plan on working to 70 assuming health allows it etc. We just moved to Florida so live near Disney (about 30 minutes away) so my wife and I bought annual passes to the park and go every Saturday. I also bought a Fitbit to get my body movement up and the Disney park passes gets us out of the house. So it feels like I am sorta retired. : )
We are planning on getting the Universal Annual pass too. Mainly because family members that now want to visit us…I mean actually visit the parks (lol); they want to go to Universal. Too expensive to buy tickets here and there so the annual passes to both DIsney and Universal makes sense.
If I have any retirement dream it would be to reduce my belly size so I could see my toes again when standing!
BTW, I have been hitting the 10k recommend steps at least 5 Days per week with about 13k to 16k steps when in the parks. I am a little teeny, weeny bit proud of myself. I am also walking to work while it is a bit cooler, which is about .8 miles away. Not sure how that will go when the temp is high in summer.
My dreams, at the moment, relate mostly to having free time to work on personal projects. I’ve been overcommitted for years and notebooks full of project ideas that I have no time to start, much less complete. Of course, I need to try to free up that time before I hit retirement age.
Years ago, visiting the Seychelles, I met a former Siemens VP who sold everything he owned in Germany and bought a small house on the island of La Digue and opened a small hand-made wooden toy business. Their house was surrounded by vanilla orchids and about 50 feet from Anse Source d’Argent. It was lovely and the thought of running away to a life like that is appealing. Ultimately, however, without a ton of money and the ability to escape from your escape, I think it would be very isolating.
My youngest won’t graduate from high school until I’m 58, though, so honestly, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to retire.
With the state of economy these days, a employed person will find it a challenge to save up enough for kids college AND live a retirement life abroad. If you have the resources, it’s great to experience life around the world. I am not sure whether I can do that with the missus unless we had some windfall along the way, so I am contend just being able to game in peace and clear up the Steam backlog. In fact, I often dream of just moving to the country side (houses there are relatively cheaper than houses in the city, so selling our house and buying one in the countryside could even net us some nice profit)… anyway, so long as the place is quiet, have good internet connection, I am all for gaming and reading as a way of my future retirement.
Guap, it’s too early for me to do the math and figure out your age, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to be living longer by then, with jet packs and the whole shit. We’re sitting pretty my man.
Semi retirement at 50 when I will move to Lucerne with my wife and open a restaurant. I’m fortunate enough to have done a lot of traveling in my life and it’s doesnt get better than Lucerne.
Fall back is restaurant in New Zealand which immigration is easier and property cheaper.
Hopefully retiring in 8 years at 62. The kid will be out of high school. Moving back to Oregon from WA. Will take 6 months to travel to South Africa, Australia, Thailand. IF we get enough money from selling our house. Then, get a part time job, the wife a full time job. The kid will get residency in Oregon and pick a college. Will work on ;photography and “maybe” some board game designing. Hiking, biking, kayaking All the time.
I hope I won’t retire because I love my work. I probably won’t, anyway, because it pays about as good as the average Youtube channel! My only wish is that my significant other will still be by my side, and that we don’t live in a stinging town.
Oh good, I’m not the only old dad here. Retirement is definitely a dream and a goal but still quite some ways off. I like the ideas of traveling that a bunch of you have, it’s great to have something concrete to work toward. I can’t say that I have anything quite that solid. I guess if I had to put something down to paper (or monitor, as it were) I’d maybe like to get a boat again, do some sailing, maybe travel the world in that. But I’m a bit of a coward and the vastness of the ocean terrifies me as much as it calls to me. Definitely love to see more of Europe, and my wife really wants to get back to Africa since she lived there for several years, so I’d say that’s in the cards. I guess mostly I’m just hoping to live long enough to enjoy some retirement. Keep it simple and (hopefully) attainable.
I’ll be retiring modestly in the next 1-2 years, sooner if company offers a retirement package, which I keep hoping & praying for (6-9 months of pay).
I have a woodworking business I’ve been cultivating on the side, doing work at nights & weekends and have built up a decent income that I hope to double when I retire. As I typically curtail this from Dec - Feb due to the cold weather, our travel plans are similar to @Mark_Asher but we want to do do house swaps with people - swapping house & car for 1-3 months each year and visit places all over the world.
That’s interesting. I wonder if we could do that? I love the house we have right now. It’s modest, one story (so no stairs), and more than big enough. It’s in a very quiet neighborhood with big trees everywhere. I’d rather hold onto it but we probably can’t. We can live cheaper by renting.
I enjoy working so it’s not so much that I want to retire as it is I have an awareness of the limits of time now that I didn’t really feel before. Even if we live to be 90, I’m not sure how many of those years will be in good enough health to enjoy travelling and doing a lot of walking and biking. Ideally I’d like to do something part-time to make some extra money and keep myself occupied.
Yes, I think it would be a great place to settle down but the winters worry me. I dislike the cold. I see why people retire to the warm areas.
We also like Betty DeVos’s home town of Holland, MI. It’s great for biking and there are all kinds of interesting lake towns around it. It’s nice in the summer but cold and snowy in the winter.
