Retirement: A Full-Time Job

Retirement on the Brain

With my retirement only two days away now, I've been voraciously reading other bloggers' interesting and insightful posts about retirement, and want to share some of them with you. 

Boomie, a recent commenter on my question "If you had the money to retire now, would you?" shares her experience entering retirement at 50, and then back out again one year later.

Kendall writes so poetically about her recent entry into retirement.  She seems to be relishing each and every moment of her new life in a whole new city.  I hope I will be able to savor each morsel as she has captured here.

I share Silicon Valley Blogger's excitement in retiring from our jobs THIS FRIDAY, and will be thinking of her too as I sip my champagne at dinner with friends.

Cheryl is on the road, and I'm sure is impatient, to reach the finish line at the end of this year when she, too, will retire to a new phase of life.

And 27-year old Elizabeth, is already aspiring to be able to quit full-time employment in her 30's so that she can be the owner of her own time.

Redefining retirement as a world traveler who "mostly works" through her "retired" years, Minerva shares her "Poor Retirement" story.

Millionaire Mommy who retired at 40, shares her path to financial freedom and glimpses into her family's life.

And lest we not leave out the men, I am also entertained by Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme, who could actually retire now, but hasn't "found anything sufficiently meaningful to replace a full fledged career with."

I certainly intend to add my own experiences as a retired gal very shortly!

Sunday Evening Blues

You would think since tomorrow is the last Monday I'll ever be working, I wouldn't have my typical Sunday evening blues tonight.  It's no secret.  I hate Mondays.  I especially hate Monday mornings, and most people at work (at least the smart ones) know not to try and talk to me until lunchtime on Mondays.

I hate Mondays because inevitably during the weekend, I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish before starting the new workweek.  I hate Mondays because it seems so very long away from Friday.  I hate Mondays because I slept in on Saturday and Sunday and so it is really hard for me to get up on time on Monday morning.  I hate Mondays because I ALWAYS weigh a couple pounds more on Monday morning than I did on Friday morning. 

But you would think I would be bouncing off the walls with happiness tonight since tomorrow is my last Monday of gainful employment.  I'm not, and I'm not sure why.

For one thing, I don't believe it.   Yes, I've been talking about retirement incessantly since last May, but I have to say, it still doesn't feel real.  Of course I know it is real, Friday is my last day as a working stiff.  But it doesn't feel like it's actually true.  I really do not believe it.

I guess the reality that I am not indispensable is also settling in.  I've done this job for over 17 years now, and very much enjoyed operating under the delusion that only I could do the job THIS well.  Not so, many, many people can do this job AT LEAST as well as I have (and most likely better!)  It's sad but true; I am dispensable.

I am hoping that Mondays will soon become my very favorite day of the week.  That will be the day that everyone ELSE has to go to work except me.  And maybe next Sunday night I will even believe that I am, indeed, retired.

Mozart, Retirement, and Having My Whole Life Out in Front of Me

My friend Vicki and I have been going to the symphony together for over 20 years now.  Last night's program was my favorite in a long, long time; all Mozart.  Jonathan Biss, a 20-something year old prodigy played Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat major, K 482 with such emotional intensity I could not get over how young he is.  The whole program brought me back to all those years ago, when Vicki and I first started attending the concerts together.  We were studying for our Master's in Tax at Golden Gate University (which she went on to complete, I did not).  We were young and just starting out our professional careers.  I remembered what it felt like back then to sit there, listening, just basking in the excitement of living my future and having my whole life out in front of me.

I have not felt that way for a very long time, but did again during that piece last night.  My mind wandered back to when I was 17 years old.  I was nearing graduation from high school.  I used to go shopping at a mall that I had always thought was so very sophisticated.  There was a cafe there that I always wanted to eat in, it was really only a cafeteria-style restaurant, but to me it represented a taste of what I wanted my future life to be about.  They had beautiful prepared foods behind a case and they played classical music, and it always seemed very elegant women were eating there.  I pictured myself there drinking a cappuccino and listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons, perhaps reading a book.  I was, in general, so excited about soon going off to college and figuring out what my life would be.  I had my whole life out in front of me!

Last night, my mind drifted to another time when I felt such an overwhelming thrill at the possibilities my life had in store for me.  I was getting ready to graduate college, and had my job in hand at a Big Eight accounting firm in San Francisco.  This time it wasn't Vivaldi or Mozart that filled me with such emotion, but an MJB coffee commercial, ("MJB tastes good when it should").  They had a commercial showing a single, young woman waking up in her big city apartment, rising from bed, relishing her cup of coffee before going off to her professional-career-woman job.  "That's me," I thought, "I am her!"  It reminded me of Marlo Thomas in "That Girl," and Mary Tyler Moore, "you're going to make it after all."  (Yes, the times have changed, at that time those were my only media role models for single, professional women out on their own.)  Every time I saw that MJB commercial, my eyes welled up; I was so happy about my future and what life had in store for me.

Somewhere over the last 22 years since graduating college, I just got to the business of living my happy life, taking it all for granted, never really thinking about it anymore.  It just operates on autopilot.  But now, I feel exactly as I did when I graduated from high school, and then again when I graduated from college.   Where might I take my life now?  During last night's intermission when I was discussing my future with Vicki, I said "March 1st, the first day after I graduate, I mean retire," and then laughed as Vicki pointed out it IS kind of like graduating.

The familiarity of that feeling, brought back to me by a Mozart piano concerto, filled me with wonderment; I have got my whole life out in front of me again.

Save for Later, Live for Now

I'm not really sure if I am just so brilliant that I made this up, or if I actually read it somewhere and am now plagiarizing?  Save like you'll live for 50 years in retirement but live like you only have six months to live.  And I don't mean by spending 50 years of savings in six months!

If you only had six months to live, what would you do?  Would you still go to work every day or would you spend more time with friends and family?  Would you go buy stuff or would you spend your money on shared experiences instead?  Would you enjoy the simple things in life or do you think you would still obsess because your Starbuck's latte isn't hot enough.

I'm thinking about this episode of "House" (or was it "Gray's Anatomy," now I can't remember), but the doctor told his patient that he had six months to live.  Turns out the team misdiagnosed him and he was actually fine.  When he found out about the error, the patient was really mad--he came back to the hospital ready to sue.  They all thought he would be happy that he gets to live after all, but he was angry because he quit his job, sold his house, planned for travel, and basically started to enjoy his life.  He was mad because, since now he had his whole life in front of him, he had to go back to being miserable.  Well that's one approach, huh?

Now, I'm not suggesting that you run from your responsibilities or act impulsively.  The point I'm trying to make is that if there are things you want to be doing, the time is now.  I am quite aware that not everyone can afford to retire right now, of course.  But that doesn't mean that you have to work yourself to death for the hope that sometime, in the future you can enjoy yourself.  And if you do really have enough money to retire (yes, more is always better, but I'm talking about enough), wouldn't you just kick yourself if you kept on working and then kicked the bucket before you got a chance to do the things you wanted to do in life?

I'm not trying to be morbid, just float the idea that the time to live the life you want is now.  And in terms of figuring out the right time to retire, I think Ernie Zelinski hit it on the head:

Retiring too early doesn't pose too serious a problem; you can always go back to full time work and give retirement another go sometime later.  On the other hand, retiring too late means you don't get another chance to do it right.  Put another way, if you put it off too long, upon your retirement you may find out that the best time to pursue your dreams and enjoy life to the fullest was twenty years ago."

Yes, there is a Difference Between Men and Women

I just finished How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free by Ernie J. Zelinski.  I really enjoyed this book.  There's so much in there to talk about but I'll start with the issue burning in my mind tonight.  He notes an interesting research study (the bold is my emphasis):

A research study released in 2001 by Cornell University psychologists found that, particularly for men, employment after official retirement is beneficial for their psychological well-being.  Those who retire from their primary career, but then find some sort of other work, are the happiest and suffer the least depression.  On the other hand, men who retire and don't go back to work experience the most unhappiness and depression.  Surprisingly, the researchers didn't find much difference for women who go back to work after retiring versus those who don't.  No reasons were given for this important difference between the sexes.

Well, you don't have to be a hot-shot researcher to figure this one out.  I'll give you the reason, men are boring.  That's right, you heard me; men are boring.  I suppose the more politically correct way to phrase this is "women tend to have more interests."  But here's the cold, hard truth:  women are just more interesting!

Just in the last 48 hours alone, three different men have told me that I will be bored with retirement within the first six months of being retired.  And that's about standard fare as far as my retirement discussions with the men-folk over the last year.  I have yet to have a woman say this to me.

Men golf.  That's about it.  Well there you go, I would be bored too if all I had to do with all those previously working hours is play golf. Oh, and by the way, they already get to do this activity DURING WORKING HOURS AND CALL IT WORK!  Why would they need to retire to do the only other activity they like doing when they can already do it while "working?"  (Oops, I am forgetting men also watch TV.  But need I point out that they are so bored watching TV that they can't even manage to stay on one channel longer than ten seconds--honestly, it's enough to make a person dizzy!)

Maybe if I got to shop, read, write, knit, sew, paint, study a foreign language, garden, play tennis, go to the gym and ride my bike during working hours and call it working I wouldn't feel the need to retire to have time to do these things either!  But alas, my employer does not allow me to pursue my hobbies while at work and call it work.

When I discuss my retirement with women, they usually launch into the zillions of things they would like to do if only they had more time.  Men just look puzzled by the prospect and ask me what the heck I will do to fill my time.  Sheesh!

Yeah, yeah, I know now I'm going to get a bunch of hate mail from all those men out there blogging about ways to become financially independent so they can retire at a young age.  As it is with gross generalizations, there probably are SOME men that have enough interests to keep them busy in retirement.  But I would bet you money that most of these men just want the ability to walk away from their jobs.  The truth is they are so defined by their jobs and have no other interests, they don't really want to actually quit their jobs.  They just want to have enough saved to be able to say "I'm walking," whether they would actually walk or not.

And yes, I'm sure there are a couple of boring women out there too, but as it is with gross generalizations, they will not be acknowledged here either.  

Kids, Money, and Retirement

Wow, kids are really much smarter than we we adults give them credit for (at least this adult).  At a recent visit with my nephews, my youngest nephew, Chad, asked me, "Aunt Syd, when you retire, does that mean you won't have any job?"

"That's right," I told him, "I'll have no job when I'm retired."

He hesitated, and then with a puzzled look on his face continued, "so, but then, if you don't have a job, how will you get the money to buy stuff?"  Wow, what a great question for a nine-year-old!  He threw me for a loop, I had no idea he had that whole job-equals-money thing down.

I explained to him, that while I worked, we put all the money we didn't use buying "stuff" in the bank (we'll save that investing and miracle of compounding discussion until he's, say, ten) and now we're going to use all that money that's in the bank to buy stuff instead of using the money from having a job."

Seems reasonable, but that didn't totally do the trick, "but what if you run out of money, then will you get another job?"  My in-laws told me that Chad was very worried about their financial situation, too, when they retired, so I told him, "yes, if we run out of money, one of us will go get another job."  He seemed relieved.

I wondered if his line of questioning had resulted from overhearing his parents discuss our upcoming retirement, until the very next day I received the very same line of questioning from another one of our very precocious young little friends.  I guess these kids really do have a grasp of basic finance; I honestly didn't expect kids at this age to be articulating some of the very same concerns as our grown-up friends!

What is even more interesting to me about both of these conversations is they are both children of two of the most affluent families I know.  These kids have iPhones, computers, iPods, and Game Boys.  They go to private schools, live in beautiful, large homes and take fabulous vacations.  They really have so much, I wouldn't have expected them to really understand the value of a dollar and what it takes to buy these material goods. 

Clearly, they have the capacity for financial education we adults either do not acknowledge or want to shelter them from.  Perhaps I should have taken this opportunity to explain to my nephew that what "running out of money" really means is "spending more than you have."  Perhaps I should have explained that we ultimately have control over what we spend, so if we control our spending successfully, we will not run out of money.  Maybe I should have told him that many people, even WITH jobs, spend way beyond what they have by using credit cards, which makes them run out of money much faster.

Even without those lessons, I hope they both at least walked away with the concept that if you don't spend all the money you make at your job, there will come a time when you can decide that you don't have to go to work at that job anymore if you don't want to. 

At the very least, it was so refreshing to have at least one segment of the population not worrying about what we will actually DO with our time when we are retired.  That is clearly something that does not puzzle kids the way it does grown-ups!

Marriage and Money

I just read a post at Plan Your Escape about one couple's approach to handling their finances in marriage.  Ahhh, this one took me back.  This is exactly the illusion under which my husband and I operated when we started our life together 20 years ago.  When we first started living together, we each had our separate bank accounts.  We split all the joint costs, just like roommates would.  Later, we opened a joint bank account together and each contributed half the projected joint expenses into that account, keeping the rest of our money separate.

When we got married four years later, we continued this "yours, mine, and ours" approach as we could see that we were much better off than those couples that argued about money all the time.  We were so smart to do it this way and avoid all that conflict over the number one reason couples fight, right?  Wrong! 

Over the years we came to a few realizations:

This was a lot of work!  Maintaining 3 separate checking accounts, making sure the joint account had enough money, and making more transfers in when unexpected joint expenses came up.  We're both accountants, the last thing we wanted to spend our non-working hours on was more accounting work!

It made saving for common goals harder.  When we started saving for our first home, we each contributed to a joint savings account (yes ANOTHER bank account) in an agreed-upon amount to save for that house.  But the truth is, if one person wants to save even more (to get there faster), and the other is spending their "separate" money, one feels the sacrifice more than the other.  In trying to save for any goal, it's a lot easier just to dump all the money in one place and then make joint decisions (perhaps talking the other out of that new pair of boots) to keep that goal in mind (and know that you're getting there TOGETHER.)

You are either a couple that argues about money or you are not.  No amount of bank account gymnastics will change who you are.  I have a friend that still (25 year of marriage and 2 kids later), to this day handles their money in this separate fashion, and they argue about money all the time!  It's not the clever way you divvy up your money, how many bank accounts you have, or how the cash flows in and out of them that determine how a couple deals with money.  It's much more basic than that.  You either argue about money or you don't.

At some point, we just took the leap (and YES, it felt like a giant leap at the time) and threw all our money in the pot together.  It not only made life a whole lot easier without all that back and forth, it ultimately made it easier to save for an early retirement.  Putting it all together makes you more open about money, not less open.  And in marriage are you really aiming for what is "even" or are you a team, working to achieve joint goals for the joint life that you are building together?

The other thing to remember, is over the many years of a marriage, things change.  For us, my husband lost his job.  If we were still under the old methodolgy, he would have been made to feel that he was no longer "contributing" since he wasn't making deposits to that account anymore.  That may have caused him even more stress at an already stressful time in his life.  Ultimately we decided together that our life was much better with him staying home, so the convoluted money strategy wouldn't have worked anymore anyway.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that this is the reason you don't argue.  Toss it all in the same pot and I guarantee it won't change the way you relate to one another about money.  You are a happy, well-adjusted couple because you're a happy well adjusted couple, not because you've figured out the money secret of a lifetime.

Exercise Like a Kid

I just read a great post about how to get your exercise without breaking the bank.  Of course it's true, you don't have to join a gym to get fit, and it doesn't have to be a chore, it can actually be something you find fun (not to mention cheap!)  Many of the exercise tips on SVB's post are actually tactics I will incorporate in my upcoming retired life simply to balance the budget; I hadn't even considered the effect on my caloric budget.  When I clean my own house, do my own gardening, and paint my own walls, I not only save money but burn calories at the same time!

As I get closer to my retirement date, a funny thing is happening to me.  I am actually beginning to feel YOUNGER (not older as the word "retirement" might to elicit).  In fact, a better word than younger is childlike.  I'm starting to feel like a kid again!  Remember how it felt in elementary school right before summer vacation?  That's how I feel.  I'm thinking of all the things I did on those summer vacations and realizing that I want to play again, and these are great ways to exercise on the cheap.

1.  Pogo Stick

For my 40th birthday, my parents got me exactly what I asked for, a pogo stick.  Not an ordinary pogo stick, a state-of-the-art Razor pogo stick.  I am the envy of every 12 year old on the block.  It's hard to believe when I was in the 4th grade my friends and I spent hours taking turns jumping.  Now, as an adult, I can maybe manage 100 jumps before needing air, seriously, it's hard--but fun.

2.  Hula Hoop

The bonus gift was a hula hoop (actually two--and yes I can hula with both at the same time, I am JUST THAT talented!)  I am not the only adult that thinks this is good, fun exercise.  Last August while at Coney Island, we watched a hula hoop contest (and yes, it was ALL adults, no kids!)  The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article last week  about a growing trend toward adult exercise classes incorporating hula hoops.  Save a few bucks, skip the class and get your own hoop--what better way to suffer through another episode of American Idol than to hula hoop your way through it.

3.  Jump Rope

This is another of those I-can't-believe-I-used-to-do-this-for-hours activity.  A few minutes of jumping rope and I feel like my heart might just jump right out of my chest.  Definitely great exercise.

4.  Dance

Turn on the radio and dance.  Better yet, invite a bunch of friends over for Karaoke--you don't think that's exercise?  Has anyone ever sung Copa Cabana without starting a conga line around the room?  And it's a very long song, by the way.  (Oops, this one is at best a break-even activity calorie-wise, usually the quantity of alcohol consumption negates any potential calorie burn.)

5.  Ride Your Bike

You don't have to be an avid cyclist to enjoy a nice bike ride.  My parents ride their cruisers many times a week to their favorite coffee shop.  On hot days, we ride our bikes to town for ice cream (burns more calories than waiting for the ice cream truck to come to you.)  Just ride around your neighborhood, you don't have to climb mountains or enter a race to get exercise, just ride like you did when you were a kid--to actually GET somewhere!

6.  Wash Your Car

Perhaps because it wasn't really a chore when we were kids, we really thought this was fun (and often we got paid a couple dollars for it which really made it fun).  But on a hot day, it can really feel good to wash your own car (gets you moving, keeps you cool, and saves a few bucks!)

7.  Re-decorate your room

Perhaps I was one of only a few aspiring interior decorator kids, but I loved moving all my furniture around every so often for a new "look".  Move some furniture around now for a new look, if you hate it you can always move it back (remember to view it as a workout rather than a complete waste of time in that case.)

There are so many other activities that will make you feel like a kid again because you're just having fun, go play in your neighbor's pool, play some tennis, play with your dog, or if you live in a colder climate, have a snowball fight.   If you're lucky, you won't even know you'r exercising.

My First Day as the Almost Retired Former CFO

For most of you, this photo will mean nothing to you, just someone's very clean office.  For anyone that has ever been in my office over the past 17 1/2 years, it is nothing short of a miracle.  Up until last Friday, every square inch of this desk was covered with piles of files, as was every square inch of each credenza and even some square inches of the floor.  (This may shock many of my friends that have never been to my office, as it is totally inconsistent with how I keep my home.)

But last Friday, I cleaned every visible (and not visible) surface to ready my office for the new Chief Financial Officer that is taking over my post.  I have moved my computer and two tiny stacks of work to a spare office for my remaining transitional service to the firm that has been my employer for most of my professional career.  Today was my first day as "the former madam CFO."

I expected to have mixed emotions today, but instead my happiness increased with each click of the "send" button as I one by one, forwarded pieces of my former responsibilities to my successor.  Now the tools of my trade fit entirely onto a folding table two feet deep by four feet long.  At the end of this day, I came home almost giddy; I expect tomorrow to be fully giddy, and for the silly grin on my face to get more and more annoying to my co-workers with each passing day.

Perhaps as my official retirement date at the end of this month nears, I will start to mourn the loss of my former identity, more likely the loss of my former social life, revolving largely around the people I love to see each day. 

But for today, at least, a feeling of total lightness predominated.