One Year of Retirement: A Look Back

Today marks my one-year anniversary of my retirement from full-time employment. One year ago, I was walking out of my office with that last box of “office stuff”, saying good-bye to my very good friends, and feeling a little nervous about what I had just done. I think now is the perfect time to reflect on my early retirement, and also to make note of some things I would do differently.

First off, do I miss anything? Yes, there certainly are a few things I miss, but nothing terribly surprising. Mostly, I miss seeing my coworkers on a daily basis. So many of them became my good friends, we were really more of an extended family. I still see them occasionally, of course, but it’s not the same as just walking down the hall and popping in for a chat or commiserating over the day’s events.

For the first few months of retirement, I missed the structure of my day. Even though I used to feel constrained by the 9-to-5 life, chained to a desk all day, it did give me a routine. And like it or not, routine is good for me. It has taken me some time, but I have developed some new routines and also come to value the newfound flexibility in my schedule. After all, the constraints of the job were one of my major complaints, so I ought to appreciate my new freedom. And I do.

As I look back, there are some things I’m glad I did before I retired. Briefly, those are:

- Live on the income I expected to have after retirement. For many years I lived on just a small percentage of my income, knowing that the benefits were twofold: it enabled me to save as much as possible, and also established a budget that would continue into retirement.

- Thoroughly investigate health insurance and obtain an individual policy before leaving the company group policy behind.

- Read as much as possible on investing, asset allocation, and early retirement. In particular, these books were very helpful: The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing and Work Less, Live More: The Way to Semi-Retirement

- Make a list of ideas for part-time income. Even if I never pursue some of them, it gave me peace-of-mind just knowing that there were options for some occasional or part-time income if I wanted it.

- Make a list of things I wanted to do with my newfound time. I put together a very sketchy list of things I would like to do if I had more time. I did no filtering; I just listed everything I could think of. What suprised me about the list, after I reviewed it, is that all but one of them were either free or very inexpensive. I always thought that time was more important to me than money, and looking at the list convinced me of it.

Of course this post wouldn’t be complete unless I also mentioned a couple of things I wish I had done (or done more of) before I left the job. This includes:

- Re-balance my assets. After I read the The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing book, I knew that I wanted to re-balance my assets. Because some of the market turmoil had already set it, I thought it would be better to wait a bit, re-balancing after the market settled down and as the opportunity presented itself. Of course you know the rest of that story; the market has continued a downward spiral in the last year that has made it harder and harder to re-balance. So now I bide my time, wishing I had had the discipline to do it when I knew it needed to be done.

- Spend more time considering what to do with my time. It was only in the few months before I retired that I started thinking about this. I spent so many years calculating my financial needs that I almost never thought about what I was going to do or how I would structure my days. While this may be what one of my friends terms “a happy problem”, it really would have been a smoother transition if I hadn’t felt so lost in the first few months of retirement.

What advice would I offer to someone thinking of retiring in the next couple of years? First of all, get your financial house in order. Make sure you know how much you need to live now by tracking expenses, and make sure your investments will support your expenses. If you will have a small business or work part-time, factor that income in. And don’t forget to spend time thinking about what you will do with your time. Whether it is travelling, volunteering, or spending time on hobbies, you can smooth out the transition by thinking about what your life will be like after you leave the job. And consider what your contingency plan will be if things don’t work out like you expect. In my opinion, flexibility is key to an early retirement.

I am happy to say that I have no regrets about leaving the job; the last year has been happy, rewarding, and ever-changing. I value my independence now even more than ever before, and remain willing to do whatever it takes to keep it. I look forward to seeing where the next year takes me.

Other Articles you might enjoy:

• My LifeStyle Now that I’m Retired
• Book Review: How to Live Well Without Owning a Car
• Question Expenses Twice
• Making Lemonade out of a Stock Market Full of Lemons

Tags: money management, planning, saving