Retirement life

[BG2015]

So I retired in the summer from my teaching job after 29 years. I'm nearly 57 so I've retired, early but my love for the job just wasn't there anymore and after recovering from a cancer diagnosis in 2021 I just decided life was too short.

Im waiting to start my very flexible part time freelance job delivering speed awareness courses which I plan on doing for about 12 hours a week.

But I am loving having a slower pace each day. I can't say I've been bored at all.

I've enjoyed swimming three times a week, walking with a local Nordic walking group, meeting a couple of friends for coffee, reading, cooking new things from scratch for our evening meal ( I live with my DP, adult son and his gf), watching TV and just pleasing myself.

Anyone else newly retired? How are you finding it?

My DH and I have a mortgage free house. Small but suits us. Between us we will have a private combined income of 45k before state pension in four years time that should add another 15k so taking us to 60k. We have 300k savings. Would you say this is enough to retire early on? The temptation is to keep going and going to get more.

@namechangedohmy only you know the answer to that. I only earnt £45k as a fulltime teacher and I'm on considerably less than that taking my pension. I have no mortgage and downsized last year.
It depends on how you live, what you spend your money on. Do you have a lavish lifestyle.
I lived on my pension for a year before I retired so I knew I would be ok.

@BG2015 I totally understand you giving up your freelance role. I retired from teaching over 15 years ago. Shortly afterwards I thought I would volunteer for a reading charity going into schools, helping children progress with reading. The children were lovely. The charity drove me round the bend! The training and time commitments required were very demanding. Much the same as a paid part time role. There was no flexibility from their side and I got increasingly resentful so I gave it up. I think I just decided I didn’t want to be told what to do by anyone anymore😂. I mostly just bumble around nowadays! We have moved house though and I have been very busy overseeing the renovations needed this year.

I took early retirement at 59 from my job as a research scientist. I loved my job but I worked in a university and I was utterly sick of the politics, the commercial environment and, quite frankly, a lot of the entitled students and annoying academic staff.

I got my pension from work so money is fine and I'm low maintenance! I volunteer in a hospital and do lots of walking, meeting friends and I'm lucky to be able to have a few holidays.
DH retired about a year after me and it's lovely to be together all day.

Absolutely @Foundress I have a friend who is a retired but is now a local councillor and on several committees. She now says she doesn’t have the bandwidth for this or that but when she overcommits she expects her friends to rally around to take or pick up stuck from x and y. We are not interested in taking on board her commitments. An ex-teacher colleague told me to volunteer for nothing on a regular basis in the first year, even with school.

I had done some paid exam invigilation this year but now the school expects the invigilators to do training in their own time ie unpaid! Which for a minimum wage ad-hoc job makes even more of a nonsense.

@BG2015 good for you. Time to focus on what you want to do. It’s taken me a year to relax into retirement. I did some tutoring but found agencies and on-line suppliers driving down the prices - parents and agencies are increasingly unwilling to more than £40 per hour especially given the huge amount of free online resources available at both GCSE and A level. I don’t really need the money so I decided to have a go at some local arts and crafts courses instead.

Thank you for the comments. Like you and your previous post, I just want less stress. It’s difficult to walk away from secure employment but I do wonder ‘what’s the point if I’m so stressed out’.

@namechangedohmy it is hard to walk away from paid employment. I get that. I have friends who are either scared to retire or cant retire just yet because of divorce or bad financial decisions I was in the former category and it was a big decision for me but an episode of high blood pressure brought me to my senses. But in the past year my blood pressure is down and I am a lot fitter. Our home life is a lot more chilled and calmer. I don’t have a lavish lifestyle and I don’t spend lots frivolously. I meet friends a couple of times a week for coffee and walks. Our adult dc reappear every 6 weeks or so for a Sunday lunch and even they comment upon the change in our home environment.

Like you we will get our state pension in four years time. My DH is going to retire next year.

I was just 57 when I retired, now almost 64. Best job I've ever had. Allows you to do what you want when you want to. No point waiting. I did plan this from my early 20s.

I was just 57 when I retired, now almost 64. Best job I've ever had. Allows you to do what you want when you want to. No point waiting. I did plan this from my early 20s.

I'm trying to move into retirement slowly - partly because I've been so focussed on work all my life that I found myself panicking at the thought of stopping entirely, and partly because I don't have quite enough money in my pension fund to stop work entirely at my current age of 64 and still do all the things I enjoy. So, the plan is now to work less and take some pension between now and 67 when I will stop entirely. I'm self-employed in the arts (admin side, not creative) and usually pick up short-term contracts reasonably easily. In theory, the one I've just taken on will mean I work about 2 days a week, which gives me plenty of time to build up a life around it. My big worry is that, as someone who lives by myself and is a natural introvert with limited social skills, I need to find a way of developing a retirement life with more social interaction in it.

My big worry is that, as someone who lives by myself and is a natural introvert with limited social skills, I need to find a way of developing a retirement life with more social interaction in it

I've got DH but otherwise am similar to you @Nothungrycat. I think this board paints a rather rosy picture of early retirement. Im 62 and work 30 hours per week. All the things I want to do, I fit into evenings, weekend and annual leave. A life of endless leisure fills me with dread - and I suspect lots of other people feel the same!

Thanks for starting this thread. And for all the contributions. It’s something I think about a lot so it’s good to hear from ‘the other side’!

I lived to work for much of my life but took to retirement (slightly early - 58) like the proverbial duck to water. I was careful not to get drawn into any committing unpaid work; I'm quite militant about valuing my time (though I don't mind doing sporadic volunteering and casual favours). DH is a few years younger than me and continued to work for a while, but I got fed up being tied down by his annual leave allocation (we're not a separate-holidays sort of couple) and he retired 18 months after me. Then he developed a health issue that's put the brakes on our travel plans for now.

Over time I've picked up some new hobbies with a social element, and my garden has never looked better. Being retired also meant that I could be there for my parents when needed. But what I appreciate most is being at liberty to do nothing.

I think everyone is very different with regards to how they are planning/spending their retirement. My health was a major deciding factor for me- having cancer changed my perspective on things and a lot of trivial stuff in the workplace just felt even more pointless.

29 years in education and 5 years previously in social services just made me feel that I'd done my bit and now it's time for me.

I don't know how my retirement is going to pan out long term, I may get a job, I may decide to do nothing but read, walk and catch up with friends - but all of those things will be MY choice and not somebody else telling me what to do.

This is really interesting reading as I try to make the decision to retire. Agonising!

I'm in a place where I don't want to be at work and don't need to work, but the dread of retirement is real.
Reading above, I don't want to take classes, visit stately homes or spend more time with my DM (strained relationship, to the point where I don't want her to know I'm not working (I know, I know).

I don't want to be the retired couple I see in the garden centre or the local volunteer.

We have had an awful three years and given the significant bereavements I know I should be living for the day, excited to have a life.

After 38 years in education (latterly for an LA) I haven't had the time or energy to have hobbies or develop loads friendships. I have lost me. The impact of the last three years means I haven't planned ahead either.

It makes me scared and sad to be at the end of a rewarding career.

(sorry, that feels really self indulgent)

@Asyousay Sit down and do the figures regarding income, projected income, end expenditure and then expenditure for the sort of life you want.

I do a mixture of volunteering and travelling around in our Motorhome. We have only had it for 5 months but have been away for almost 7 weeks, would have been longer but MIL needed care as she had an operation.

I think it’s fine not to tell your Mother you have more time but I’m very practical. You have to decide if you need structured time. I did do a year of U3a while I awaited younger DH to retire. I had a class or volunteering every day of the working week as I wanted the structure. I have made one very good friend through volunteering and certainly am friendly with others. In the last year there have been 3 lots of social events via my volunteering.

I totally understand what you are saying @Asyousay but at the moment you don’t have any time to develop friendships or find hobbies. As I said in a previous post, it was as though I had forgotten just how to breath and was constantly holding in my breath. I know that sounds ridiculous but that’s how it felt to me. My school had Ofsted last December and it was the most gruelling Ofsted we had ever been through. The inspector was just awful. We kept our Good but it had staff rocking in the corner. That cemented it for me.

Give yourself some time to find out what, if anything, you want to do. It sounds like you are worried about becoming invisible after such a rewarding career. My DH was the same, he was a senior police officer who retired after 30 years. He had a few months just adjusting and felt totally lost. He ended up going back to work in a completely different career running an SEN school for 5 years. Then one morning he woke up and knew he was done. He then did some child advocacy and now he works 10 hours a week transporting SEN kids to school and that suits him. He had all these choices, you can try things and you get to decide how much or how little you want to do.

You did make me smile though when you mentioned about the garden centres. I was telling my DH yesterday that I have just realised I have 3 loyalty cards for all our local garden centre cafes 😂. It did make me sit up and think!

I retired in 2022 age 58. It was too difficult after Covid in the health sector I was in.
Since then there have been several family bereavements, an ongoing building project, and filling the time has not been a problem.I was also involved with a women’s rights group. I would never go back to work doing what I did.
I go out for walks during the week and chat to people I meet.
My husband still works. I am not sure I could cope with him being about the house.

@Asyousay it’s not about visiting stately homes or garden centres it’s about socialising and building friendships. You need time and space to find and develop interest and sometimes taking classes is a way of doing that. A friend of mine (new one that I met at art class in the summer) took pottery classes when she retired 5 years ago and now has a pottery studio in her garden and holds exhibitions.

People are afraid of change and that is what retirement is. People get stuck in a rut after years of work and maybe frightened to let go of work status. I know that feeling going from deputy headteacher to just me. I now see retirement as an opportunity to try things out, learn new skills, travel to places on your bucket list before you cant etc And I am not afraid to go to a garden centre to meet friends for a coffee and I love gardening so much I am taking an RHS course 💪🏻

If your circumstances allow it, I strongly recommend having a FFYAR fund: a sum of money ring fenced for fun in your first year after retirement. I've had a splendid summer attending arts festivals in various parts of the UK.

The weeks are whizzing by and I'm loving being semi-retired.

I finally decided the online speed awareness course job wasn't for me, so this week I've done two days supply in two local schools teaching reception, which was absolutely brilliant. Two very different schools but amazing staff and kids. And the best part was walking out of the door at 3.15pm with nothing to prep, no parents to talk to or staff meetings to go to. By 3.45pm I was at home sat on the sofa with a brew. Very different from my fulltime teaching days when I wouldn't get home until after 5.30pm and then carried on working sometimes until after 7pm - much to my DP despair.

I've been swimming this week and caught up on housework and washing so I can spend time with my DP over the weekend. Tomorrow I meet a very dear friend for lunch. I haven't seen her since March so there will be lots of chat and laughter.

We are planning a walk at some point on Saturday and my parents are coming over for lunch on Sunday which will be lovely as I haven't seen them for a week.

Life is busy but fulfilling.

@BG2015
So pleased to hear you enjoyed your supply work and well done you for deciding the speed awareness course wasn’t for you. I think that’s definitely a huge part of settling into retirement of semi retirement, realising we are now back in control of our lives which we haven’t been for, in my case, 47 years having started working full time at 17. I nearly applied for a job last week transporting SEN children to school but I started to stress about it as I would have been driving around 55 miles each way, picking up four teenagers. I was worried about making sure I would get them to school on time, going through the middle of a very busy town to pick up one and then out the other side to pick up all the others. Then do it all again in the afternoon. I’m a confident driver but I also know how upset the kids can get if their routine is disrupted. I think DH could see I was worrying (he currently does this for 2 days a week) and he said if it’s not for you that’s ok you know! I realised he was right and decided not to do it and to wait until I find something more suited to me.

Im starting my “training” at the cat rescue centre tomorrow morning which I hope I am going to love. When I went to visit I could see how much hard work it is also going to be but I love cats so I’m hoping it’s also going to be fun too.

@Icequeen01your volunteering sounds great. I met up with the ReadEasy coordinators on Monday too, to find out how to support adults that can't read. It's a commitment of 2 half hours a week or one hour if easier to fit in. I too have to undertake some trading but as a teacher whose predominantly taught phonics I don't think it will be hard.

I then get paired with someone and we meet at a library or other public place and we go through the materials.

"People are afraid of change, and that is what retirement is" Thank you, @TheMJFairy - I think I may pin that above my desk!

I'm now taking baby steps into new activities into my new part-retirement life. Today I went to the pub for a meeting of a women's group that I've been loosely a member of for a few months - and I'm off to have a meal with a section of that group next week. Later this week I'm going to make myself go on a walk organised by the walking group that I joined on Facebook over a year ago.

Next, I'm going to identify one volunteering opportunity that will get me out of the house, and pursue it...

I also retired from school this Summer and am totally enjoying the peace and quiet.
I have been able to resurrect hobbies that I haven’t had time to do because the job became all consuming.
I thought I might miss the busy hustle and bustle but I have honestly not given it a second thought.
The gift of time to do what you want when you want is priceless.