Recently a poster from another forum said that we should all just enjoy our retirement. Which brought to mind, just how many of 50+'rs are "retired" - whatever that means.

So, are you?

"just how many of 50+'rs are "retired" - whatever that means."

It means just that "whatever".

Retired. Is that like being tired twice?
Joe

Do our friends on the other side of the pond spell it "retyred?"

Retired almost 5 years ago, but doesn't feel that way. I now spend about 20+hours per week serving on two county boards, one elected, one appointed; 3 county committees, along with two or three civic organizations. Never had time for all this before, so I figured now is the time to pay back all those folks who did it while I was working.

Oh, yes, we also gave up our maid service, so I'm the "chief cook, maid, and errand boy" around here. Never knew how good I had it just holding down a job and working 40 or more hours per week.

Got laid off from my job after 25 years of service when the company went bankrupt. Now self-employed. Sometimes zero hours per week, sometimes, eighty! Enjoying the variation and will NEVER go back to a 40-hour-per-week, working-for-someone-else job. The variety of my life gives me plenty of time to go ride!

No! We leave it to Americans to screw up our language!

8 years retired and do a little Board work for our HOA, but otherwise do as we please: cycling, tandemming, fixie, charity rides (did century last weekend for American Lung Assoc. Raised over $3500 so far. Done many MS 150s and raised over $40,000) power boating, travel, visiting friends, kids, grandkids, lazing around. It's great! Never for one second wanted to go back to work.

I think there's an option missing in the survey that's a very real part of many people's lives or future: I will never be able to retire because I've put my kids through college and I am paying for my own parents' in-home care.

Between jobs. Do not have the savings to retire. Will probably have to find some kind of paying work 'til I croak. "Semi-retired" mining engineer. Since 9/11 people have been nervous about hiring someone who knows as much about explosives as I do . Like how to build a bomb that would pass the metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs. Just kidding Homeland Security.

Yep, similar situation here. My divorce split the assests -- she got the house, I got (most of) the retirement fund. Then the recession of 2000 and the dot.com implosiong (most of my clients were in that sector) happened, and my business collapsed. There went the retirement fund, over the next couple of years, just trying to stay afloat. Still paying off back taxes and such, six years later.

I'll have to work until I am put out to pasture in the Shady Rest Retirement Home, and although I'd rather have an option to retire, I don't mind working. What I do mind is finding it tougher and tougher to find clients, because of ageism.

But, these are the cards I've been dealt, and it's up to me how to play my hand.

There's always the possibility of a lottery win, a rich and lonesome widow who doesn't mind several bikes in the living room, or one of my kids striking it rich and thanking the old man with a windfall.

I guess it's good I like cycling, and not something REALLY expensive!

I'm kind of in the same mode, I work about 1,400 hrs. per year. I'll probably continue to do so for as long as I'm able.

We don't but either way it is spelt - I don't like the sound of it. One of them costs money and the other means I won't have enough.

Pensions are one of the talking points over here, and a pension you worked for all your life is now suddenly worth not a great deal. I worked for 25 years for one company with enough time to really build up the fund for the last 15 years of working for them. Then our depot got sold off and 25 year fund in limbo and worth nothing and only 15 years to build again meant not enough for retirement. Still the new rules in the UK mean that you are not compulsary retired at 65 so may be able to add a further 15 years to it- Providing I don't have to retyre the tandem again.

I left my full time job 5 years ago and have been living off of savings and a small income from self-employment.

I retired almost a year ago. I'm so busy being retired that I don't have enough time to work.

Seriously, I may go back to work someday if I get bored or need money, but right now, I cycle, golf, and putter (whatever that means).

-Dennis

The company I worked for, for 20 years gave me a wonderful gift, they laid me off last year. I had planned to retire six months later but as my luck would have it , I got a very very long paid vacation.
In several months, I will begin my travels around world, accompanied by Swifty, my Swift 18 speed folder which I hope to take possession of, in about a week.
I probably would slit my wrists before I would go back to work.

Perhaps someone on this forum could use your services. What do you do?

Financially it's probably just barely possible (JUST barely, and maybe not even that), but I'm only 61, enjoy my job at least 90 percent of the time and have a daughter still in college, so I'm a few years away. If I won the lottery or something I might consider it, because I have enough things I'd like to do to fill the time I probably have left. For now, though, I'm happy going in every day.

- retired at 41, then retired again at 50 (linux has been good to me!)...

- now i considered myself retired for the day if i've done at least 40 miles w/my riding buddy...

p.s. it helps to have a younger wife in the workplace who likes to buy you nice bike-related things...

:-)

I retired at age 58 and never looked back, I was a perfect example of the Peter principle and knew it, hated to go to work and jumped at the opportunity to take an early retirement. I volunteer one morning a week for our sheriffs department.

I'm a retiree-in-training. That's what I tell people when they ask about my Engineering job.

Could you tell us a bit more? How is this expressed? How do they know your age?

Anyone else experiencing "ageism?"

Can't retire until my husband says our finances say we can. I have told him once he retires, so am I. I can't complain though because I actually work out of my house and only have to go into the office twice a week for an hour or so, just to show my face. I get to ride my bike on my lunch hour too. My work load has gotten easier as years go by (being in the business almost 30 years) so I'm very fortunate there. If it happens that I have to work another 10 years so be it.

Just Tired

Well, I wasn't going to get into this, because I didn't really think this forum was the place to discuss business, but for anyone who's reallyh interested, my professional website (that is, the website I use professionally -- it's actually quite simple as websites go) is listed in my profile. (I think. I'll go check after posting this!)

But in short, I do leadership development, organization development, management coaching, training, and all that sort of thing.

The clients get younger all the time, because, oddly enough, I get older every so often. So there's occasionally a question (from the hiring contact) about "fit." OTOH, once in a while my age actually works for me because as a society, we associate wisdom with gray hair (at least, I'd like to think so!).

But finally, there are younger whipper-snappers out there in my field, and they can charge less, and sometimes the client bases his/her decision on price, rather than on value.

All this means i just have to write another book, and then another, and morph into a speaker/author rather than a roll-up-his-sleeves consultant.

What kind of handlebars accommodate a laptop computer, so I can write and ride at the same time?

I retired in 1994 from what was originally a public utility (Ohio Bell). So many changes occured after divestiture when we became Ameritech in '82 or '83, that I set my sights on getting my "30 and out" full retirement. So in '94 I hit the door with almost half my mind still intact.


After that I worked four years at a living history museum as a historic interpreter. We were living in the year 1848...man that was one hell of a change from the high tech environment I'd left behind. The pay wasn't much but I didn't need a lot, and being somewhat of a history buff and voracious reader, I prospered.

Since leaving the museum gig behind in '99 I've been fully retired.