I will turn 39 in April, and I have been retired for almost 9 months now. All thanks to Top Gun and Office Space.
How’s Retired Life?
That’s the question I get most often. I feel like I can’t fairly answer it though.
I have a wife and two children and we are all living at home during a pandemic. I don’t even know how people have time for jobs.
All of us should be taking care of our families and ourselves. I am extremely lucky. I am able to do whatever I want and help anyone else in the family that needs help. I don’t have to stress about letting my company down or losing my job. I get to focus on the people I care about.
I don’t mean to imply I didn’t care about my co-workers, I actually enjoyed the people I worked with. Although the job wasn’t soul-fulfilling, I had it better than most employees in America. It felt odd to turn down so much money and relative comfort so I could eliminate my 9-to-5. I declined a nice stock refresh at a third of the company’s current valuation. But I don’t regret the decision.
It was still a job and not how I feel life should be lived.
What’s Your Day Like?
I still wake up early and try to start to do as many of my streaks as possible before the kids are awake. This is usually between 5 and 630. I try to be in bed by 930.
I help the kids with breakfast, sometimes it’s just getting then vitamins and sometimes it’s making pancakes. My daughter has learned to make pancakes though and that can make my job even easier. My wife will also help if she doesn’t have work. She takes pride in having her own business and continues to work even though she doesn’t have to.
The kids are still in school remotely, so I have time to finish the rest of my streaks before they’re done for the day. Things may get more interesting in the fall as we’re considering homeschooling for our son.
I usually procrastinate about running my 10 miles and have to do that before dinner.
We sit and eat dinner together and then usually watch a show or a movie before bed.
And that’s the day in the life of a retired Dad.
Moving
I made a post about leaving Colorado. We have officially purchased a home in Southern Illinois to be closer to family and friends. We’re getting renovations done, adding a pool and living on a lake for half the cost of our Colorado home.
We are letting the kids finish out their school year and will be looking to list our Colorado home in April/May. We hope to get a new Newfoundland puppy around then too.
I have been traveling back and forth between the two houses, but ultimately it was putting too much stress on our family. I went from being a stay at home Dad to being gone for multiple weeks.
I had great plans of being a handyman and fixing things up. But it takes time and is very frustrating when you’re a perfectionist learning something new. We found a contractor and are leveraging the power of money to make our lives easier.
Finances
There are First World Problems and then there are what I call 1% problems. When you retire, you don’t run out of problems, you commit to new ones.
I am not looking for sympathy, or humble bragging, just show your financial worries don’t disappear when you retire early.
A large reason that I was able to retire early was by being frugal and budgeting, but now I’m trying to let that let go. I am now able to enjoy the fruits of the seeds I planted.
I’ve learned that usually when you are trying to reach a goal, the reward is the journey. You learn things along the way and ultimately it doesn’t matter if you actually achieve your exact goal, or win the prize. Retirement is not like that. It’s a complete mind-shift.
I now need to accept my new life and that’s what I’m working on.
