Kaj had a cute humorous topic about where to retire that got me thinking about WHEN to retire. I have been retired for a few years now and folks still ask me 'how is it'. My pat answer is "I highly recommend it".
But how do you know when it is time for YOU to retire? I could still be working but I awakended one morning and somehow it was clear that I needed to hang it up. Was this just a passing thing or what? I hung in there a few more months and it just became clearer that I was not happy anymore doing what I had loved to do for years. The higher I rose in rank and responsibility, the less I enjoyed the job - but that is the only way I could increase my pay. SO there I was.
It go to the point where I dreaded the trip to work each day, dreaded the meetings that I had to endure each day with the criminal justice comunity. I hated having to 'evaluate' the folks that worked for me, knowing each of the personally, friends with most of them and knowing that whatever I rated them would have a direct bearing on what kind of pay increase they received. (Pay for Performance)
Finally my wife told me I was headed for a heart attack and to get out before that happened. She did a financial analysis of our assets and needs and said we could do it.
So here I am, retired and much healthier and happier than I was. Sometimes I feel that I deserted the guys I worked with. They were/are like family and none of them wanted to see me go.
Would I go again? Probably. Good decision? definitely! I miss the guys an awful lot and wish I could see and spend some time with them again.
But you know, I still don't know what triggered that 'it's time to get out' notion. Might be a higher power looking after me.
I hung in there a few more months and it just became clearer that I was not happy anymore doing what I had loved to do for years.
Being happy at what you are doing is the primary motivation to keep working. No job is perfect, but I figure that if 80% of the time I'm either happy or doing OK is pretty good. So that means I would have 4 good/OK days out of every work week.
I'm at about 40% good/OK at my present company. I don't particularly like who I'm working for, so I will be changing that in the next few weeks. By my calculations, I have about 9-10 years before I am financially set to hang it up on a full-time basis.
Life is too short to work somewhere or do something you really don't want to do.
I'm one of those people that if I won the lottery, I'd immediately quit my job.
MFinCA
2004 Homestead Settler 255RS
1999 Chevrolet Suburban 2500
Not that I'm counting, but I HOPE to retire in 44 months. That sounds a little better than 3 years and 8 months. I will be 62 and will have just over 24 years in with the State. I could retire now on reduced disability but I am trying to get my wife to retire from her job. She has over 31 years in and could go out any time but she would have to find her own medical insurance so she is staying with it for the insurance. I could pick up insurance for her at my work, but that then commits me to work on another 4 years until I am 66. I use the VA for medical, draw 80% disability and can draw a reduced State retirement now if I wanted to go before age 62, it sure is tempting. I, like others dread going into work everyday.........
Dave & Pat
1999 Wanderer 230FB
2004 F250, XLT Crew Cab, V10, finally, enough power!
"No kids, no pets, trying to make it to retirement"
If my bank account looked a little "fatter" I would quit IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!!!
I am NOT one of those that is going to work the rest of my life! I do NOT feel the NEED or the URGE to be "useful" in my old age, as a matter of FACT, I want to be as useless as humanly possible when I am able to quit work forever!!!!!!
If I can survive this coming school year, I will do another one after that and be done for good. If this coming year is too anything, then in May, we're done. I made a promise to this years 7th graders that I would do my best to get them through 9th grade math so if the new principal doesn't go power crazy I can go two. If he turns into a power junky then we are done in May of '09.
We already have our retirement home (see sig) and we already have our first years travel figured out. After that we plan of hosting in 3 locations a year.
DW and I have it planned out..when we hit the magic #, we're done. The magic # has a range ($x,xxx,xxx to $y,yyy,yyy): once we hit the low end, the trigger point is determined by a daily calculation of income vs. enjoyment: when we don't enjoy the job anymore, it will be time to play the old Johnny Paychek song.
CRL
Temporarily (5 years & counting)displaced Alaskan
My Other RV is a 1946 PA-12
I am going to work for the rest of my life, but I am only going to do what I want to do, where I want to do it, for those I want to work for. It is such a simple way to insure a feeling of personal achievement and satisfaction that I wish I had thought of it sooner.
I retired (actually, I quit) when I was 53, because I was financially able to and was just fed up with the office politics. I feared that I would get bored, though. In fact, I don't know how I ever had the time to work. I've been happily busy ever since, but I'm doing what I want to do, not what someone else wants me to do.
As the old saying goes, I've never met anyone that said on their deathbed, "I wish I'd spent more time in the office."
Online
Offline
years & counting)displaced Alaskan
