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Last week I wrote a post about the state of our finances three years into retirement. But in that post, I never pointed out what I liked and didn’t like about retirement. Today’s post aims to correct that dreadful oversight. Here we go.
Three Things I Like About Retirement
No Shortage of Things to Do
The main reason I decided to blog was that I wanted something to do in retirement. My biggest fear was endless days filled with soul-crushing boredom.
Fortunately, those fears turned out to be greatly exaggerated. Sure, finding land and building Groovy Ranch occupied the bulk of my energies during the first year and a half of my retirement. But even after Groovy Ranch went operational, there’s been no shortage of things to do. Here, for example, are just some of the more important things currently occupying my energies:
- Blogging
- Talking Trash
- A couple of Groovy books in the hopper
- Reading (my reading list—thanks to Groovy sister-in-law—is continually being reloaded with great reads)
- Travel (both planning and enjoying)
- Furnishing and decorating Groovy Ranch
- Building my workshop in the garage
- Welding (some fantastic yard art should be popping up on Groovy Ranch within the next six months)
The Lack of Scheduled Activities
Once I retired, scheduled activities went—for the most part—bye-bye (see the Quick Aside below). And I can’t overstate how liberating that has been. From the ages of 6 to 55, I invariably had to be somewhere for several hours. If it wasn’t school, it was work. And on many a day, it was both school and work.
But now, nothing I want to do has to be abandoned because I have to be somewhere at a particular time. If it’s raining in the morning, for instance, I don’t have to forego my daily constitutional because someone own’s a piece of my time later in the day. I can shift my walk to the afternoon if the rain subsides. And that kind of flexibility does wonders for one’s sangfroid and happiness.
Quick Aside: I’m currently taking a welding course that meets Tuesday and Wednesday from 6 to 9:30 pm. And even though I enjoy the classes immensely, I still find having 7 of my 168 weekly hours being controlled by my community college for four months somewhat annoying. A man of my esteem should never have to wolf down his dinner at 5 pm so he can get to class on time, goddamit!
Shopping During the Week Durning Normal Business Hours
Shopping Monday through Friday between the hours of 9 and 5 is glorious. The stores are delightfully free of shoppers—and long checkout lines—because most of my fellow North Carolinians are stuck at their miserable, uninspiring jobs. Suckers!
From the day I retired, I summoned my inner Scarlett O’Hara and vowed:
“As God is my witness, I’ll never shop on the weekends again.”
And I can honestly say I’ve had no regrets abiding by that vow.
Three Things I Don’t Like About Retirement
Two Key Aspects of Travel
I have a big quandary when it comes to travel. I love exploring and visiting far-off places, but I loathe flying and I loathe sleeping in beds that have been slept in by scores of strangers.
It wasn’t always this way. When I was a kid, I loved flying and I loved staying in hotels. I couldn’t get enough of turbulence and vending machines.
Now, however, turbulence turns me into a girly-man and there are rarely any vending machines around to take my mind off the gross things that occurred in my hotel bed prior to my visit.
Quick Aside: This past August, I spent two nights at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, and I shudder to think what a UV flashlight would have unearthed in our beds!
An Inability to Spend More
Just prior to retiring, Mrs. Groovy and I proposed a retirement budget—not including emergencies and capital purchases—of $4,000 per month. That works out to an annual budget of $48,000.
Now, forty-eight thousand bucks isn’t a lot in San Francisco. But it’s a lot in Louisburg, North Carolina—especially when you own your house outright, don’t pay for water and garbage pickup, and have a combined property tax and electric bill that works out to less than $250 per month.
So have Mrs. Groovy and I taken advantage of our good fortune? Yes and no. We’re doing everything we want to do. But our annual spending has averaged only $38,500 per year. This means that we have left nearly $10,000 on the spending table for each year of our retirement. Not good. We could be having an even bigger zippity-f*cking-doo-dah retirement!
Old habits die hard, unfortunately. We know we can safely spend more, but after being kick-ass savers for ten-plus years, we can’t bring ourselves to do so.
Family and Friends Are Still Working
Mrs. Groovy and I are truly blessed with wonderful family and friends. And one of the bigger attractions of retirement for us was having more time to spend with these wonderful people. But here’s the rub. We have all the time in the world to spend with family and friends, but the vast majority of our family and friends have no time to spend with us. They’re still working!
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Does our retirement experience to date leave you even more excited about FI and early retirement? Or does our experience leave you crestfallen? “Really? I hope my retirement isn’t as lame as the Groovies!” Well, whether this post has left your FI senses tingling or not, let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.
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